What’s that？ Up there in the sky！ Is it a bird？ Or a plane？ No！ It’s a skyscraper1！ Have you ever seen a skyscraper up close？ If you live in a big city，there’s a good chance you’ve probably2 seen many skyscrapers. If you don’t， youmight have only seen skyscrapers on a vacation to a big city or on television.

那是什么？在天上！它是一只鳥嗎？還是飛機(jī)？不對！是摩天大樓！你近距離看過摩天大樓嗎？如果你住在大城市，你很可能見過許多摩天大樓。如果你沒見過，那你可能只有去大城市度假或在電視上才能看見摩天大樓了。

There are some famous skyscrapers in Chicago and New York that have onceheld the title3 of world’s tallest building. For example， the Empire State Buildingin New York City and the Willis Tower in Chicago have both held that title in thepast. So where is the world’s tallest building today？ As of January 4， 2010， thetitle goes to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It stands more than a half-mile tall at 2，722feet and has 163 floors.

芝加哥和紐約有一些著名的摩天大樓，它們曾經(jīng)擁有世界最高建筑的稱號(hào)。例如，紐約市的帝國大廈和芝加哥的威利斯大廈都曾獲此殊榮。那么今天世界上最高的建筑在哪里呢？截至2010 年1 月4 日，這一頭銜屬于迪拜的哈利法塔。它高達(dá)2722 英尺，超過半英里高，有163 層樓。

Unluckily for the Dubai giant4， it might not keep that title much longer.Jeddah Tower， also called The Kingdom Tower in Jeddah， is planned to reach 1kilometer （3，281 feet）. This building has not been finished. It will have 167 floors，and it is being built at a cost of $1.5 billion.

不幸的是，對于迪拜巨塔來說，這一頭銜可能保持不了太久。吉達(dá)塔位于吉達(dá)，也被稱為王國塔，按計(jì)劃將高達(dá)1 公里（3281 英尺）。這座大樓現(xiàn)在還沒有完工，它將有167 層，造價(jià)15 億美元。

Will buildings keep getting taller and taller into the future5？ Maybe. As scienceand technology keep on growing， there will be people who want to build tallerskyscrapers. How tall can buildings go？ No one knows for sure. But first， buildingsmust deal with the strong winds when they are at those heights6. Second， money isalso important. To build taller and taller buildings is not cheap. For example， theBurj Khalifa cost about $1.5 billion to build.

未來的樓房會(huì)越來越高嗎？也許吧。隨著科學(xué)技術(shù)的不斷發(fā)展，總會(huì)有人想要建造更高的摩天大樓。樓房能有多高呢？沒有人確切知道。但是首先，樓房在達(dá)到這些高度時(shí)必須應(yīng)對強(qiáng)風(fēng)。第二，錢也很重要。建造越來越高的樓房并不便宜。例如，哈利法塔的建造成本約為15 億美元。

The biggest problem to building even taller buildings might be the elevator7.Some of the world’s tallest buildings need “sky lobbies8”， where you have to takeanother elevator to get to the highest floors. Reaching the top of the world’s tallestbuildings can take as long as three minutes or more without stopping at any otherfloors. As a result， until elevator technology grows， the world’s tallest buildings maynot become much taller.

建造更高層建筑的最大問題可能是電梯。有些世界上最高的建筑需要一個(gè)“天空大廳”，在那里你必須換乘另一部電梯才能到達(dá)最高的樓層。不用在任何其他樓層停留而到達(dá)世界最高建筑的頂樓，可能需要三分鐘或更長時(shí)間。因此，在電梯技術(shù)有了突破之前，世界上最高的建筑可能無法再增高太多了。

（英語原文選自：wonderopolis.org）