【学习笔记】懂你英语 核心课 Level 7 Unit 2 Part 2（I）The Boiling River 1

TED Talk      The boiling river of the Amazon 亚马逊的沸腾河流    Speaker: Andrés Ruzo    第一课

As a boy in Lima, my grandfather told me alegend of the Spanish conquest of Peru.   【跟读】    作为一个在利马的男孩，我的祖父告诉过我一个关于西班牙征服秘鲁的传说。

Atahualpa, emperor of the Inca, had been captured and killed.    印加皇帝阿塔瓦尔帕被抓获并杀害。

Pizarro and his conquistadors had grown rich, and tales of their conquest and glory had reached Spain and was bringing new waves of Spaniards, hungry for gold and glory.      皮萨罗和他的征服者们发财了，他们征服和荣耀的故事已经传到了西班牙，并带来了新一波的西班牙人，渴望黄金和荣耀。

They would go into towns and ask the Inca, "Where's another civilization we can conquer? Where's more gold?"    他们会进入城镇问印加人：“我们能征服的另一个文明在哪里？黄金在哪里？”

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And the Inca, out of vengeance, told them, "Go to the Amazon.    印加人出于报复，对他们说：“去亚马逊河。”

You'll find all the gold you want there.  你会找到所有你想要的金子。

In fact, there is a city called Paititi -- El Dorado in Spanish -- made entirely of gold."    事实上，在西班牙有一个叫Paititi的城市，是用黄金打造的。

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The Spanish set off into the jungle, but the few that return come back with stories, stories of powerful shamans, of warriors with poisoned arrows,      西班牙人出发进入丛林，但只有少数人活着回来了，他们带回来一些故事，故事有关于强大的萨满，带着毒箭的战士，

of trees so tall they blotted out the sun, spiders that ate birds, snakes that swallowed men whole and a river that boiled.  树太高了所以遮住了太阳，吃鸟的蜘蛛， 吞整个人的蛇，一条沸腾的河。

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All this became a childhood memory. And years passed. 这一切都成了童年的记忆。几年过去了。

I'm working on my PhD at SMU, trying to understand Peru's geothermal energy potential, 我在SMU攻读博士学位，试图了解秘鲁的地热能潜力，

when I remember this legend, and I began asking that question. 当我想起这个传说时，我开始问这个问题。

Could the boiling river exist?  沸腾的河流会存在吗？

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I asked colleagues from universities, the government, oil, gas and mining companies, and the answer was a unanimous no.  我问来自大学、政府、石油、天然气和矿业公司的同事，答案是一致的。

And this makes sense. 这是有道理的。

You see, boiling rivers do exist in the world, but they're generally associated with volcanoes.  【跟读】你看，沸腾的河流确实存在于世界上，但它们通常与火山有关。

You need a powerful heat source to produce such a large geothermal manifestation. 你需要一个强大的热源来产生这么大的地热能。

And as you can see from the red dots here, which are volcanoes, we don't have volcanoes in the Amazon, nor in most of Peru.  你们看这些红点，这代表火山，我们在亚马逊没有火山，在秘鲁的大部分地区也没有。

So it follows: We should not expect to see a boiling river.  因此，我们不应该期望在这个区域看到一条沸腾的河流。