Unit 18 Inventions

一、课文导读 I.Read the text,and finish the following cloze. ______ history, great thinkers have used their creativity and imagination to change the world. How do they______ ideas for new inventions？     

短文两则

There have been many great inventions that changed the way we live. The first great invention was the one that is still very important today--the wheel. This made it easier to carry heavy things and to travel long distances.     

Dreams

We are living in a world which is made of "dreams". I say so because many inventions are actually dreams of the inventors at the     

Brief Introduction To Main Historic Sites Of Kaifeng

Kaifeng was called Bianliang or simply Bian in ancient times. The "capital of seven dynasties" is one of the six ancient cultural centres and capitals of China. Among the tourist centres of Kaifeng are the Iron Pagoda, the Xiangguo Temple, the Dragon Pavilion, the Imperial Street of the Song DynastyCapital City, and so on.     

Discussion on the Translation of Chinese Ancient Literatures

The Chinese ancient literature has a long history.More and more foreign friends give strong interest into reading and learning it.However,not all the foreign people are proficient at classical Chinese,the metre and rhyme of Chinese poems,thus,translators have to translate these words into English or other languages,which brought a discussion about whether the Chinese ancient poems can be translated or not.This paper starts from this very point,to analyze current situation of the research on Chinese ancient literatures translation,taking Chinese ancient poems as examples,to discuss this topic,and to give opinions and possible solutions.     

The World's Greatest Inventor

The hundreds of inventions made by Thomas Edison include the electric lightbulb,the world's first‘talking machine’—the record-player,and the film projector.Even when he was a very young boy,he was always trying to find out how thingsworked.In the passage below,his father,Sam Edison,is talking about him to a     

圣诞袜的传说

There was a kind nobleman whose wife had died of an illness leaving the nobleman and his threedaughters in despair. After losing all his money in useless and bad inventions, the family had to move into a peasant‘s cottage, where thedaughters did their own cooking, sewing and cleaning.     

Mayan Ruins Describe Dates Beyond 2012 ’DOOMSDAY’

The ancient Maya civilization documented calendar dates beyond 2012. This shocking news has been revealed inside ancient ruins of the sprawling Maya city of Xultun in Guatemala’s Peten region,supporting what archaeologists have known for a long time:The Mayans never predicted doomsday on Dec.21,2012. During a National Geographic Society-funded dig in the rainforest region,archaeologists uncovered a structure adorned with wonderfully preserved paintings and scrawled numbersapparently the workspace for the town’s scribe some 1,200 years ago.The numbers have been identified as dates in the Maya calendars.As the ancient civilization developed extremely     

A Probe of the Historical and Cultural Background for the Arab-Israeli Clash

The thesis probes the historical and cultural background for the Arab-Israeli clash in the Middle East.The research finds that in essence,the clash is a contest between the Arabs and the Jews for residence on the same one land.The clash resulted from their religious and cultural conventions on both sides,which were fostered during the history.Actually,it is a confrontation of two civilizations.     

世界文明之旅之七——波斯文明及宗教(英文)

The culture of the Persians, in the narrower sense of intellectual and artistic achievements, was largely derived from that of previous civilizations. Much of it came from Mesopotamia, but a great deal of it from Egypt, and some from Lydia and northern Palestine. Their system of writing was originally the Babylonian cuneiform, but in time they     

人们为何要庆祝新年？

One of the oldest customs of mankind is the celebration of the new year. Some people say the Chinese were the first to start it, others believe it was the ancient Germans, and still others claim it was the Romans. We know that the Chinese have always had a great festival at the time of their new year that comes later than ours. The Chinese New Year festival lasts several days.The ancient Germans established a new year festival be-     

论《乐记》的“中和思想”(英文)

The idea of"neutralization" has a far-reaching influence on the development of our national ancient musical aesthetics and the shaping of solid music theory.It is also the supreme realm that Con~cianism has been pursuing.From the standpoint of Confucianism.the"Records of Music in Book of Rites'clearly reveals this important aes吐ledc characteristic of China's ancient music in the aspects of the music neutralization,the neutralization of ritual and music,the neutralization of music and politics,the intgnty of humanity and nature.     

史前古器物展示古希腊儿童生活

The first major international exhibit on childhood in ancient Greece reveals startling similarities between the lives of kids from the classical past and 21st century children, including the fact that toys and gadgets comparable to those of the ancient world are still in use today. Now at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, the exhibit displays potty     

ty edu

and it is the groundwork of advanced education as well. Both ancient China and ancient Greece paid much attention to humanistic education. The weakening of humanistic education and the lack of humanistic education will incur serious consequences. Two aspects should not be neglected in the training of humanistic spirit: 1.education of classics reading; 2. education of the ability in mother language.humanistic spirit; classics reading; education o     

Wuhan——the City of Rivers

正Wuhan is a city with both an ancient history and a thriving present.Historic relics excavated from ancient tombs tell the city’s long history dating back 3,500years.In the period of Pre-Qin(770-221 BC),this was the land of the State of Chu(one of the seven warring states before Qin,in China’s first feudal dynasty)and was     

完形填空专练(英文)

Thomas Edison made more than1,000inventions in his life.Many of his inventions have1the world.His first invention was a voterecorder in1869.This machine allowed people toplace a vote by pressing a button2saying“yes”or“no”.However,American government officials(政府官员)did not like EdisonEs3becausethey liked to call out their votes.Edison learned a lesson:he toldhimself4again to invent something people did not want.Edison started a5with his friend,Franklin Pope,to make fireand burglar a…     

阿基米德与王冠

Archimedes was one of the greatest mathematicians and inventors of the ancient world. He was born in about 287 BC,     

On Functional Discourse Analysis Applied in Translation of Chinese Tea Poetry

In this article,the author aims to analyze some English translations of ancient Chinese tea poems in a functional linguistic point of view based mainly on Halliday’s functional linguistic theory.First of all,there is a general introduction of Halliday’s functional linguistic theory,secondly we will look into the features of ancient Chinese tea poetry,such as the grammar,the language and the context,and then the author picks out two typical examples for detail analyzing,at last there is a brief conclusion of the whole article.     

世界七大奇观

“世界七大奇迹”从小到大,除了金字塔、巴比伦空中花园这两个耳熟能详的地方,你还知道哪几个?它们的英文名字都是怎么说的?让我们来共同学习一下……Seven Wonders of the World,works[1]of artand architecture regarded by ancient Greek andRoman observers as the most extraordinary struc-tures ofantiquity.In the ancient world there were seven greatman-made structures for travelers to see on aworld tour.Lists of the so-called seven wonders ofthe world sometimes varied.The following list,datingfromabout the6t…     

首字母填空型完形填空专练(英文)

阅读下列短文,根据短文内容及首字母提示填入所缺单词。AInthenineteenthcentury,peoplem1many inventions.For example,the camera,theelectric light and the radio.These all b2a big part of our life today.People made more great inventionsd3the first part of the twentieth centu-ry:films w4sound in1926,the com-puter in1928and jet(喷气)planes in1930.This was also a time when a new material wasfirst made:nylon came out in1935.Itc5the kind of clothes people wear.The middle part of the twentieth centuryb6ne…