The bad news is that atoms are fickle¹ and their time of devotion is fleeting-fleeting indeed. 原子很脆弱，它们的献身时刻倏忽而过--简直是倏忽而过，这是个坏消息。

Even a long human life adds up to only about 650,000 hours. 连寿命很长的人也总共只活大约100万个小时。

And when that modest milestone² flashes past, or at some other point thereabouts, 而当那个不太遥远的终结点或沿途某个别的终点飞快地出现在你眼前的时候，

for reasons unknown your atoms will shut you down, silently disassemble, and go off to be other things. 由于未知的原因，你的原子们将宣告你生命的结束，然后散伙，悄然离去成为别的东西。

And that's it for you. 你也就到此为止。

Still, you may rejoice that it happens at all. Generally speaking in the universe it doesn't, so far as we can tell. 不过，这事儿还是发生了，你可以感到高兴。总的来说，据我们所知，这类事情在宇宙别的地方是没有的。

This is decidedly odd because the atoms that so liberally and congenially flock together to form living things on Earth are exactly the same atoms that decline to do it elsewhere. 原子们如此大方、如此协调地聚集在一起，构成地球上的生物，而同一批原子在别处是不肯这么做的。

Whatever else it may be, at the level of chemistry life is curiously³ mundane⁴: 不说别的，从化学的角度来说，生命只有这个世界上才有，真是不可思议：

carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, a little calcium⁵, a dash of sulfur⁶, 碳、氢、氧、氮、一点儿钙、一点儿硫，

a light dusting of other very ordinary elements-nothing you wouldn't find in any ordinary drugstore-and that's all you need. 再加上一点儿很普通的别的元素--在任何普通药房里都找得着的东西--这些就是你的全部需要。

The only thing special about the atoms that make you is that they make you. 原子们惟一特别的地方就是：它们形成了你。

That is of course the miracle of life. 当然，这正是生命的奇迹。

Whether or not atoms make life in other corners of the universe, they make plenty else; indeed, they make everything else. 不管原子在宇宙的别的角落是不是形成生命，它们形成许多其他东西；实际上，除了生命以外，它们还形成别的任何东西。

Without them there would be no water or air or rocks, 没有原子，就没有水，就没有空气，就没有岩石，

no stars and planets, no distant gassy clouds or swirling⁷ nebulae or any of the other things that make the universe so usefully material. 就没有恒星和行星，就没有远方的云团，就没有旋转的星云，就没有使宇宙如此动人、如此具体的任何别的东西。

Atoms are so numerous and necessary that we easily overlook that they needn't actually exist at all. 原子如此之多，如此必不可少，我们很容易忽视它们实际存在的必要性。实际上也根本不需要宇宙。

There is no law that requires the universe to fill itself with small particles of matter 没有法则要求宇宙间充满物质微粒，

or to produce light and gravity and the other physical properties on which our existence hinges. 产生我们所赖以生存的光、引力和其他物理性质。

There needn't actually be a universe at all. For the longest time there wasn't. 在很长时间里就没有宇宙。

There were no atoms and no universe for them to float about in. There was nothing-nothing at all anywhere." 那时候没有原子，没有供原子到处飘浮的宇宙。什么也没有--任何地方什么也没有。