视觉之旅之Hydrogen
Hydrogen 氢STARS SHINE BECAUSE they are transmuting vast amounts of hydrogen into helium. Our sun alone consumes six hundred million tons of hydrogen per second, converting it into five hundred and ninety-six million tons of helium. Think about it: Six hundred million tons per second. Even at night.
And where does the other four million tons per second go？ It’s converted into energy according to Einstein’s famous formula, E=mc2. About three-and-a-half-pounds-per-second’s worth finds its way to the earth, where it forms the light of the dawn rising, the warmth of a summer afternoon, and the red glow of a dying day.
The sun’s ferocious consumption of hydrogen sustains us all, but hydrogen’s importance to life as we know it begins closer to home. Together with oxygen it forms the clouds, oceans, lakes, and rivers. Combined with carbon (6),nitrogen (7), and oxygen (8), it bonds together the blood and body of all living things.
Hydrogen is the lightest of all the gases-lighter even than helium-and much cheaper, which accounts for its ill-advised use in early airships such as the Hindenburg. You may have heard how well that went, though in fairness the people died because they fell, not because they were burned by the hydrogen, which in some ways is less dangerous to have in a vehicle than, say, gasoline.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element, the lightest, and the most beloved by physicists because, with only one pro-ton and one electron, their lovely quantum mechanical formulas actually work exactly on it. Once you get to helium with two protons and two electrons, the physicists pretty much throw up their hands and let the chemists have it.
遥望夜空，群星闪烁。那是它们在把巨量的氢嬗变为氦。单单我们的太阳每秒就消耗掉6亿吨氢，把 它转化成5.96亿吨氦。想想看，每秒6亿吨，即使在夜晚也一样。
那么，另外的每秒钟400万吨到哪里去了呢？它们技照爱因斯坦的著名公式E=mc2转变成了能量。其中大约每秒3.5磅（1磅=0 4536千克）所创造的福祉降临到了我们的地球，赐予我们黎明的光辉、白天的温暖和黄昏的余晖。
太阳对氢的惊人消耗养育了我们大家。氢对于我们生活的重要性越来越家喻户晓。氢和氧的结合形成了云彩、海洋、湖泊和河流。氢和碳(6)、氮(7)、氧(8)结合在一起构成了所有生物的血液和肉体。
氢是所有气体中最轻的—甚至比氦还要轻，也非常便宜。这就是早年的飞艇错误地使用氢的原因。你们大概听说过兴登堡号飞艇灾难的故事。公正地说，那些乘客是摔死的，而不是被氢气烧死的。在某种程度上说，氢用作汽车的燃料比汽油更安全。
氢是最丰富的元素，最轻，也最为物理学家所钟爱。氢只有一个质子和一个电子，用量子力学公式可以精确地对它进行计算，但是，一旦遇见了拥有两个质子和两个电子的氦，物理学家几乎就要甩手，让化学家去对付了。
By weight, 75 percent of the visible universe is hydrogen. Ordinarily it is a colorless gas, but vast quantities of it in space absorb starlight, creating spectacular sights such as the Eagle Nebula, seen here by the Hubble Space Telescope.
氢占可见宇宙重量的75%。氢通常是无色的气体，但在太空中，大量的氢吸收太阳光，形成了壮观的景象，如哈勃太空望远镜所看到的鹰状星云。
Tritium (3H) luminous key chain, illegal in the U.S. because it is deemed a “frivolous” use of this strategic material.
氚 (3H) 发光钥匙圈在美国是违法的，它被认为是对这种战略性资源的滥用。
Tritium watches, on the other hand, are legal in the U.S.
但是，氚表在美国是合法的。
The sun works by turning hydrogen into helium.
太阳将氢转变为氦作为动力。
The orange-red glow of an oxygen-hydrogen flame.
氢氧焰的橘红色辉光。
The mineral scolecite, CaAl2Si3O10·3H2O, from Puna, Jalgaon, India.
产自印度贾尔冈普纳的钙沸石矿。
The inside of a high-speed thyratron, a type of electronic switch filled with a small amount of hydrogen gas.
高速闸流管的内部结构，闸流管是一种电子开关，用少量氢气充填。
very good!
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