新视野大学英语 读写教程第一册 unit8-c

Section C
Great Ideas

Some of the most important inventions of the past 2,000 years may surprise you.

Want to get rich? Become famous? You don't have to be a film star or a basketball player or a musician. You can do it by becoming an inventor. Over the past 2,000 years inventors have created machines and articles that have changed the world.
And it's not just the big ideas like computers, printing presses and steam engines （蒸汽机） that become big things.
Just think how the past 2,000 years would be different without these "small" big ideas:

It's a clean sweep
In 1871, American inventor Ives McGaffey realized that if you turned an air pump （气泵）the opposite way, you would have a machine that could pick up dirt. He called his machine an aspirator（吸气器）. The huge device¹ was powered by a steam engine.
Another American, James Murray Spangler, designed a much lighter² machine in 1907 with an electric engine. He sold the idea, now called a vacuum³ cleaner（真空吸尘器），to a man named William H. Hoover. The company is still making Hoover vacuums⁴ and we're a little bit cleaner for it.

Stuck on you
Inventors get interested when they find out people don't like the way something works⁵.
One day in 1923, young lab worker Richard Drew from the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing（制造）Company heard workers in an automobile⁶ body shop complaining. It seems they could not find the right kind of tape to put on cars while they painted them. Either the tape stuck too much and ruined the paint job or it fell off too soon and the paint ran onto another part of the car.
Drew spent two years creating a tape that stuck just enough. We know it now as masking tape. But Drew wasn't done. In 1930, he created a see-through, water-proof（防水的）, cellophane（薄膜）adhesive（胶粘剂）. The company called it Scotch⁷ tape and started selling it by the ton.

Accidents can work wonders
In the late 1940s, engineer Percy L. Spencer of the Raytheon Company was experimenting with high-frequency（高频率）radio waves. These had been used to find enemy planes and ships in World War II. Spencer noticed the waves had made a chocolate bar（块）in his pocket soft. Could these waves be used to heat food?
Spencer soon invented the microwave oven（微波炉）, which made millions of dollars for Raytheon and millions of bags of popcorn（爆米花）for kids everywhere.

Geniuses need not apply（应用，努力）
Alexander Graham Bell was a teacher of the deaf. He did not know much about electricity. That was probably a good thing because most electricity masters did not think a voice could be sent over a wire. In three years of day and night effort, Bell figured out how to send sound over a changing electric current⁸. He got his patent（专利）on the telephone on March 7, 1876. It is one of the most valuable patents⁹ ever given by the U.S.

Keep your trousers on
In 1907, engineer Gideon Sundback got interested in improving a "hookless¹⁰（无钩的）fastener（扣件）" patented¹¹ in 1893. It was supposed to do away with the tiring work of buttoning the many buttons on clothes of the day. But the fastener did not work well.
For years Sundback lay awake half the night trying to solve the problem. In 1913 he designed a hookless fastener that worked. But no one made much money on the invention until a Canadian businessman decided¹² to call it a "zipper（拉链）". Soon millions were sold every year and trousers everywhere stopped falling down.
Now that's a tiny — yet BIG — idea.

Words: 626

1 device   

n.器械，装置；计划，策略，诡计

参考例句：

• The device will be in production by the end of the year.该装置将于年底投入生产。
• The device will save much time and effort for us.这种装置会使我们节省大量时间和气力。

2 lighter   

n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级

参考例句：

• The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色，色调明朗了一些。
• The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。

3 vacuum   

n.真空，空间，真空吸尘器；adj.真空的，产生(利用)真空的；v.用吸尘器打扫

参考例句：

• Sound waves will not travel through a vacuum.声波在真空里不能传播。
• He sells vacuum cleaners.他经销真空吸尘器。

4 vacuums   

n.真空； 真空状态； 真空度； 空洞

参考例句：

• Excessive energy is also required to achieve appropriate pressures and vacuums. 还需要额外的能量来造成所需的压力和真空。 来自辞典例句
• My personal theory is that needs and desires create mental vacuums. 我个人的理论是，需求和欲望制造了思想真空。 来自互联网

5 works   

n.作品，著作；工厂，活动部件，机件

参考例句：

• We expect writers to produce more and better works.我们期望作家们写出更多更好的作品。
• The novel is regarded as one of the classic works.这篇小说被公认为是最优秀的作品之一。

6 automobile   

n.汽车，机动车

参考例句：

• He is repairing the brake lever of an automobile.他正在修理汽车的刹车杆。
• The automobile slowed down to go around the curves in the road.汽车在路上转弯时放慢了速度。

7 scotch   

n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的

参考例句：

• Facts will eventually scotch these rumours.这种谣言在事实面前将不攻自破。
• Italy was full of fine views and virtually empty of Scotch whiskey.意大利多的是美景，真正缺的是苏格兰威士忌。

8 current   

n.涌流，趋势，电流，水流，气流；adj.当前的，通用的，流通的，现在的，草写的，最近的

参考例句：

• Electric current is often powerful enough to kill a man.电流常强得足以致命。
• There is a story about her in the current number.最近一期上有关于她的故事。

9 patents   

专利( patent的名词复数 )； 专利品； 独享的权利； 素质

参考例句：

• He owned several patents. 他拥有几项专利发明。
• The bankrupt must also assign all of his patents to the receiver. 破产人必须把他的所有专利权转给清算人。

10 hookless   

无钩的

参考例句：

11 patented   

有专利权的

参考例句：

• The government patented the device to its inventor. 政府给予发明者专利权。
• The invention has been patented by the university. 那项发明已被那所大学申请了专利。

12 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。