News That Counts
关于计数的知识
A new number was discovered by a team of German mathematicians in January of this year. The previously unknown integer lies in the relatively unexplored region between the numbers 88,000,002,999 and 88,000,003,000. This unexpected integer has been provisionally named “S,” for “Surprise,” until the mathematical community has determined its exact location and value.
一个新的数字。此前这个未知的整数位于 88,000,002,999 和 88,000,003,000 之间，这个也相对未知的区域。直到这个数学团体在确定该数字的准确位置和数值之前，这个意外发现的整数曾被暂时命名为为“S”。“S”为英文中“惊奇”这个单词的首字母。
The existence of undiscovered whole numbers in the space between known integers has long been recognized as a possibility, according to theoretical mathematician and team leader Angela Zifferling at the Institute for Polynomial Advance in Töttingen, Germany.
根据德国哥廷根多项式推进研究院的理论数学家与该研究组组长安吉拉·杰斐林的说法，数学家们长期以来一直都认为在已知整数中还有可能存在着未被发现的整数。
Crunching Numbers
数字处理
It is largely because we are only used to counting up to a thousand or so in our everyday lives that we fail to notice the presence of so-called “inter-integral” numbers and other strange phenomena that lie in the incredibly distant regions of the number line.
这很大程度上是因为我们在日常生活中仅习惯于数数到一千左右，导致我们忽视了所谓“数中数”的存在以及其他在数轴上更远区域内存在的奇特现象。
As Zifferling explains: “It’s as if you only made observations from here to the moon, and concluded that there isn’t anything much in outer space. We really have no idea what may exist in the remoter regions of the number line, because the simple fact is that the area beyond around one hundred billion is still almost completely unexplored.”
正如杰斐林解释道：“这就好比你只观察到你到月亮之间的事物，就下结论说外太空中没有什么。我们真的不知道在数轴上更遥远的区域内存在着什么，因为现在的数学家对万亿以外的数域几乎没有研究，这是事实。”
If confirmed, the existence of number S would make calculations involving numbers in its region much more difficult, as it will probably be found to be exerting a kind of pressure on the whole numbers on either side of it in order to fit in. Mathematicians refer to this pressure as “integral crowding,” and say that it may increasingly be a problem as we move farther and farther from zero.
如果数字“S”的存在得到确认，这将会使该区域内的计数问题更加复杂，因为为了使其存在有意义，“S”很可能回向其两边的整数施加压力。数学家们将这种压力称为“整数拥挤”，并表示随着我们沿着数轴的正方向越走越远，该问题也将会变得越来越棘手。
- mathematician n. 数学家
- integer n. [数] 整数；整体；完整的事物
- theoretical adj. 理论的；理论上的；假设的；推理的
