科幻小說《The secret of Zoom》

"The Secret of Zoom" is a sci-fi book. "Zoom" is a mysterious type of rock that will turn into liquid when it hears a G sharp and responds to thought waves as well. Unfortunately, the drops will cause a minor explosion if they hit the ground.The owner of an orphanage, called Lenny Loompski, wants to find a way to turn zoom into fuel so he can be a billionaire. Lenny coerced them to collect zoom by singing, and traps Christina s mother where nobody will find her. Christina is a ten-year-old girl who is the main character in this book, and she rescues all the orphans despite the dangers. The ending is a comical one, where every orphan flies in a little plane made by Leo and pours a canister full of liquid zoom on Lenny』s head. The zoom immediately turns back to rock, so Lenny ends up as a statue made with zoom. Serves him right, the villain! After all, the amount of wicked things he did is bigger than the amount of zoom dumped on his head.

《The Secret of Zoom》是一本科幻小說。書中提到的Zoom是一種神奇的石頭，當它聽見#G這個音符時，就會變成液體，而且它還能被人的意念控制。需要特別注意的是，當Zoom融化以後如果摔在地上就會爆炸。孤兒院的院長Lenny是個陰險狡詐的壞傢伙，他想找到把Zoom變成燃料的方法，那樣他將會成為億萬富翁。於是院長強迫孤兒院里的孩子們通過唱歌來收集大量的Zoom，並且把小女孩Christina的媽媽給困在一個沒有人知道的地方。Christina，也就是故事的主人公，她通過各種努力最終救出了孤兒院里所有的孤兒，還有她自己的媽媽。故事結尾很滑稽：孤兒們都駕駛著Leo發明的神奇小飛機，把一桶一桶的液態Zoom倒在院長Lenny的頭上。這些液體馬上凝固成石頭，院長變成了一個Zoom做的雕像。誰讓他做的壞事比他身上的Zoom還要多，活該！

Lenny s uncle is a scientist, Leo Loompski. Leo invents a small plane powered by zoom that can effortlessly be controlled by the pilot s thoughts.Christina discovered the plane by chance. When Christina sings the first note, the plane will start to activate and begin humming the same note. After she has put on a special helmet and finished singing all the notes in the E7 chord, all she has to do is think 「Fly」, and the plane will do so, still humming a chord. Unbelievable, isn』t it? Actually, Leo s other inventions were much weirder. There was a rocket powered baby carriage (For taking the baby for walks on Mars?), and a 「Kidapult」 for getting to school. (Probably makes the child decide to walk instead.) Both of these inventions are as strange as preferring to eat plastic fruit.

院長的叔叔Leo是個科學家，他發明了一種用Zoom作燃料的小飛機，讓駕駛員可以輕易地用意念來控制飛行。Christina無意中發現了這架飛機。她唱出第一個音時，飛機接著她的聲音哼唱，並且開始啟動。Christina戴上特製頭盔唱完E7和弦的全部音時，腦子裡再給個起飛的念頭，飛機也哼著和弦起飛了。很不可思議？實際上，Leo發明了不少更稀奇古怪的玩意兒。他發明了一個用火箭推動的嬰兒車（這是準備推著寶寶去火星上散步嗎？），和一個送孩子上學的「投娃機」（估計孩子寧願自己走路去）。這些發明就跟有人喜歡吃塑料水果一樣奇怪。

Even though this is nothing but a fictional story, zoom might actually exist. The power of sound can sometimes result in avalanches. In real life zoom could just be a substance very sensitive to sound and thus is able to be controlled by it. Christina s dad explained to her: "If I keep slapping this table with my hand, quantum mechanics says that one day my hand will go right through the table." If such astonishing things can happen at an atomic level, it s no wonder that miracles happen at the level of thought. Thought is faster than anything, even light. Light has to take eight minutes to run to the Sun. In that time thought can do the same a gazillion times. If things controlled by thought and sound are mixed together, the outcome might be similar to zoom. There may be unexpected results, though. Salt is a mixure of two different poisonous chemicals, which somehow turn into a healthy substance.

Of course, both of these two things are yet to be discovered. However,there might be something similar to zoom in the future. And who knows? Maybe that』s what they』ll name it – zoom! Nothing』s impossible.

雖然這只是一個科幻故事，但Zoom也許是真實存在的。聲音的能量有時會引起雪崩，現實中有可能真的存在某種物質像Zoom一樣，對聲波特別敏感，可以被聲音控制。Christina爸爸給她解釋：「如果我不停地拍這張桌子，按照量子力學的規律，總有一天我的手會穿過桌面。」小小原子之間能夠出現如此神奇的事情，那麼比原子更小更小的思想顆粒，一定會造成更有意思的情況。我猜想，思想的速度比光速快N倍，從書桌前飛到太陽上去，光得跑8分鐘，思想在這時間裡可以跑無數個來回了。如果某種物質是由可以被聲音、思想控制的兩種物質結合而成，那它幾乎就和Zoom一模一樣。兩種元素放在一起說不定有意想不到的結果，鹽就是由兩種有劇毒的化學成分結合在一起，不知道怎麼就變成一種有益健康的生活必需品。以毒攻毒就是這個意思嗎？

當然，到現在為止，科學家還沒發現這兩種物質。未來說不定會出現和Zoom類似的東西，大家會不會真的叫它Zoom呢？萬事皆有可能嘛！

One of the parts I like best is, after Christina s mom disappeared, her dad was worried about Christina『s safety. He decided to not send her to school, but made Christina learn using various computer programs instead. Her favorite was music since she got to be taught by a real person. Even her dad had to admit that the computer can t teach piano. Christina s dad wanted her to be interesting in math and bought many math books. However, Christina hated math. I feel sorry for Christina, and I don t blame her for hating math. Her math program is rubbish. Bad math programs can either be falsely cheerful, starting with: Math is fun, fun, fun! The more you hear it the more you think that it s not fun at all. The other type is tedious, which always begins with: Today we are learning about blah blah blah blah blah. Mine is the second type, Christina』s is the first kind + the second kind. The program is supposed to build self-esteem, but it does its job too well. It goes 「Awesome!」 or "Great work!" whether you do it right or not. If I had to use that program, I wouldn』t be very excited about math either.

我覺得有趣的一部分是，媽媽失蹤之後，爸爸很擔心Christina的安全，決定不讓她去上學。幾乎所有科目Christina都是通過電腦軟體來學習。結果，她最喜歡上音樂課，因為只有這門課是真人教，連她爸爸也得承認電腦教不了鋼琴。Christina的爸爸尤其希望她喜歡數學，買了很多很多數學書。可她最最討厭的就是數學，我真的好同情Christina，不應該怪她討厭數學，她的數學軟體實在是太爛了。通常很爛的數學軟體分兩類：一類是在你做題時，軟體一開始就會不停告訴你：數學非常好玩！數學非常有趣！越這樣說就讓人覺得一點也不好玩。另一類是題目非常無聊，每次都是這麼開始的：今天我們要學習……我平常用的軟體是第二種。Christina的軟體是第一種+第二種，這個軟體設計者的本意是鼓勵孩子愛上數學，可是幹得有點太誇張了。不管做沒做對，它都會說「太棒了，你是數學高手吧！」「幹得漂亮！」，就是一隻「復讀雞」。如果讓我用這個軟體，我肯定也不會喜歡數學的。

I know an app for learning instruments and it works pretty well. So there, a computercanteach piano. I hope her dad doesn』t hear about it though...

我倒是知道一個可以學樂器的軟體，而且挺好用的。看來，電腦是可以教鋼琴的。希望Christina的爸爸永遠也不會知道……