华人科学家团队找到马约拉纳费米子
A Chinese-American scientist and his team discovered a particle that can be both matter and antimatter, which can potentially lead to more advanced quantum computers.
一名美籍华裔科学家及其团队发现了一种既可以是物质、也可以是反物质的粒子，这有可能会使得人类造出更加先进的量子计算机。The particle, called Majorana fermion, is named after Italian theoretical physicist Ettore Majorana, who first predicted its existence in 1937.
这种粒子被称为“马约拉纳费米子”，以意大利理论物理学家埃托雷·马约拉纳之名命名，他在1937年时第一次预言了这种粒子的存在。Typically, when a particle — the basic building block of matter — and an antiparticle — its identical twin but with an opposite charge — collide, they will annihilate each other, releasing a burst of energy.
通常情况下，当粒子（构成物质的最基础模块）和反粒子（反粒子如同粒子的双生子，但是却带有相反的电荷）发生碰撞，他们会相互湮灭，并释放大量的能量，
The Majorana fermion, however, is a strange exception that can simultaneously exist both as a particle and as its own antiparticle. This hypothesis has fascinated and puzzled scientists ever since.
但是，马约拉纳费米子却是一个奇怪的例外，这种粒子可以既作为粒子，又作为反粒子而存在。自从提出之日起，这一假说就引起了科学家们的兴趣和困惑。
The latest discovery "concludes one of the most intensive searches in fundamental physics, which spanned exactly 80 years," said Zhang Shoucheng, a Stanford University physicist and a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who proposed the experiment plan.
斯坦福大学物理学家、中科院外籍院士张首晟为该实验提供了方案，他认为最近的这次发现，“为基础物理学界跨越整整80年、研究最为密集的一个项目作出了结论”。The research team, led by Associate Professor Jing Xia of the University of California, Irvine, and UCLA Professor Kang-Lung Wang, dubbed the fermion the "angel particle" in reference to Dan Brown's 2000 thriller novel Angels And Demons, which involves a bomb made from a combination of particle and antiparticle.
该研究小组由加州大学欧文分校副教授夏晶以及加州大学洛杉矶分校教授王康隆领导，他们参照丹·布朗2000年的小说《天使与魔鬼》（该小说提到了一种用正反粒子制成的炸弹），将马约拉纳费米子称之为“天使粒子”。"Our team predicted exactly where to find the Majorana fermion and what to look for as its 'smoking gun' experimental signature," Zhang said in a news release from Stanford University.
张首晟在斯坦福大学的一次新闻发布会上表示：“我们的团队准确预测了在哪里可以找到马约拉纳费米子，以及在'烟枪'试验中我们应该寻找什么。”In the future, Majorana fermions could be used to build quantum computers that are more resilient to environmental disturbance, which has been a major obstacle in their development.
未来，马约拉纳费米子可以用来制造量子计算机，抗环境干扰的能力将会更强--而这也是计算机发展的主要障碍之一。
