The search for oil

The deepest holes of all are made for oil, and they go down to as much as 25,000 feet. But we do not need to send men down to get the oil out, as we must with other mineral deposits. The holes are only borings, less than a foot in diameter. My particular experience is largely in oil, and the search for oil has done more to improve deep drilling than any other mining activity. When it has been decided where we are going to drill, we put up at the surface an oil derrick. It has to be tall because it is like a giant block and tackle, and we have to lower into the ground and haul out of the ground great lengths of drill pipe which are rotated by an engine at the top and are fitted with a cutting bit at the bottom.

The geologist needs to know what rocks the drill has reached, so every so often a sample is obtained with a coring bit. It cuts a clean cylinder of rock, from which can be seen the strata the drill has been cutting through. Once we get down to the oil, it usually flows to the surface because great pressure, either from gas or water, is pushing it. This pressure must be under control, and we control it by means of the mud which we circulate down the drill pipe. We endeavour to avoid the old, romantic idea of a gusher, which wastes oil and gas. We want it to stay down the hole until we can lead it off in a controlled manner.

词汇

deposit / dɪˈpɒzɪt / A deposit is an amount of a substance that has been left somewhere as a result of a chemical or geological process. 沉积物; 矿床
boring / ˈbɔːrɪŋ / the act or process of making or enlarging a hole 钻孔; 扩洞
diameter / daɪˈæmɪtə / The diameter of a round object is the length of a straight line that can be drawn across it, passing through the middle of it. 直径
put up: If people put up a wall, building, tent, or other structure, they construct it so that it is upright. 建造
derrick / ˈdɛrɪk / A derrick is a tower built over an oil well which is used to raise and lower the drill. 油井塔
haul / hɔːl / If you haul something which is heavy or difficult to move, you move it using a lot of effort. (用力地) 拉
fitted: If you fit something somewhere, you attach it there, or put it there carefully and securely. 安装
every so often
cylinder / ˈsɪlɪndə / A cylinder is an object with flat circular ends and long straight sides. 圆柱
Strata /‘strætɚ/ are different layers of rock. 岩层
by means of
endeavour / ɪnˈdɛvə / If you endeavour to do something, you try very hard to do it. 努力
gusher / ˈɡʌʃə / 喷油井
xxx has done more to improve zzz than any other yyy

The Butterfly Effect

Beyond two or three days, the world’s best weather forecasts are speculative, and beyond six or seven they are worthless.

The Butterfly Effect is the reason. For small pieces of weather—and to a global forecaster, small can mean thunderstorms and blizzards – any prediction deteriorates rapidly. Errors and uncertainties multiply, cascading upward through a chain of turbulent features, from dust devils and squalls up to continent-size eddies that only satellites can see.

The modern weather models work with a grid of points of the order of sixty miles apart, and even so, some starting data has to be guessed, since ground stations and satellites cannot see everywhere. But suppose the earth could be covered with sensors spaced one foot apart, rising at one-foot intervals all the way to to top of the atmosphere. Suppose every sensor gives perfectly accurate readings of temperature, pressure, humidity, and any other quantity a meteorologist would want. Precisely at noon an infinitely powerful computer takes all the data and calculates what will happen at each point at 12.01, then 12.02, then 12.03….

The computer will still be unable to predict whether Princeton, New Jersey, will have sun or rain on a day one month away. At noon the spaces between the sensors will hide fluctuations that the computer will not know about, tiny deviations from the average. By 12.01, those fluctuations will already have created small errors one foot away. Soon the errors will have multiplied to the ten-foot scale, and so on up to the size of the globe.

blizzard / ˈblɪzəd / A blizzard is a very bad snowstorm with strong winds. 暴风雪
cascade / kæsˈkeɪd / If water cascades somewhere, it pours or flows downward very fast and in large quantities. 倾泻
turbulent / ˈtɜːbjʊlənt / Turbulent water or air contains strong currents which change direction suddenly. (水流或气体) 湍急的
dust devil: a strong miniature whirlwind that whips up dust, litter, leaves, etc into the air 尘暴
squall / skwɔːl / A squall is a sudden strong wind which often causes a brief, violent rainstorm or snowstorm. 飑; 突起的狂风(常引起短暂暴雨或暴雪)
eddy /‘ɛdi/ 漩涡
meteorologist /ˌmitiəˈrɑlədʒɪst/ 气象学家
of the order of
Suppose xxx could be xxx

Secrecy in industry

Two factors weigh heavily against the effectiveness of scientific in industry. One is the general atmosphere of secrecy in which it is carried out, the other the lack of freedom of the individual research worker. In so far as any inquiry is a secret one, it naturally limits all those engaged in carrying it out from effective contact with their fellow scientists either in other countries or in universities, or even , often enough , in other departments of the same firm. The degree of secrecy naturally varies considerably. Some of the bigger firms are engaged in researches which are of such general and fundamental nature that it is a positive advantage to them not to keep them secret. Yet a great many processes depending on such research are sought for with complete secrecy until the stage at which patents can be taken out. Even more processes are never patented at all but kept as secret processes. This applies particularly to chemical industries, where chance discoveries play a much larger part than they do in physical and mechanical industries. Sometimes the secrecy goes to such an extent that the whole nature of the research cannot be mentioned. Many firms, for instance, have great difficulty in obtaining technical or scientific books from libraries because they are unwilling to have their names entered as having taken out such and such a book for fear the agents of other firms should be able to trace the kind of research they are likely to be undertaking.

xxx either in xxx or in xxx, or even in xxx
event xxx are never yyy at all but
this applies particularly to xxx
sometimes xxx goes to such a extent that xxx
xxx, for instance, xxx