当前位置:精选城 > 初中英语作文 > 初中英语作文那些偶然诞生的伟大发明

初中英语作文那些偶然诞生的伟大发明

发布时间:2024-03-29 07:23:19 文章来源:初中英语作文作者:佚名

Louis Pasteur once said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” Thats the truth behind all these accidental inventions—the scientists were prepared. They did their science on the brink and were able to see the magic in a mistake, set-back, or coincidence.

路易·巴斯德曾经说过:“机会垂青有准备的人。”这正是所有这些偶然发现背后蕴藏的真理,而做出这些发现的科学家们就是那有准备的人。他们的研究处于科学前沿,而且他们能够从错误、挫折或巧合中发现奇迹。

No.1 Penicillin1 青霉素

Alexander Fleming didnt clean up his workstation before going on vacation one day in 1928. When he came back, Fleming noticed that there was a strange fungus2 on some of his cultures3. Even stranger was that bacteria didnt seem to grow well near those cultures. The fungus became known as Penicillin. It became the first and is still one of the most widely used antibiotics4.

1928年的一天,亚历山大·弗莱明在出发去度假之前忘了清理工作台。度假归来后,他发现自己的一些培养基上长出了一种奇怪的霉菌。更加奇怪的是,细菌似乎不易在这些培养基附近生长。这种霉菌就是后来广为人知的青霉素。青霉素是人类最早发现的抗生素,并且至今仍是使用最广泛的抗生素之一。

No.2 Mauve 苯胺紫

In 1856, 18-year-old chemist William Perkin was trying to come up with an artificial quinine. Instead of a malaria5 treatment, his experiments produced a thick murky6 mess. But the more Perkin looked at it, the more he saw a beautiful color in his mess. Turns out he had made the first-ever synthetic7 dye.

His dye was far better than any dyes that came from nature; the color was brighter, clearer, and didnt fade or wash out. His discovery also turned chemistry into a money-generating science—making it attractive for a whole generation of curious-minded people.

But the story is not over yet. One of the people inspired by Perkins work was German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich, who used Perkins dyes to pioneer immunology8 and chemotherapy9.

1856年,18岁的药剂师威廉·珀金正在尝试人工合成奎宁(编注:一种抗疟药)。不过,他的实验得到的却并不是治疗疟疾的药物,而是一团黑乎乎的黏稠物质。但珀金越看越觉得这团物质中透着一种美丽的色泽。原来,他已经制成了历史上第一种人工合成染料。

这种染料远胜于任何一种天然染料,用它染出的颜色更为鲜亮、清晰,而且不会褪色,水洗也不掉色。他的这一发明还使化学成为一门 “钱”途光明的科学,吸引了整整一代富有好奇心的人们投身其中。

不过,事情并未到此结束。很多人受到了珀金研究的启发,其中便有德国细菌学家保罗·埃尔利希,他利用珀金的染料开创了免疫学和化学疗法。

No.3 Radioactivity 放射现象

Back in 1896, physicist Henri Becquerel was fascinated by two things: natural fluorescence10 and the newfangled11 X-ray. He ran a series of experiments to see if naturally fluorescent minerals produced X-rays after they had been left out in the sun.

There was one problem: he was doing these experiments in the winter, and there was one week with a long stretch of overcast skies. He left his equipment wrapped up together in a drawer and waited for a sunny day.

When he got back to work, Becquerel realized that the uranium12 rock he had left in the drawer had imprinted itself on a photographic plate13 without being exposed to sunlight first. There was something very special about that rock. Working with Marie and Pierre Curie, he discovered that that something was radioactivity.

1896年,物理学家亨利·贝克雷尔对两个事物很着迷:一个是自然荧光现象,另一个就是新奇的X射线。他进行了一系列实验,想看看有自然荧光属性的矿物质在经过日照后能否产生X射线。

不过他遇到了一个问题:他做这些实验时正值冬季,又赶上一周持续都是阴天。于是,他把实验器材全部打包在一起放进了一个抽屉,等待晴天到来。

当贝克雷尔再继续这个实验时,他发现被他放进抽屉的铀矿石在事先未经日光照射的条件下就在摄影用的感光板上成像了。这块矿石有些不寻常。贝克雷尔与居里夫妇玛丽和皮埃尔共同进行了研究,最终发现这种不寻常的现象正是放射现象。

No.4 Plastic 塑料

In 1907, shellac14 was used as insulation15 in electronics. It was costing the industry a lot of money to import shellac, which was made from Southeast Asian beetles, and at home chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland thought he might turn a profit if he could produce a shellac alternative16.

