Inventions and Inventors
發(fā)明和發(fā)明者
1. If we wrote down the names of all the things people have invented since the beginning of the world, we would have a very long list. We would find that most of these items are improvements on previous inventions. We would also see that many of them have limited use for a particular field purpose.
1、如果我們寫(xiě)下有史以來(lái)人們發(fā)明的所有事物的名字，我們會(huì)有一個(gè)很長(zhǎng)的名單。我們會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)其中很多東西都是對(duì)以往發(fā)明的改進(jìn)。我們也會(huì)看到它們其中很多發(fā)明都只是在特定領(lǐng)域或?qū)μ囟康牡挠邢抻猛尽?/p>
2. Occasionally, however, there are inventions which change the way we live. Controlled fire and the wheel are two such inventions which allowed our ancestors to live a better life in safety. Agricultural tools invented about 10,000 years ago helped people learn to grow enough food to feed large populations. They actually led to the development of cities.
2、然而，偶爾有發(fā)明會(huì)徹底改變我們的生活方式。受控制的火以及車(chē)輪就是這樣兩種發(fā)明，它們使我們的祖先在安全上獲得更好的生活。大約發(fā)明于一萬(wàn)年前的農(nóng)業(yè)工具幫助人們學(xué)會(huì)生產(chǎn)足夠的食物以養(yǎng)活龐大的人口。它們事實(shí)上導(dǎo)致了城市的發(fā)展。
3. We don't know about the inventors of fire and the wheel, but we can read about the people who invented other things which are important to our everyday lives. In one way or another, all of our lives are affected by their inventions.
3、我們不知道是誰(shuí)發(fā)明火和輪子，但是，我們可以通過(guò)閱讀得知是誰(shuí)發(fā)明了其它那些對(duì)我們?nèi)粘Ｉ詈苤匾臇|西。這些發(fā)明以這樣或那樣的方式，影響著我們所有人的生活。
4. For more than 3,000 years, ships were powered by sails. Then in 1793, an American named Robert Fulton became interested in an idea which would mean the end of sailing ships. Many People knew how to built steamships, but the only ones they could build were small and impractical. No one truly believed that ships run by steam power would replace the beautiful and colorful sailing ships. They were wrong.
4、在三千多年的時(shí)間里，船一直依靠帆獲得動(dòng)力。1793年，一位名叫羅伯特·富爾頓的美國(guó)人對(duì)一個(gè)想法產(chǎn)生了興趣，這個(gè)想法意味著帆船時(shí)代的終結(jié)。很多人知道如何建造蒸汽船，但是他們只能建造一些小而不實(shí)用（的蒸汽船）。沒(méi)有人真正相信以蒸汽為動(dòng)力的船會(huì)取代漂亮而又種類繁多的帆船。他們錯(cuò)了。
5. Fulton worked in France and England for a number of years, perfecting his ideas. Then in 1806, he returned to the United States and began to build the Clermont. It was an experiment to see if anyone could build a ship and operate it successfully as a business. Making money was the true test, since shipbuilders would not invest their money unless they knew that they could make a profit.
5、富爾頓先生在法國(guó)和英國(guó)工作了許多年，他的想法逐漸完善。之后，在1806年，他返回美國(guó)開(kāi)始建造克萊蒙特號(hào)（蒸汽船）。這是一次試驗(yàn)，確定是否可以建造一艘可成功地進(jìn)行商業(yè)運(yùn)行的蒸汽船。賺錢(qián)是真正的試驗(yàn)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，因?yàn)槌窃齑讨揽梢垣@利，否則不會(huì)把他們的錢(qián)投進(jìn)去。
6. The Clermont was 130 feet long, 16 1/2 feet wide and 4 feet deep. On August 11, 1807, the first commercial steamship traveled up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany. It made the round trip of 300 miles in 62 hours. That seems slow to us today, but 200 years ago it was a remarkable speed.
