/UploadFiles/XXGL/2012/10/人大社12年10月新书快递13-《时间机器》.doc

书名：时间机器            
书号：978-7-300-16418-2
著者：[英] 赫伯特?乔治?威尔斯 著
郭英剑 导读    
责任编辑：李楠
成品：148*210  页数：299
纸张：70克轻型纸
装祯：平装
出版时间：2012年9月
定价：25.00元
出版社：中国人民大学出版社

◆ 本书卖点
? 赫伯特带你领略一个世人所想象不到的世界
? 全面精彩的中文导读
? 学习英语的珍贵资料

◆ 读者定位
1．全国高等院校英语及相关专业学生
2. 高等院校非英语专业英语学习者及同等英语水平学习者
3. 广大外语教师
4. 哲学、文化、政治及法律等各领域的研究学者及学生

◆ 作者简介
赫伯特?乔治?威尔斯（1866—1946），英国著名小说家，尤以科幻小说创作闻名于世。威尔斯一生创作了一百多部作品，内容涉及科学、文学、历史、社会、政治等各个领域，是现代最多产的作家之一。他还是一位社会改革家和预言家，会晤过罗斯福和斯大林。威尔斯最重要的作品有《时间机器》，《隐形人》和《世界史纲》等。
◆ 内容简介
《时间机器》是世界科幻小说史上第一部以时间旅行为题材的作品。文中威尔斯以一种荒凉、哀伤的笔触给人们展示了一次震撼人心的时间旅行。书中描写的未来世界，人类正逐渐走向没落，曾经辉煌的科技、文化及固有的价值观、道德观全部土崩瓦解，由于长期的阶级分化，剥削阶级和被剥削阶级竟然进化成了两类截然不同的生物，相互之间不可理喻，充满仇杀。在这部小说里，作者用幻想和寓言的方式预示了劳动者和剥削者冲突加剧所可能造成的后果。故事情节引人人胜，充满惊险和悬疑。

◆ 上架建议
外语/哲学/畅销书

书摘
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way—marking the points with a lean forefinger—as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it) and his fecundity.
“You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.”
“Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?” said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair.
“I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.”
“That is all right,” said the Psychologist.
“Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a real existence.”
“There I object,” said Filby. “Of course a solid body may exist. All real things—”
“So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an instantaneous cube exist?”
“Don’t follow you,” said Filby.
“Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real existence?”
Filby became pensive. “Clearly,” the Time Traveller proceeded, “any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and—Duration. But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.”
“That,” said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight his cigar over the lamp; “that … very clear indeed.”
“Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,” continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession of cheerfulness. “Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it. But some foolish people have got hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have all heard what they have to say about this Fourth Dimension?”
“I have not,” said the Provincial Mayor.
“It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length, Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to three planes, each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical people have been asking why three dimensions particularly—why not another direction at right angles to the other three?—and have even tried to construct a Four-Dimension geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. You know how on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of a three dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they could represent one of four—if they could master the perspective of the thing. See?”