专家:恐怖袭击有章可循

　　Random acts of violence are, well, random. It's the uNPRedictable nature of terrorism, after all, that makes it so terrifying. But according to "The Mathematics of Terror," an article by Andrew Curry in the latest issue of Discover magazine, acts of terrorism aren't random at all -- not mathematically speaking, anyway.

　　随意的暴力行为确实无章可循。毕竟，正是恐怖主义无法预测的特性使其如此恐怖。然而，安德鲁-柯里在美国最新一期《发现》杂志中发表《恐怖数学》一文说，恐怖主义行为根本不是随意的，至少从数学角度来说不是。

　　If deaths due to terrorism were random, Curry explains, they would form a normal distribution, also known as a bell curve, with most casualties coming from medium-size attacks falling in the center of the curve, and a few rare deaths from small and large attacks forming outliers at either end.

　　柯里说，如果恐怖主义造成的死亡是随机的，它们将呈正态分布，即形成钟形曲线，大多数伤亡是由分布在曲线中间部分的中型袭击造成的，小型袭击和大型袭击造成的罕见的死亡事件则是处在曲线两端的异常值。