6、克萊蒙特號(hào)蒸汽船有130英尺長(zhǎng)，16、5英尺寬，4英尺深。1807年8月11日，第一艘商業(yè)蒸汽船從紐約市沿哈德遜河逆流而上，駛往阿爾巴尼。它花了62小時(shí)完成了300英里往返航行。今天在我們看來(lái)航行是緩慢的，但是200年前，這速度是異乎尋常的。
7. Thousands of people watched the event, and most realized immediately how important it was. Within a few years, there were steamships in most parts of the world. Only four years later, the first steamship crossed the Atlantic Ocean. From that time to the present, sails have been used only for pleasure and sporting boats.
7、成千上萬(wàn)的人觀看了航行，大多數(shù)人立刻意識(shí)到這件事是多么重要。幾年內(nèi)，蒸汽船遍布世界上大多數(shù)地方。僅僅四年之后，第一艘蒸汽船橫渡了大西洋。從那時(shí)起到現(xiàn)在，帆船的用途就僅限于娛樂(lè)和體育用船了。
8. Travel and transportation were changed when the steamship was invented, and they were changed even more when the locomotive was invented by George Stephenson in 1814.
8、發(fā)明蒸汽船之后，人們的旅行和交通運(yùn)輸都改變了。而在1814年，喬治·史蒂芬遜發(fā)明蒸汽機(jī)車(chē)后，變化更大了。
9. Stephenson had seen something like a locomotive at a mine near his home in Killings worth, England. He like the idea and decided that he could build a better one. He changed the tracks from wood to steel and made the locomotive much larger. He had some help from a mine owner, and by July 25, 1814, he was ready.
9、在英國(guó)金斯伍斯，史蒂芬遜先生曾經(jīng)在家附近的某個(gè)礦場(chǎng)看到過(guò)類似蒸汽機(jī)車(chē)的東西。他喜歡這個(gè)主意，并且決定制造一個(gè)更好的蒸汽機(jī)車(chē)。他把路軌從木頭改為鋼軌，并且增大了機(jī)車(chē)體積。他得到了一位礦主的幫助，到了1814年7月25日，他已經(jīng)準(zhǔn)備就緒。
10. The Blucher went only 4 miles per hour, but it pulled a load of 30 tons of coal up hill. It was only the beginning. Within eleven years, there were railroads all over England pulling large amounts of supplies and cargo in short spaces of time. On September 27, 1825, the first full passenger railroad went into operation. It had thirty cars and 300 passengers, and it traveled 15 miles per hour.
10、布呂歇爾號(hào)蒸汽機(jī)車(chē)的時(shí)速只有4英里，但是它拖載了30噸煤上山。而這僅僅是開(kāi)始。在此后11年內(nèi)，可在很短的時(shí)間里運(yùn)輸大量商品和貨物的鐵路遍布全英國(guó)。1825年9月27日，第一條完全用于載客的鐵路投入使用�？蛙�(chē)有30個(gè)車(chē)皮、300名旅客，時(shí)速達(dá)15英里。
11. Stephenson's railroad was efficient and profitable, and a new method of transporting freight and people was here to stay.
11、史蒂芬遜的鐵路有效且賺錢(qián)，一種運(yùn)貨和載人的新式交通方式面世了。
12. The basis for our modern system of communication began when Samuel Mores invented the telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, and Guglielmo Marconi invented the telegraph without wires. All of these eventually led to the later inventions radio and the television and of electronics after them.
12、現(xiàn)代通信系統(tǒng)的起點(diǎn)是從薩繆爾·摩爾斯發(fā)明電報(bào)、亞歷山大·格雷漢姆·貝爾發(fā)明電話、以及古格里莫·馬可尼發(fā)明無(wú)線電報(bào)開(kāi)始的。所有這些發(fā)明最終導(dǎo)致了此后的飛機(jī)、電視和其后的電子元器件的發(fā)明。
13. Morse was born in Massachusetts shortly after the Revolutionary War. He "invented" the telegraph while he was still a college student at Yale, but it was thirty-four more years until the first telegraph system began operating between Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington D.C. .
