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You may have heard physicists describe the moon as being 1.3 light-seconds away, or the sun as 8 light-minutes away,
大家或许听过物理学家说月球离地球1.3光秒远，或者太阳离地球8光分，
and thought 'what is this nonsense? measuring distances with time?'
你可能会想 ‘这啥玩意？用时间来量距离？
But actually, we measure distances using time almost every day. How far is it from your house to the store? About ten minutes.
但实际上，我们每天都在利用时间描述距离。你家到商店多远？大概10分钟。
And how far is it from New York to Boston? About four hours. Los Angeles to Sydney? 14 hours.
纽约到波士顿有多远？大概4个小时。从洛杉矶到悉尼？14个小时。
But of course, what we really mean is that the store is ten bike-minutes from your house,
但当然我们其实是想说，你家到商店要骑10分钟自行车，
New York is 4 car-hours from Boston, and Sydney is 14 plane-hours from LA.
从纽约到波士顿要开4个小时的车，从悉尼到LA要飞14个小时。
In fact, using time to measure distances is so useful that I only know the distance from LA to Sydney in plane-hours, not miles or kilometers…
实际上，用时间来表达距离是非常有用的，因为我们只知道洛杉矶到悉尼的“飞机小时” 而不知道具体多少英里或者公里。
though I suppose I could figure it out by multiplying 14 plane-hours by the 550-miles-per-hour speed of a plane to get roughly 7500 miles.
尽管我确实可以用14小时乘上飞机的速度550英里每小时，得到大致的距离是7500英里。
But Sydney is also 5 sailboat-weeks from LA, 7 humpback-whale months from LA,
但是，洛杉矶到悉尼的距离还可以是做5个星期的船，或座头鲸游7个月的距离，
5 message-in-a-bottle years from LA, and 0.04 light-seconds from LA.
又或是漂流瓶漂5年或0.04光秒的距离。
On the other hand, the moon is 18 airplane-days away, 6 car-months away, and 15 whale-years away.
另一方面，地球到月球的距离是飞18天，开车6个月，鲸鱼游15年。
Which means amazingly, that a whale might swim as far as the distance to the moon over the course of its lifetime.
也就是说鲸鱼一生可以游从地球到月球那么长的距离。
And if that's not crazy enough, sometimes we even measure times in distance!
如果这还不够疯狂，我们还可以用距离来表达时间！
How long is a movie? 8,000 feet – of film! And MinutePhysics? It's 30 meters.
电影多长时间？8000英尺的胶卷！《MinutePhysics》呢？30米胶卷。
