Unit 10B - Knowledge as Fuel
Knowledge as Fuel
A.Toffler
The rate at which man has been storing up useful knowledge about himself and the universe has been spiraling upward for 10,000 years. The rate took a sharp upward leap with the invention of writing, but even so it remained painfully slow over centuries of time. The next great leap forward in knowledge-acquisitions did not occur until the invention of movable type in the fifteenth century by Gutenberg and others. Prior to 1500, by the most optimistic estimates, Europe was producing books at a rate of 1,000 titles per year. This means, give or take a bit, that it would take a full century to produce a library of 100,000 titles. By 1950, four and a half centuries later, the rate had accelerated so sharply that Europe was producing 120,000 titles a year. What once took a century now took only ten months. By 1960, a single decade later, the rate had made another significant jump, so that a century's work could be completed in seven and a half months. And, by the mid-sixties, the output of books on a world scale, Europe included, approached the prodigious figure of 1,000 titles per day.
One can hardly argue that every book is a net gain for the advancement of knowledge. Nevertheless, we find that the accelerative curve in book publication does, in fact, crudely parallel the rate at which man discovered new knowledge. For example, prior to Gutenberg only 11 chemical elements were known. Antimony the 12th, was discovered at about the time he was working on his invention. It was fully 200 years since the 11th, arsenic, had been discovered. Had the same rate of discovery continued, we would by now have added only two or three additional elements to the periodic table since Gutenberg. Instead, in the 450 years after his time, some seventy additional elements were discovered. And since 1900 we have been isolating the remaining elements not at a rate of one every two centuries, but of one every three years.
Furthermore, there is reason to believe that the rate is still rising sharply. Today, for example, the number of scientific journals and articles is doubling, like industrial production in the advanced countries, about every fifteen years, and according to biochemist Philip Siekevitz, “what has been learned in the last three decades about the nature of living beings dwarfs in extent of knowledge any comparable period of scientific discovery in the history of mankind.” Today the United States government alone generates 100,000 reporters each year, plus 450,000 articles, books and papers. On a worldwide basis, scientific and technical literature mounts at a rate of some 60,000 000 pages a year.
The computer bust upon the scene around 1950. With its unprecedented power for analysis and dissemination of extremely varied kinds of data in unbelievable quantities and at mind-staggering speeds, it has become a major force behind the latest acceleration in knowledge-acquisition. Combined with other increasingly powerful analytical tools for observing the invisible universe around us, it has raised the rate of knowledge-acquisition to dumb founding speeds.
Francis Bacon told us that “Knowledge… is power.” This can now be translated into contemporary terms. In our social setting, “Knowledge… is change”-and accelerating knowledge-acquisition, fueling the great engine of technology, means accelerating change.
参考译文——知识作燃料
知识作燃料
A·托夫勒
人类积累有关自身以及宇宙的各种有用知识的速度一直呈螺旋形持续上升，这种趋势已保持了1万年。书写的发明使这一速度有了一次急剧的上升，但即使如此，在几个世纪的岁月中，这一速度仍缓慢无比。第二次知识获取的巨大飞跃直到15世纪谷根堡以及其他人发明了活字印刷之后才出现。根据最乐观的统计，1500年以前，欧洲的出书速度是每年1千册。这就意味着，建立一个拥有10万册图书的图书馆大致上需花费整整一个世纪。到了四个半世纪后的1950年，这一速度急剧上升，欧洲每年出书12万册。曾经需花费一个世纪完成的工作现在只用了10个月。到10年后的1960年，这一速度又有了一个巨大飞跃，因而一个世纪的工作在7个半月内即可完成。到了60年代中期，世界范围内的出书量，包括欧洲，达到了每天1千册这一惊人数字。
我们不能说每一册书对知识的进步都是有益无害的。但是我们发现，事实上，图书出版的加速曲线与人类发现新知识的速度的确大致相似。譬如，在谷根堡以前只发现了11个化学元素。第12个元素锑大约是在谷根堡发明活字印刷的同时发现的那是在第11个元素砷被发现之后整整200年。元素的发现如按当初这一速度继续下去，从谷根堡至今，我们也只能给周期表增添两三个新元素。相反，在他之后的450年内，有大约70个元素被发现。而自1900年以来，我们离析剩下的元素的速度已不是每两个世纪才获得一个，而是每三年就得到一个了。
再者，有理由相信这一速率仍在急剧上升。譬如，现今科学刊物和论文的数量，就像发达国家的工业产量一样，每隔15年便翻一番。用生物化学家菲利普·西克维茨的话来说，“在最近30年中，我们对生物属性的了解，就知识广度而言，足以使人类历史上任何可与之相比的科学发现时期相形见绌。”今天，仅美国政府就每年推出10万篇报告，另有45万篇（册）文章、书籍和论文。在全球范围内，科学技术文献达到每年产生6千万页文字这样一种速度。
计算机是在1950年前后一下子问世的。它有着前所未有的能力，能以惊人的速度分析、传播数量多得令人难以置信的形形色色的数据资料，因而成为知识获取方面出现最新加速趋势的主要驱动力。它与其它观察周围无形宇宙世界的日益强有力的分析工具相结合，将知识获取的速度提高到了令人瞠目的程度。
弗朗西斯·培根告诉我们“知识……就是力量。”现在这句话可以用当今的说法来诠释。在我们的社会里，“知识就是变化”—加快知识获取，给科学技术这台巨大的发动机添加燃料，便是意味着加快变化。
Key Words:
scale [skeil]
n. 鳞，刻度，衡量，数值范围
v. 依比例决
invention [in'venʃən]
n. 发明，发明物，虚构，虚构物
prodigious [prə'didʒəs]
adj. 巨大的，惊人的，奇异的
decade ['dekeid]
n. 十年
produce [prə'dju:s]
n. 产品，农作物
vt. 生产，提出，引起，
figure ['figə]
n. 图形，数字，形状; 人物，外形，体型
optimistic [.ɔpti'mistik]
adj. 乐观的，乐观主义的
universe ['ju:nivə:s]
n. 宇宙，万物，世界
prior ['praiə]
adj. 优先的，更重要的，在前的
curve [kə:v]
n. 曲线，弯曲，弧线，弯曲物
parallel ['pærəlel]
adj. 平行的，相同的，类似的，并联的
nevertheless [.nevəðə'les]
adv. 仍然，不过
conj. 然而，不过
invention [in'venʃən]
n. 发明，发明物，虚构，虚构物
prior ['praiə]
adj. 优先的，更重要的，在前的
adv.
additional [ə'diʃənl]
adj. 附加的，另外的
periodic [.piəri'ɔdik]
adj. 周期的，定期的，间歇的，完句的
extremely [iks'tri:mli]
adv. 极其，非常
universe ['ju:nivə:s]
n. 宇宙，万物，世界
setting ['setiŋ]
n. 安装，放置，周围，环境，(为诗等谱写的)乐曲
technical ['teknikəl]
adj. 技术的，工艺的
analytical [.ænə'litikl]
adj. 分析的，解析的，善于解析的
comparable ['kɔmpərəbl]
adj. 可比较的，比得上的
contemporary [kən'tempərəri]
n. 同时代的人
adj. 同时代的，同时的，
accelerating [æk'sæləreitiŋ]
adj. 加速的，促进的，催化的 动词accelerat
invisible [in'vizəbl]
adj. 看不见的，无形的
n. 隐形人(或物
advanced [əd'vɑ:nst]
adj. 高级的，先进的
参考资料：
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