MIT 6.00.1x 计算机科学和Python编程导论 Set 3

Radiation Exposure

感谢 glhezjnucn 同学贡献的翻译!
“Radioactive decay” is the process by which an unstable atom loses energy and emits ionizing particles - what is commonly refered to as radiation. Exposure to radiation can be dangerous and is very important to measure to ensure that one is not exposed to too terribly much of it.辐射衰变是不稳定原子失去能量并释放电离子的过程-这通常被称为辐射。接触辐射（暴露于辐射）可能是危险的，同时检测并确保人们不暴露于过量辐射（的环境）中变得重要。
The radioactivity of a material decreases over time, as the material decays. A radioactive decay curve describes this decay. The x-axis measures time, and the y-axis measures the amount of activity produced by the radioactive sample. ‘Activity’ is defined as the rate at which the nuclei within the sample undergo transititions - put simply, this measures how much radiation is emitted at any one point in time. The measurement of activity is called the Becquerel (Bq). Here is a sample radioactive decay curve:物质的辐射活性随着时间的流逝而减少，因为辐射物质在衰减。辐射衰减曲线用于描述这样的衰减过程。x轴表示时间，y轴表示辐射物质样品产生的辐射活性量。辐射的活性量定义为处于物质迁变的核的比率，它给出某一时刻所释放的辐射量。活性的度量称为Bq(理解为度量的单位即量纲)。如下是一个辐射衰减曲线的样例：

Now here’s the problem we’d like to solve. Let’s say Sarina has moved into a new apartment. Unbeknownst to her, there is a sample of Cobalt-60 inside one of the walls of the apartment. Initially that sample had 10 MBq of activity, but she moves in after the sample has been there for 5 years. She lives in the apartment for 6 years, then leaves. How much radiation was she exposed to?
现在我们需要解决的问题是，假若Sarina搬进了新的房子，并不为她所知的是，房子的墙里有一个放射性钴-60样品。初始时，该样品具有10MBq(百万Bq)的辐射活性，但她是那个放射性物质在那里5年后才住进去的，她在那里住了6年，然后离开了。现在请问她接触了多少辐射？
We can actually figure this out using the radioactive decay curve from above. What we want to know is her total radiation exposure from year 5 to year 11.
我们当然可以从上图的辐射曲线中计算出来。我们所需要知道的是从第5年到第11年她所接触的辐射总量。

Total radiation exposure corresponds to the area between the two green lines at time = 5 and time = 11, and under the blue radioactive decay curve. This should make intuitive sense - if the x axis measures time, and the y axis measures activity, then the area under the curve measures (time * activity) = MBq*years, or, approximately the total number of MBq Sarina was exposed to in her time in the radioactive apartment (technically, this result is the combination of gamma rays and beta particles she was exposed to, but this gets a bit complicated, so we’ll ignore it. Sorry, physicists!).
辐射总量对应的是时间从5到11所对应的两条绿色线所对应区域的面积。这可以利用直觉-如果x轴是时间，y轴是活性度量，那么曲线下的面积(时间辐射活性)=MBq年，或者，近似的，就是Sarina在那段时间所接触的辐射量(技术地说，是由于伽玛射线与贝塔粒子，不过这太复杂了，因此我们忽略，抱歉,物理学家们！)

So far, so good. But, how do we calculate this? Unlike a simple shape - say a square, or a circle - we have no easy way to tell what the area under this curve is.
到此一切都不错。但是我们怎么来计算呢？不像简单的形状-如正方形，圆-我们没有简单的方法获得曲线下区域的面积。
However, we have learned a technique that can help us here - approximation. Let’s use an approximation algorithm to estimate the area under this curve! We’ll do so by first splitting up the area into equally-sized rectangles (in this case, six of them, one rectangle per year):
不过，我们学过一种技术可以帮助我们-近似。我们用近似的方法来估计曲线下区域的面积！我们将这么来做，先将区域切成等尺寸（意指其中一边等长）的长方形，如下情形，是6个，每年一个长方形。

Once we’ve done that, we can figure out the area of each rectangle pretty easily. Recall that the area of a rectangle is found by multiplying the height of the rectangle by its width. The height of this rectangle:
当我们如此做了之后，我们可以非常简便的计算出每个长方形的面积。回忆一下长方形的面积是宽度乘以高度。而这里（红色的）长方形的高度：

is the value of the curve at 5.0. If the curve is described by a function, f, we can obtain the value of the curve by asking for f(5.0).
是曲线在5.0处的值（函数值）.如果曲线由函数, f, 给出，我们可以用f(5.0)得到函数值.
f(5.0) = 5.181
The width of the rectangle is 1.0. So the area of this single rectangle is 1.0*5.181 = 5.181. To app