一年曾有400天

原著：Matthew Hahn

選譯：錢潤荷

一年曾有400天

原著：Matthew Hahn

選譯：錢潤荷

The Year Was 400 Days Long

Earth's Rotation

Well,it actually takes 23 hours,56 minutes,and 4 seconds for the Earth to(自轉)once.But in fact the Earth’s rotation is slowing down all the time because of the (萬有引力)of the moon.

Does this mean that the days really do feel longer?No.The moon slows us down by about two(毫秒)a century,so that even one million years ago days were only twenty seconds shorter.

地球自轉

事實是，地球自轉一周需要23小時56分零4秒。但實際上，由于有月球的萬有引力作用，地球的自轉一直在變慢。

這是就意味著一天的時間真的讓人覺得變長了？不。月球每過一個世紀就讓我們變慢了兩毫秒。因此，即使是一百萬年前，每天時間比起現在也只變短了20秒。

Would People Notice?

I doubt I would have noticed that.

Maybe not a million years ago but 400 million years ago,days were 21 and a half hour’s long,which you would have noticed.

人們會注意到么？

我很懷疑我是否能注意到。

也許，不是一百萬年前而是4億年前的話，當時一天是21.5小時，這樣你就注意到了。

400 Days per Yea

What you really would have noticed is that the time it takes the Earth to get around the sun hasn’t changed,so that back then there were 400 days a year.

Scientists have found(化石)evidence from(熱帶珊瑚蟲)that existed at that time,and they have about 400 daily growth rings per year.So someone was enjoying all those(額外的)sunny days.

一年400天

可能你真正意識到的是：地球繞著太陽公轉的時間沒有改變，所以那個時候一年有400天。

從存活于那個時候的熱帶珊瑚蟲的化石中，科學家已經發現了證據。那個時候的珊瑚每年大約有400個生長日輪。所以那時的某個人可以享受這些額外的燦爛陽光。