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Wednesday – not Monday – is the worst day of the week, according to research by two American applied mathematicians.

Wednesday – not Monday – is the worst day of the week, according to research by two American applied mathematicians.

Professors Christopher Danforth and Peter Dodds, of Vermont University, analysed words used in 2.4 million internet blogs such as Twitter, giving a score out of nine depending on how positive they were.

Words like free, fun, and rainbow all scored above eight, while words such as betray, cruel, hatred³ and suffocate⁴ all scored less than two.

Saturday and Sunday rated predictably well but, perhaps surprisingly, Monday came out as the second happiest day of the week, partly because people were still reminiscing about the weekend. However by Wednesday, these feelings had subsided⁵.

Professor Danforth said: "People's daily experience is being reflected somewhat in what they're saying. And this is more of a story, we think, for Twitter messages, which we've just started to pay attention to, about a year ago.

"They think they are communicating with friends, but since blogs are public we're just looking over their shoulders.

"The weekends tend to be fairly happy and Wednesday turned out to be the saddest day."

He said using the internet in this way enabled them to rate happiness based on higher numbers of people than previous studies.

"What we're attempting to do is measure collective happiness on a much larger scale, similar to measuring the temperature outside," Professor Danforth said.

"The energy of a few molecules⁶ bouncing around doesn't give a good indication of heat, you need billions or more."

美国两位应用数学家研究发现，一周中最郁闷的一天是周三，而不是周一。

佛蒙特大学的克里斯托弗•丹福思和彼得•多兹教授对在Twitter等网站上的240万篇博客中使用的词语进行了分析，并将其按照积极程度从1到9打分。

自由、乐趣、彩虹等词语的得分都在8分以上，而背叛、残忍、仇恨和窒息等词语的得分都在2分以下。

不出所料，周六和周日得分很高；但可能让人意外的是，周一在一周的快乐排行榜中名列第二，这部分是因为人们还沉浸在周末的快乐之中。然而到了周三，这种情绪已渐渐消退。

丹福思教授说：“从某种程度上来说，人们每天的经历可反映在他们的谈话里。我们认为，对于Twitter上的那些信息来说，它们更像是一个故事。我们大约在一年前才开始关注这个问题。”

“他们觉得自己是在和朋友们交流，但因为博客是公开的，所以我们只是在‘窥探’。”

“周末是一周中非常愉快的两天，而周三则是一周中最郁闷的一天。”

他表示，与之前的研究相比，利用网络进行研究可以让他们对更多的人展开调查。

丹福思教授说：“我们想评定更大范围人群的集体快乐指数，就像测量室外温度一样。”

“仅测定几个活跃分子的热量无法得出准确的温度，你需要数十亿个分子甚至更多。”

Vocabulary:

subside：to sink to a low or lower level（减退，平息）

look over one's shoulders: be careful;watch for danger（小心提防）