Of the millions of inventions.doc

Of the millions of inventions, what are the ten greatest?数百万的发明,十个最大的是什么?Ive drawn up a list. And theres one thing I know about this list: You wont agree with it. Some of you will write to tell me I forgot the gun, the airplane, or whatever. Which is fine: A top-ten list is all about starting a good argument. But to draw up (and then argue about) such a list, you have to set some guidelines, and here are mine: Im starting at the year zero. Otherwise, wed never get out of prehistory. And Im limiting inventions to physical devices. The scientific method, the university and electricity dont count-they are, respectively, a concept, a social system, and something we discovered but which existed all along.我草拟了一个列表。还有一件事我知道这个列表:你不会同意。你们中的一些人会写信告诉我我忘记了枪,飞机等等。很好:一个十位的全是一个好论点。但起草(然后争论)这样的列表,你必须设置一些指南,这里是我的:我从今年开始零。否则,我们从未离开史前史。我限制发明的物理设备。科学方法、大学和电力不算,他们分别是一个概念,一个社会系统,我们发现的东西而存在。This is a list of end products. That is, Im excluding components with no independent function. Take the gear, for example. A groundbreaking bit of technology to be sure. Without it, wed scarcely have any machines at all. But we never say, Oh, darn, Im out of gears! Ditto microchips, transistors, and ball bearings. Here, then, in no particular order, are my nominees as the ten greatest inventions.这是一个终端产品列表。也就是说,我不包括组件并没有独立的功能。以齿轮为例。可以肯定的是一项开创性的技术。没有它,我们几乎没有任何机器。但我们从来不说:“哦,该死,我的齿轮!“同上微芯片、晶体管和球轴承。在这里,然后,在没有特定的顺序,是我的提名为十个最大的发明。1. The Mechanical Clock. Before this invention, time was inseparable from events, the main one being the Sun crossing the sky. Only local time existed, no universal river of time. If you agreed to meet someone at sunset, you had to say where, because the Sun is always setting somewhere. The sundial merely divided the Suns daily journey into units, which meant the hour had no fixed length: it swelled and shrank with the seasons. Besides, no one carried a sundial around, so you never heard anyone say, Cant talk now, Im on the sundial. Then, mechanical clocks came around-gears, springs, pendulums, the works. Gradually, as these clocks all came to be coordinated, they created public time, a thing in itself: one single, universal current flowing everywhere throughout the universe, always at the same pace. People could now communicate with each other by coordinating to this universal frame of reference. Thus, clocks made factories, offices, schools, meetings, and appointments possible. The activities of millions could be meshed like, well, clockwork. And of course, what clocks made possible, they soon made necessary. In a clock-driven world, most of us are now either on time, ahead of schedule, or running late.1。机械钟。这项发明之前,时间与事件是分不开的,主要是太阳穿越天空。只有当地时间存在,没有普遍的时间之河。如果你同意在日落时分遇见某人,你必须说,因为太阳总是设置的地方。日晷仅仅每天太阳的旅程分为单位,这意味着一个小时没有固定长度:随季节而膨胀和收缩。此外,周围没有一个人带着一个日晷,所以你从来没听过有人说,“现在不能说话,我在日晷。“然后,机械钟,齿轮、弹簧、钟摆,。渐渐地,随着这些时钟都来协调,他们创造了公共时间,本身:一个单一的、普遍的电流都在整个宇宙中,总是以同样的速度。现在人们可以相互沟通协调这种普遍的参照系。因此,时钟制造工厂、办公室、学校、会议和约会。数百万人的活动可能是网状,发条。当然,时钟成为可能,他们很快就必要的。在clock-driven的世界中,我们大多数人现在要么“,”“提前”,或“迟到了。”2. The Toilet* and Modern Plumbing. * Go ahead. Laugh. Then try to imagine New York City without toilets. You cant. The ability to remove sewage from and bring clean water into places of dense human habitation makes the modern city possible. Without it, wed still have cities, but not like the ones we know. A high-rise building would be impossible, really, without toilets and plumbing. Remove apartment buildings, office towers, and dense downtown cores from your picture of the world and you have to change the whole rest of your picture too, because the implications keep rippling.2。厕所*和现代管道。*吧。笑了。然后尝试想象纽约没有厕所。你不能。去除污水的能力,把干净的水为密集的人类居住的地方使现代城市成为可能。没有它,我们仍然有城市,但不像我们所熟悉的。一幢高层建筑是不可能的,真的,没有马桶和管道。删除公寓大楼,办公大楼,和密集的市中心核心世界的你的照片,你必须改变整个的你的照片,因为影响一直荡漾。3. The Printing Press. Unoriginal, I know, but still its true. Gutenbergs press, with its movable type, launched publishing. In the short term, this made the Reformation possible by putting a Bible in the hands of anybody who wanted one. The Church lost its lock on truth, and the sovereign individual soon emerged as the key unit of Western society. In the longer term, publishing universalized literacy*. Before this invention, so few could read that, effectively, even those few lived in a world of oral tradition and memory. Humanitys consensual picture of reality was shaped by stories, told and retold. In this fluid world, if the big picture shifted, no one knew, because they had nothing to check it against. The proliferation of text fixed objective reality. Now, when two people disagree about what happened yesterday, they can look it up. Stories have survived, but merely as entertainment. Our modern collective picture of reality is founded on facts archived as text.3。