13、摩爾斯在美國(guó)革命戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)后不久在麻省出生。當(dāng)他還是個(gè)耶魯大學(xué)學(xué)生時(shí)，就“發(fā)明”了電報(bào)，但是直到三十四年以后，第一個(gè)電報(bào)系統(tǒng)才開(kāi)始在馬里蘭州的巴爾的摩與華盛頓特區(qū)之間運(yùn)行。
14. As with most inventions, Morse borrowed from the ideas of many others in making his telegraph. In 1827, Harrison Grey Dyer used a form of the telegraph on long Island, New York, but he gave up the idea. The problem facing most inventors was finding a good source of electricity to make the telegraph work.
14、如同大多數(shù)發(fā)明一樣，摩爾斯在制作電報(bào)借用了許多其他人的想法。1827年，哈里森·格雷·戴爾曾在紐約長(zhǎng)島使用了一種電報(bào)形式，但是他放棄了這個(gè)想法。當(dāng)時(shí)大多數(shù)發(fā)明者面臨的問(wèn)題是尋找一個(gè)使電報(bào)工作的好電源。
15. Morse found that source of power, and he also invented a system for using the telegraph, the Morse code. He was responsible for our first system of communication based on electricity. Morse's system linked most major cities in the United States and Europe, and it is still used today.
15、摩爾斯找到了那種電源，同時(shí)他還發(fā)明了“摩爾斯碼”系統(tǒng)用于電報(bào)。他是我們的第一臺(tái)電力通信系統(tǒng)的創(chuàng)造者。摩爾斯的電報(bào)連接著美國(guó)和歐洲的大多數(shù)主要城市，甚至直到現(xiàn)在被使用。
16. Thirty years after Morse's invention, a man came along who wanted to improve the telegraph. Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, Thomas Watson, were working on something they called the multiple telegraph. By accident, they allowed two points of their experiment to become stuck together. When they tried to remove the two pieces, they heard a human voice come out of one end of a wire in the other room. It was Watson's voice!
16、在摩爾斯的發(fā)明出現(xiàn)30年后，一個(gè)人想改進(jìn)電報(bào)，亞歷山大·格雷漢姆·貝爾及他的助手托馬斯·華生，致力于研究多路電報(bào)。他們很偶然地讓實(shí)驗(yàn)裝置的兩個(gè)點(diǎn)粘在了一起。當(dāng)他們?cè)噲D分開(kāi)這兩片實(shí)驗(yàn)裝置時(shí)，他們聽(tīng)到了在另一個(gè)房間的線端傳出人的聲音。那是華生的聲音！
17. They tried it again and realized that they had discovered how to send human sounds over a wire. It took another year to make it work perfectly, but by 1876 Bell was able to show the world his telephone.
17、他們又試了一次，意識(shí)到自己發(fā)現(xiàn)了“如何通過(guò)線路傳遞人的聲音”的方法。此后他們又花了一年的時(shí)間完善這種方法，到1876年，貝爾已經(jīng)能夠向世界展示他的電話。
18. The first actual telephone call also had something to do with an accident. Bell and Watson had everything set for their first test of the invention. Bell had his phone in one room and Watson had his in another. Bell had decided that the first words over his phone should be from Shakespeare. He started to read a line from the play Hamlet. "To be or not to be; that is the question." Instead, Bell spilled some acid on his coat. He was afraid it would burn his skin, so he called over the telephone, "Mr. Watson, come here; I want you!" it would not be the last time that someone made an emergency phone call!
