英語故事:你知道時間的故事嗎?
“Do you know the time?”
“你知道時間嗎？”
Time is a very complex thing. We’re surrounded by it, yet all too often we feel like we don’t have enough of it.
時間是個非常複雜的東西，它無處不在，又常常讓我們感覺不夠用。
Sometimes, we take it for granted. At other times, we wish we had more.
有時候，我們沒把時間當回事兒，但另外一些時候，我們又希望時間能再多一點兒。
When we’re busy or having fun, time seems to pass quickly. When we’re bored, or moving slowly — for example, driving at constant speed across a monotonous landscape — it seems to pass at glacial speed.
繁忙或開心的時候，時間總是過得很快。無聊或移動緩慢的時候，比如開車勻速駛過一片單調乏味的景緻時，時間似乎又像冰川挪動速度一樣慢。
The average tempo of daily life and work has been dramatically sped up by advances in IT, communications, transportation, and productivity. Apart from objective changes in the pace of life, our perspectives change as we grow older.
IT、通訊、交通和生產力的發展大大提高了日常生活和工作的一般節奏。除了生活節拍的客觀變化以外，我們的視角也隨着年齡的增長而發生了改變。
Young people never say: “Wow. This year went by so quickly.” Older people say this kind of thing frequently.
年輕人從來不會說：“哇，今年過得好快！”只有上了歲數的人才常把這種話掛在嘴邊。
Our individual perceptions about the passage of time are influenced by a variety of internal and external factors. As a result, our feelings about the passage of time vary considerably, despite the fact that time’s passage on a clock is a very consistent, measurable phenomenon.
我們對時間流逝的認知受到很多內部和外部因素的影響，因此，時間的推移儘管在鐘錶上是一件非常統一而且可以衡量的事情，但它帶給我們的感受卻大相徑庭。
Various types of instruments to accurately measure the passage of time were invented in ancient China, Greece, and other civilizations thousands of years ago.
早在數千年前，古代中國、希臘和其它很多古代文明就發明了各種各樣的精確計時儀器。
There is no ongoing scientific debate about the fact that one day in solar time is comprised of 24 hours, or that one year is 365 days in length. On the other hand, for most of us, our individual perceptions about time are a curious mix of science-based knowledge and subjective experience.
現在，對於太陽時的一天包括24個小時、一年有365天這樣的事實已經不再存在科學上的爭論。但另一方面，對大多數人來說，個人對時間的感知卻是科學知識和主觀經驗的奇妙結合。
The last time I said that the past year had gone by too quickly, for example, I did not conclude that the calendar, or the clocks, must be inaccurate as a result.
例如，我上次說去年過得真快的時候，並沒有將它歸結爲日曆或鐘錶的不準確。
It is a huge blessing that among the things that people around the world still disagree about (which are many), the accuracy of standard clocks and calendars is not one of them. Otherwise, we’d be in even bigger trouble than we are now.
非常幸運的是，在全世界人們仍在爭論不休的（很多）事情中，並不包括關於標準時鍾和日曆準確性的討論。否則我們的麻煩會比現在更大。
For one thing, the list of common excuses for missed deadlines would be exponentially expanded. This would be a headache for leaders in government, managers in business, sports coaches, editors, teachers and so on.
如果那樣的話，經常用來解釋錯過最後期限的藉口將會呈幾何級增長，讓政府領導、企業經理、運動教練、編輯和教師叫苦不迭。
Example:
例如：
“Mr. Minister, the new bridge project will be completed right on time according to our calendar. Unfortunately it will be 10 months behind schedule on that calendar your people have been using. These damn regional calendars! So many choices available in the market….”
“部長先生，新橋會按我們的日曆準時完工。但遺憾的是，如果按您部下使用的日曆，就是延期10個月完工。這些該死的地方日曆！市場上的產品也太多了……”
Although humankind has been able to accurately measure the passage of solar time for many centuries, international agreement on a framework to coordinate and standardize time zones around the globe is a relatively recent development, dating from the late 19th century.
儘管人類從很多世紀前就能準確地度量日曆時的推移，但全世界爲協調和規範時區的框架而達成國際一致還是最近的事，大約就在19世紀晚期。
The International Meridien Conference of 1884 established Greenwich Mean Time, referring to the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, near London. Greenwich thus became established as the location of the prime meridian of longitude, and the base line for calculating time zones around the world.
1884年，國際子午線大會確立了格林威治標準時間（GMT），即倫敦附近的格林威治皇家氣象臺（the Royal Observatory in Greenwich）的平均太陽時間。由此格林威治不僅作爲起初子午線的所在地，也成爲全球計算時區的基準線。
This was quite a victory for England, which ultimately derived from the remarkable ingenuity of a 18th century British watchmaker with no formal education, John Harrison, who solved the centuries-long scientific mystery of how to establish accurate time-keeping on seafaring vessels, thus enabling accurate calculation of longitude.