Instead his experiments produced a moldable material that could take high temperatures without distorting.

Baekeland thought his “Bakelite” might be used for phonograph records, but it was soon clear that the product had thousands of uses. Today plastic, which was derived from Bakelite, is used for everything from telephones to iconic movie punch lines17.

1907年,虫胶被用作电子工业中的绝缘材料。由于虫胶来源于东南亚的一种甲虫,电子工业界为了进口虫胶所费不赀,因此,国内(编注:指美国)一位名叫利奥·亨德里克·贝克兰的化学家就想,如果他能够生产出虫胶的替代品,就可能会获得不菲的收益。

然而,他多次实验得到的却是一种能耐高温而不会变形的可塑性物质。

贝克兰原本以为他发明的这种“酚醛树脂”可以用来制造唱片,但不久就发现这种物质其实有无数种用途。如今,从电话机到经典电影台词,都离不开这种从“酚醛树脂”发展而来的塑料。

No.5 Teflon18 聚四氟乙烯

Back in the 1930s, CFCs19 were the hot new thing in the science of refrigeration. Young DuPont chemist Roy Plunkett was working to make a new kind of CFC. He had a theory that if he could get a compound called TFE to react with hydrochloric acid20, he could produce the refrigerant21 he wanted.

So, to start his experiment Plunkett got a whole bunch of TFE gas, cooled it and pressured it in a container so it could be stored until he was ready to use it. When the time came to open the container and put the TFE and hydrochloric acid together so they could react, nothing came out of the container. The gas had disappeared.

Only it hadnt. Frustrated and angry, Plunkett took off the top of the container and shook it. Out came some fine white flakes. Luckily for everyone whos ever made an omelet22, he was intrigued by the flakes and handed them off to other scientists at DuPont.

在20世纪30年代,氟氯烃类化合物在制冷科学中可谓热门的新生事物。当时杜邦公司年轻的化学家罗伊·普伦基特正在尝试合成一种新的氟氯烃。他的想法是,如果能得到一种叫做四氟乙烯的化合物,用它和盐酸反应,他就能制成自己想要的制冷剂。

于是,在实验准备阶段,普伦基特制备了大量四氟乙烯气体,将其冷却并加压储存于一个容器中以备使用。等到他想要开启容器把四氟乙烯和盐酸放在一起让二者发生反应时,却发现容器里面空空如也。四氟乙烯气体早已消失了。

实际上它并未消失。普伦基特在沮丧和愤怒之余打开了那个容器的盖子,用力晃了晃。一些白色的小薄片从里面掉了出来。他对这些小薄片产生了兴趣,并把它们拿给了杜邦公司的其他研究人员,这对所有做过煎蛋卷的人们可谓幸事(编注:不粘锅上用的就是聚四氟乙烯涂料)。

注释

1. penicillin n. 【药】青霉素(又译盘尼西林,一种抗生素)

2. fungus n. 【植】真菌;霉菌

3. culture n. (微生物、细胞组织等的)培养

4. antibiotic n. 【微】抗菌素,抗生素

5. malaria n. 【医】疟疾

6. murky adj. 污黑的;浑浊的

7. synthetic adj. 合成的;人造的

8. immunology n. 免疫学

9. chemotherapy n. 【医】化学疗法

10. fluorescence n. 荧光;荧光性

11. newfangled adj. 新奇的

12. uranium n. 【化】铀

13. plate n. 【摄】感光板

14. shellac n. 虫胶

15. insulation n. 【物】绝缘

16. alternative n. 供替代的选择

17. punch line: (故事、戏剧、笑话等中的)妙句,关键语

18. Teflon: 【化】聚四氟乙烯,一种不粘性涂料

19. CFC:【化】含氟氯烃化合物

20. hydrochloric acid: 盐酸

21. refrigerant n. 制冷剂,冷冻剂

22. omelet n. 煎蛋卷

Copyright © www.4t9.com 1998-2020  All Rights Reserved  版权所有:作文精选城

本站内容为网友投稿,如有不妥请联系我们.邮箱: @qq.com

Processed in 2023-03-28 04:53:44,Rss,sitemap