Today Yael and Don discuss mirrors.

Yael和Don今天谈的是镜子。

Y: Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them--

镜子，镜子，谁是世界上最美的人？

D: Watcha doing?

你在干什么？

Y: I was, um, calibrating the surface smoothness of this mirror.

恩。。我在校准这面镜子表面的平整度。

D: I see.

我知道。

Y: Did you know that in order for a mirror to work properly it has to be perfectly smooth?

你知不知道只有表面光滑的镜子才能正常使用。

D: Why's that?

怎么这么说？

Y: Well, a mirror is basically something that reflects light, right?

镜子基本上都能反光对吧？

D: Right.

对。

Y: When light hits something, some of the light is reflected, some absorbed, and some passes through.

当光线照到某些东西的时候，有些光被反射，有些光被吸收，还有些光直接穿过去。

D: So for a mirror to produce a clear image it has to reflect as much of the light as possible, and in order to do that it has to be smooth.

所以说，镜子反射的光越多，它所形成的图像就会越清晰。要是想做到这点，镜子的表面就是越光滑越好。

Y: Exactly. A warped mirror scatters and diffuses light, making the image it produces look deformed. But a smooth mirror reflects without distortion.

确实是。一面扭曲的镜子会发生散射和漫散射作用，使得所形成的图像变了形。而一面光滑的镜子经过反射作用而不会失真。

D: Which is what makes it possible for you to stand in front of the mirror and preen.

哪种镜子更适合你站在前面打扮自己呢？

Y: I was not preening!

我不是在打扮。

D: Right. But there's nothing wrong with preening, you know. People have been admiring themselves in mirrors for a long time. Take the Greeks and Romans. They loved looking at

themselves, although they only had highly polished pieces of bronze, tin, and silver. Their descendants were even more vain, so in 16th century Venice mirror makers discovered the technique of backing a piece of glass with a reflecting metal composed of tin and mercury, producing a much clearer reflection. That technique is still in practice today, although now we use a thin layer of molten aluminum or silver sprayed onto the back of a piece of glass in a vacuum to achieve premium smoothness.

好。但你知道的，就算是在打扮也没问题的。人们总是喜欢在镜子前自恋一会儿。拿希腊人和罗马人来说，尽管他们只有零碎的打磨好的青铜镜，锡镜和银镜，但他们仍然是很爱照镜子。他们的后代更加自负，所以16世纪的威尼斯镜制造商发明了一项技术，它可以将由锡和汞构成的反射金属和一片片玻璃拼接到一块儿。但这项技术现今还在应用。但我们现在更多的都是在真空中将一层薄薄的熔融铝或银喷到玻璃后面以保证溢价平衡。

Y: Thanks for the history lesson.

谢谢你给我上了节历史课。

D: You're welcome. And by the way . . .

不客气。对了顺便说一下……

Y: Yes?

恩？

D: You are the fairest of them all.

你是世界上最美的人。

Y: Oh Don.

哦Don...