這是英國的巨大勝利，而它的最終締造者是一位沒有受過任何正規教育的18世紀英國鐘錶匠——約翰•哈里遜。他解決了困擾人類幾個世紀之久的海上計時難題，使經度的準確計算成爲了可能。
Without a reliable measure of longitude, seafaring explorers, naval and merchant vessel captains had for centuries never been sure of their exact location while on the high seas. Thousands of lives and many vessels were lost as a result, until Harrison’s breakthrough invention of the marine chronometer.
沒有可靠的經度測量，航海探險家、海軍和商船船長在幾個世紀內都無法確定自己在遠海的準確位置，無數生命和船隻因此魂斷汪洋，直到哈里遜突破性地發明了航海天文鐘。
After the 1884 Convention, Greenwich officially became the place where every day, year and century began. The main international system of nomenclature for time zones around the world was thus referenced to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). A more recent invention is Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), which for all practical purposes refers to the same time zones by a different name.
1884年大會以後，格林威治正式成爲每一天、每一年及每一世紀開始的地方。國際上主要時區系統的命名也都與格林威治時間有關。最新發明的協調世界時（UTC）從實用出發，將相同的時區進行了重新命名。
The basic framework of international time zones is that there is about one hour difference in solar time for every 15 degrees of longitude. In the case of the continental U.S., for example, the approximate distance between the West and East coasts is 2,600 miles, equivalent to roughly 60 degrees of longitude. Thus, the continental U.S. (not counting Alaska and Hawaii) has four time zones.
國際時區的基本框架是經度每隔15度，太陽時就相差一小時。例如在美國大陸，東西海岸之間的距離約爲2,600英里，相當於橫跨60度經度，因此美國大陸（不含阿拉斯加和夏威夷）共分爲四個時區。
The four continental US time zones, like most time zones around the world, are known by one set of names for domestic purposes, and in reference to GMT for international purposes. For example, New Yorkers know their time zone as Eastern Standard Time (EST), and only a regular international traveler would recognize it as GMT-5. Likewise, the U.S. West coast time zone is known to most Americans as Pacific Standard Time (PST) zone rather than GMT-8.
和世界許多時區一樣，美國的四個時區在國內使用一套名稱，但在國際上則參照格林威治標準時間。例如，紐約人都知道他們地處東部標準時區（EST），但只有經常跨國旅行的人才知道紐約位於格林威治標準時間西五區。同樣，大多數美國人都知道美國西海岸位於太平洋標準時區（PST），卻不知道它也叫做格林威治標準時間西八區。
For national and regional governments, solar time is just one consideration, and not always the most important one. As a result, a review of global time zones reveals examples where governments have chose variations on solar time to define their domestic time zones.
對國家和地區政府而言，太陽時只是備選方案之一，但並不見得總是最重要的。結果，檢視一下全球的時區，就會發現，很多政府選擇用不同的太陽時來規定國內時區。
China and India are cases in point, where there is one time zone from East to West. In China, the decision in 1949 to establish a single national time zone on Beijing time replaced the previous system of five time zones which had been established in 1912.
中國和印度就是如此，兩國從東到西都只有一個時區。1949年，中國設定北京時間爲全國統一時區，取代了1912年劃定的5個不同時區。
Greater China falls within the GMT+8 time zone, which is the most populous and geographically expansive time zone on the planet, comprising states, regions and countries from Western Australia in the Southern Hemisphere to North Korea, Mongolia and parts of Russia in the Northern Hemisphere, including large parts of Southeast Asia as well.
大中華區位於格林威治標準時間東8時區內，東8時區是這個星球上人口最稠密、地域最廣袤的時區，包括南半球的西澳大利亞及北半球的朝鮮、蒙古和俄羅斯部分地區在內，還有東南亞大部。
I have been a resident of the GMT+8 time zone for nearly 40 years. Apart from being a huge and populous time zone, it has been the earth’s fastest developing region for 30 years, and is very much the focus of global interest and attention.
我在東8時區居住了將近四十年。除了幅員遼闊、人口衆多之外，東8時區還是過去30年間增長最快的地區，也是全球關注的焦點。
A hot topic in China these few years has been going global, and what individuals and organizations need to do to be successful at it. The answer has many facets to it, but undoubtedly begins with revisiting how we think about things. We’ll get nowhere by always thinking from a “local” perspective.
近年來，“走出去”以及個人和組織爲成功實現這一目標應採取哪些行動——在中國成爲熱議的話題。答案涉及很多層面，但無疑都會從反思自己的思維模式開始。如果總是從“本地”視角出發，肯定哪兒也去不了。
An unfortunate paradox of globalization is that mutual understanding has not kept pace with global shrinkage. International communications and transportation networks are light years ahead of what they were 30 years ago, and yet we still routinely, and sometimes profoundly, misunderstand each other.
不幸的是，全球化的矛盾之一就是世界雖然正在縮小，但相互之間的理解卻沒有相應地跟上。當今國際通訊及交通的發展已經拋開30年前若干光年的距離，但我們仍會經常性地、有時甚至是深深的誤會彼此。