印刷术。非原创,我知道,但是这是真的。古腾堡的出版社,活字印刷,出版。在短期内,这使得改革可能将手中的圣经的人想要一个。教会失去了锁定真理,和主权个人很快就成为西方社会的主要单位。从长远来看,出版使普遍化识字*。这项发明之前,很少能读,有效,即使是那些很少住在口头传统和记忆的世界里。人类的两厢情愿的现实的故事,一遍又一遍地。在这个流动的世界,如果大局了,没有人知道,因为他们没有检查它。文本的扩散固定的客观现实。现在,当两人不同意昨天发生了什么,他们可以查。故事中幸存下来,但只是娱乐。我们现代的集体照片现实是建立在事实存档为文本。4. Immunization and Antibiotics. Three centuries ago, almost everyone died of infectious diseases. When the plague broke out in 1347, it killed nearly half of Europe-in about two years. When diseases such as smallpox reached North America, they reduced the indigenous population by about 90 percent within a century. As late as 1800, the leading cause of death in the West was tuberculosis. Hardly anyone died of old age back then, one reason why elders were revered. Today, elders are a dime a dozen: nothing unusual about surviving past 70. In the United States, 73 percent of people die of heart failure, cancer, and stroke. Chronic respiratory illnesses (related to smoking mostly) account for the fourth biggest slice of funeral business. Its a different world, folks.4。免疫和抗生素。三个世纪前,几乎所有人都死于传染病。1347年瘟疫爆发时,它杀死了近一半的欧洲人在大约两年。当疾病如天花到达北美,他们减少了大约90%的土著居民一个世纪。直到1800年,在西方死亡的主要原因是肺结核。几乎没有人死于年老,也尊敬老人的原因之一。今天,老人比比皆是:没有什么不寻常的活过70年。在美国,73%的人死于心脏衰竭、癌症和中风。慢性呼吸道疾病(有关吸烟主要)占葬礼的第四大切片业务。这是一个不同的世界的人。5. The Telephone. Lots of people imagined the telephone before any telephone existed. Wouldnt it be cool, they said, if you could talk to someone in another city without leaving home? Once the device was invented, and businessmen had wrested it away from the inventors, the Network began to form. Thats the actual invention-the Network. It enables anyone to talk to anyone anywhere at any given moment. So today, anyones real-time group includes people not physically present, and they could be anywhere. The infrastructure took some time to develop, but the telephone implied all this from the start. Wireless cell phones dont change the core idea, they merely extend it. The Network continues to deepen.5。电话。很多人想象电话电话之前存在。不是很酷,他们说,如果你能跟别人没有离开家在另一个城市?一旦设备被发明,发明家和商人已经夺取了它远离网络开始形成。这是实际的发明网络。它使任何人在任何时候任何地方的任何人交谈。所以今天,没有任何人的实时群体包括身体上的礼物,他们可以在任何地方。基础设施开发花了一些时间,但电话暗示这一切从一开始。无线手机不改变的核心思想,他们只是扩展它。网络继续深化。6. The Electrical Grid. Electricity existed all along, but the system of devices needed to generate this force and distribute it to individual buildings was an invention, launched initially by Edison: He effectively turned electricity into a salable commodity and his Pearl Street station was the6。电网。电一直存在,但是该系统的设备需要单个建筑的生成这力量和分发是一项发明,最初发起爱迪生:他有效地把电变成了畅销的商品和珍珠街站是worlds first electric power station. Nikola Teslas invention of alternating current (AC) technology then made it possible to transmit electricity over long distances, leading to the nationwide grid we know today. Now, anyone in the West and throughout most of the world can tap into the grid to power everything from light bulbs to computers. We are, in fact, a social organism animated by electricity (and rendered conscious by the Network-see above).世界上第一个电站。尼古拉特斯拉发明的交流电(AC)技术则使它可以长距离传输电能,导致我们今天知道的全国性的电网。现在,任何人在西方和世界各地的大多数可以利用网格从灯泡到电脑。我们,事实上,社会有机体的动画由电力(和意识的呈现网络见上图)。7. The Automobile. Once cars were invented, roads were improved. Once roads were improved, cities sprouted suburbs, because people could now live in the country, yet work in the city. And thus we have become a nation of sprawl, rather than density. Furthermore, as cars grew popular, the oil industry boomed. Oil became a key to power and wealth-and one of the major factors for political and economic unrest in the Middle East. And here we are today.7。汽车。汽车被发明后,道路被改善。一旦道路改善,城市郊区发芽,因为人们现在可以住在乡下,但在城里工作。因此我们已成为一个国家的扩张,而不是密度。此外,随着汽车越来越受欢迎,石油行业蓬勃发展。石油成为了权力和财富,关键的一个主要因素在中东的政治和经济动荡。今天和我们在这里。8.8. The Television. Wherever a television set is on, it absorbs attention like no other piece of furniture. Jane Healy, in her book Endangered Minds, says television has changed the human brain itself. Our neural networks are not hardwired at birth but continue to develop for several years, new circuits forming in response to our first interactions with the environment. In