18、第一次真正的電話通話時(shí)也發(fā)生了一個(gè)意外。貝爾和華生為第一次測(cè)試他們的發(fā)明做好了一切準(zhǔn)備。貝爾拿著話機(jī)在一個(gè)房間，華生拿著他的話機(jī)在另一個(gè)房間。貝爾決定，他通過(guò)電話說(shuō)的第一句話應(yīng)當(dāng)來(lái)自莎士比亞。他開(kāi)始讀戲劇《哈姆雷特》中的話：“做，或者不做，這才是問(wèn)題的關(guān)鍵�！比欢@時(shí)貝爾潑翻了一些酸液，濺到他的外套上。他害怕酸液燒傷他的皮膚，他通過(guò)電話喊道，“華生先生，到這里來(lái)！我需要你！”這不會(huì)是人們最后一次打緊急求救電話！
19. Guglielmo Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy, the year the telephone was invented. He came from a poor family, but he had a good mind and he studied all of the great inventions of the day. He was particularly interested in the idea of a wireless telegraph.
19、古格里莫·馬可尼出生于意大利的博羅格那，在電話被發(fā)明的那一年。他家境貧寒，但很有才智，他研究了當(dāng)時(shí)所有重大發(fā)明，他對(duì)無(wú)線電報(bào)的想法特別感興趣。
20. Marconi studied books by many inventors, including Heinrich Hertz, who discovered what we now call radio waves, and Michael Faraday, the inventor of the dynamo for producing electrical energy. He experimented for years in his own laboratory, and while he was still a young man, he invented wireless telegraphy.
20、馬可尼研究了許多發(fā)明家的著作，包括海因里�！ず掌澋臅�(shū)，他發(fā)現(xiàn)了我們現(xiàn)在所稱的無(wú)線電波，以及邁克爾·法拉第的書(shū)，他是產(chǎn)生電能之發(fā)電機(jī)的發(fā)明者。他在他自己的實(shí)驗(yàn)室里成年累月的作實(shí)驗(yàn)，之后，當(dāng)他還是個(gè)年輕人的時(shí)候，他發(fā)明了無(wú)線電報(bào)。
21. First Marconi sent the Morse code letter S a distance of 300 feet. Then he sent the sounds of bells a little farther. In 1897, he sent a signal a distance of nine miles in England. He sent a message across the England Channel to France two years later, and in the same year he sent the first message from a ship to the shore.
21、馬可尼首先將摩爾斯碼的字母S發(fā)送了300英尺遠(yuǎn)。然后他把鈴聲發(fā)送得稍遠(yuǎn)些。1897年，他在英國(guó)將一個(gè)信號(hào)發(fā)送了9英里遠(yuǎn)。兩年以后，他將一條消息經(jīng)過(guò)英吉利海峽發(fā)送到法國(guó)。同年，他第一次將消息從船上發(fā)送到岸上。
22. Marconi was very successful with his invention. With all the money he made, he improved the system, and in 1901, he was able to send a signal across the Atlantic Ocean. Again, it was the letter S, and it traveled 1,800 miles from England to New-foundland, Canada. Marconi continued to improve his system. In 1905, when he was only thirty-one years old, he sent a signal from England to the United States—a distance of 3,000 miles. Marconi's invention was the beginning of a new age.
22、馬可尼的發(fā)明獲得巨大成功。他將賺來(lái)的所有錢(qián)用來(lái)改進(jìn)這個(gè)系統(tǒng)。1901年，他能夠越過(guò)大西洋發(fā)送信號(hào)。再一次，他將字母S從英國(guó)發(fā)送到加拿大的紐芬蘭，長(zhǎng)達(dá)1800英里。馬可尼繼續(xù)改進(jìn)他的系統(tǒng)。1905年，當(dāng)他31歲時(shí)，他把一個(gè)信號(hào)從英國(guó)發(fā)到了美國(guó)，距離遠(yuǎn)達(dá)3000英里。馬可尼的發(fā)明標(biāo)志著一個(gè)新時(shí)代的開(kāi)始。
