VOA标准英语2012--Light Bulb Inventor Tried to Create Fake Rubber

 

Light Bulb Inventor Tried to Create Fake Rubber

At the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries, the prolific¹ American inventor and businessman Thomas Alva Edison developed devices that changed industry, communication, and everyday life - from a practical electric light bulb to the motion-picture camera. 

Edison perfected much of this work in his famous laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey². But he was almost as busy at his winter home in Fort Myers, Florida, where his work took some interesting twists.

Fort Myers is now a stylish³ and expensive place to live. But in 1885 when Edison fell in love with it, it was little more than a cow town on the Gulf⁴ of Mexico. It had about 200 people and several thousand head of cattle.

Over the years, Edison became good friends with automobile⁵ titan Henry Ford⁶, who was a guest at the Edisons’ winter home and eventually bought his own place across the street.

Today both houses are part of the same museum complex. Edison, Ford and tire executive Harvey Firestone set up a laboratory there at Edison’s place in Fort Myers.

Unlike the Menlo Park lab, it had few motors, gears and belts, but lots of test tubes and, of all things, trays of flowers. Thomas Edison, the pioneer of electricity, was experimenting with goldenrods.

At the time, automobile tires were made from real rubber, imported from Africa. One company had a monopoly on the shipments, so Firestone and Ford asked Edison to come up with something they could make in the United States.

Edison was trying to perfect a rubber-like substance made of goldenrods when he died in 1931. As it turned out, others went on to develop artificial rubber, made of purely⁷ chemical compounds.

So you won’t see big electrical sparks at Edison’s laboratory in Florida. 

But you will see evidence of that goldenrod research and, just outside the door, a huge banyan⁸ tree, as big as a house. Harvey Firestone brought what is now a massive tangle⁹ of trunk and branches and roots to Edison from Calcutta, India, in 1925.

Thomas Edison came to love plants - the goldenrods, the banyan, and palm trees. He gave tiny Fort Myers hundreds of palm saplings to plant along the main road. Today they form a beautiful canopy¹⁰ for which Fort Myers is famous.

1 prolific   

adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的

参考例句：

• She is a prolific writer of novels and short stories.她是一位多产的作家，写了很多小说和短篇故事。
• The last few pages of the document are prolific of mistakes.这个文件的最后几页错误很多。

2 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

3 stylish   

adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的

参考例句：

• He's a stylish dresser.他是个穿着很有格调的人。
• What stylish women are wearing in Paris will be worn by women all over the world.巴黎女性时装往往会引导世界时装潮流。

4 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

5 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。

6 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

7 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

8 banyan   

n.菩提树，榕树

参考例句：

• This huge banyan tree has a history of more than 400 years.这棵大榕树已经有四百多年的历史了。
• A large banyan tree may look like a forest.大型的榕树看起来象一片树林。

9 tangle   

n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱

参考例句：

• I shouldn't tangle with Peter.He is bigger than me.我不应该与彼特吵架。他的块头比我大。
• If I were you, I wouldn't tangle with them.我要是你，我就不跟他们争吵。

10 canopy   

n.天篷，遮篷

参考例句：

• The trees formed a leafy canopy above their heads.树木在他们头顶上空形成了一个枝叶茂盛的遮篷。
• They lay down under a canopy of stars.他们躺在繁星点点的天幕下。