Humans are forever forgetting that
they can't control nature. Exactly 20 years ago, a Time magazine cover story
announced that "scientists are on the verge of being able to predict the time,
place and even the size of earthquakes." The people of quake-ravaged (被地震破坏的)
Kobe learned last week how wrong that assertion was. None of
the methods conceived two decades ago has yet to discover a uniform wanting
signal that preceded all quakes, let alone any sign that would tell whether the
coming temblor (地震) is mild or a killer. Earthquake formation can be triggered
by many factors, says Hiroo Kanamori, a seismologist (地震学家) at the California
Institute of Technology. So, finding one all-purpose warning sign is impossible.
One reason: Quakes tart deep in the earth, so scientists can't study them
directly. If a quake precursor were found, it would still be impossible to ward
humans in advance of all dangerous quakes. Places like Japan and California are
riddle with hundreds, if not thousands, of minor faults.
Prediction would be less important if scientists could easily build structures
to withstand tremors. While seismic engineering has improved dramatically in the
past 10 to 15 years, every new quake reveals unexpected weakness in
"quake-resistant" structures, says Terry Tullis, a geophysicist at Brown
University. In Kobe, for example, a highway that opened only last year was
damaged. In the Northridge earthquake, on the other hand, well-built structures
generally did not collapse. A recent report in Science adds yet
more anxiety about life on the faulty lines. Researchers Fan computer
simulations to see how quake resistant buildings would fall in a moderate size
temblor, taking into account that much of a quake's energy travels in a large
"pulse" of focused shaking. The results: both steel-frame buildings and
buildings that sit on insulating rubber pads suffered severe damage.
More research will help experts design stronger structures and possibly
find quake precursors. But it is still a certainty that the next earthquake will
prove once again that every fault cannot be monitored and every highway cannot
be completely quake-proofed.
单选题
From the first paragraph, it can be safely inferred that ______.
A. scientists can never be able to predict the coming of earthquakes
B. the existing power on predicting earthquakes is somewhat
exaggerated
C. quite a lot of scientific assertions are groundless
D. earthquake predictions are beyond the reach of scientists