VOA标准英语2012--Inventor Is Greatest Job Creator in US History
时间：2019-01-14 作者：英语课 分类：VOA标准英语2012年(十月)
Inventor Is Greatest Job Creator in US History
The outcome of next month’s U.S. presidential election may turn on one little word: jobs. President Obama and challenger Mitt 1 Romney are offering competing recipes for economic growth.
But we can assure you that neither of them will come close to matching the greatest job creator in American history.
In fact, it is said of him that one quarter of all the jobs - not just in the United States but in the world - can be traced to something he thought of and made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Thomas Edison not only invented some of the most practical devices of all time - the incandescent 2 light bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture projector 3, waxed paper, and much more - his 1,093 patents led to the development of whole industries.
Flipped 4 on a light switch recently? Watched a good movie? Ridden up any skyscrapers 5? Edison invented things that made all that possible.
In the case of the giant office towers, for instance, he developed 46-meter-long kilns 6 into which long sections of concrete, reinforced with steel rods, could be cured.
Edison’s vacuum tubes made possible the development of radio and all that has come after it. His pioneering work electrifying 7 rails sped the introduction of subway trains.
Edison even invented ways to invent! Work inside his laboratory complex in Menlo Park, New Jersey 8, was devoted 9 to what he called “the rapid development of inventions” that would provide “useful things that every man, woman, and child wants - at a price that they can afford.”
Of his assistants, he demanded - and got - a revolutionary invention every six months.
Often this genius, who had been expelled from school for being “mentally retarded,” supervised the work on 40 projects simultaneously 10.
Just as things don’t always go so well for the job-creators of today, Thomas Edison had some ideas that didn’t work out so well. He tried and failed to extract bits of gold from iron ore.
He made a concrete piano that was rather cumbersome 11, to say the least. And although he made a box in which both a film and music played, he never figured out how to make talking pictures.
Still, as one Thomas Edison Web site puts it, “He led no armies into battle, he conquered no countries, and he enslaved no peoples... Nonetheless, he exerted a degree of power the magnitude of which no warrior 12 ever dreamed.”
- I gave him a baseball mitt for his birthday.为祝贺他的生日，我送给他一只棒球手套。
- Tom squeezed a mitt and a glove into the bag.汤姆把棒球手套和手套都塞进袋子里。
- The incandescent lamp we use in daily life was invented by Edison.我们日常生活中用的白炽灯，是爱迪生发明的。
- The incandescent quality of his words illuminated the courage of his countrymen.他炽热的语言点燃了他本国同胞的勇气。
- There is a new projector in my office.我的办公室里有一架新的幻灯机。
- How long will it take to set up the projector?把这个放映机安放好需要多长时间？
- The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
- The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。
- A lot of skyscrapers in Manhattan are rising up to the skies. 曼哈顿有许多摩天大楼耸入云霄。
- On all sides, skyscrapers rose like jagged teeth. 四周耸起的摩天大楼参差不齐。
- Bricks and earthware articles are baked in kilns. 砖和陶器都是在窑中烧成的。 来自辞典例句
- The bricks are baking in the kilns. ？里正在烧砖。 来自辞典例句
- The dancers gave an electrifying performance. 舞蹈演员们的表演激动人心。
- The national orchestra gave an electrifying performance of classic music. 国家交响乐团举行了一次古典音乐的震撼性演出。 来自辞典例句
- 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。
- He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
- We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
- The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
- The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。
- Although the machine looks cumbersome,it is actually easy to use.尽管这台机器看上去很笨重，操作起来却很容易。
- The furniture is too cumbersome to move.家具太笨，搬起来很不方便。