英语专业晨读美文-人物篇 1 Chemist Leo Baekeland

[00:02.71]Chemist Leo Baekeland
[00:05.67]In the opening scene of The Graduate,
[00:08.95]Benjamin (played by a young Dustin Hoffman)
[00:12.23]is awkwardly working an affluent¹ Southern California crowd
[00:15.73]at a graduation party arranged for him by his parents
[00:19.23]when a family friend offers
[00:20.87] one of the century's most famous pieces of cinematic advice:
[00:24.48] "I just want to say one word to you. Just one word: plastics."
[00:29.95]Millions of moviegoers winced² and smiled.
[00:33.56] The scene neatly³ captured their own late 60's ambivalence⁴
[00:37.60]toward the ever more synthetic⁵ landscape of their times.
[00:41.00]They loved their cheap, easy-to-clean Formica countertops,
[00:45.04] but envied—and longed for—the authentic⁶ touch
[00:48.32]and time-lessness of marble and wood.
[00:50.83]The chord struck by that line in The Graduate under-scored
[00:54.33]how much had happened in the six decades since the summer of 1907,
[00:58.60] when Leo Baekeland made the laboratory breakthrough
[01:01.44] that would change the stuff our world is made of.
[01:04.62]A Belgian-born chemist-entrepreneur,
[01:08.33]Baekeland had a knack⁷ for spotting profitable opportunities.
[01:11.73]He scored his first success in the 1890s with his invention of Velox,
[01:17.41]an improved photographic paper
[01:19.32]that freed photographers from having to use sunlight
[01:22.16]for developing images. With Velox, they could rely on artificial light,
[01:26.53] which at the time usually meant gaslight but soon came to mean electric.
[01:31.68]It was a far more dependable and convenient way to work.
[01:34.95] In 1899 George Eastman,
[01:38.13]whose cameras and developing services would make photography a household activity,
[01:42.83] bought full rights to Velox for the then astonishing sum of $1 million.
[01:49.17]Starting around 1904, Baekeland and an assistant began their search.
[01:54.53]Three years later,
[01:55.95]after filling laboratory books with page after page of failed experiments,
[02:00.88] Baekeland finally developed a material that he dubbed⁸ in his notebooks "Bakelite".
[02:06.67] The key turned out to be his "bakelizer",
[02:09.51] a heavy iron vessel⁹ that was part pressure cooker and part basement boiler¹⁰.
[02:14.55]With it, he was able to control the formaldehyde phenol reaction
[02:19.02]with more finesse¹¹ than had anyone before him.
[02:21.75]Initial heating of the phenol and formaldehyde
[02:24.93](in the presence of an acid or base to get the reaction going)
[02:28.31]produced a shellac-like liquid good for coating surfaces like a varnish¹².
[02:33.23] Further heating turned the liquid into a pasty, gummier good.
[02:37.17]And when Baekeland put this stuff into the bakelizer,
[02:39.90]he was rewarded with a hard, translucent¹³,
[02:43.19]infinitely moldable substance. In a word: plastic.

1 affluent   

adj.富裕的，富有的，丰富的，富饶的

参考例句：

• He hails from an affluent background.他出身于一个富有的家庭。
• His parents were very affluent.他的父母很富裕。

2 winced   

赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He winced as the dog nipped his ankle. 狗咬了他的脚腕子，疼得他龇牙咧嘴。
• He winced as a sharp pain shot through his left leg. 他左腿一阵剧痛疼得他直龇牙咧嘴。

3 neatly   

adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地

参考例句：

• Sailors know how to wind up a long rope neatly.水手们知道怎样把一条大绳利落地缠好。
• The child's dress is neatly gathered at the neck.那孩子的衣服在领口处打着整齐的皱褶。

4 ambivalence   

n.矛盾心理

参考例句：

• She viewed her daughter's education with ambivalence.她看待女儿的教育问题态度矛盾。
• She felt a certain ambivalence towards him.她对他的态度有些矛盾。

5 synthetic   

adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品

参考例句：

• We felt the salesman's synthetic friendliness.我们感觉到那位销售员的虚情假意。
• It's a synthetic diamond.这是人造钻石。

6 authentic   

a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的

参考例句：

• This is an authentic news report. We can depend on it. 这是篇可靠的新闻报道, 我们相信它。
• Autumn is also the authentic season of renewal. 秋天才是真正的除旧布新的季节。

7 knack   

n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法

参考例句：

• He has a knack of teaching arithmetic.他教算术有诀窍。
• Making omelettes isn't difficult,but there's a knack to it.做煎蛋饼并不难，但有窍门。

8 dubbed   

v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
• Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 vessel   

n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管

参考例句：

• The vessel is fully loaded with cargo for Shanghai.这艘船满载货物驶往上海。
• You should put the water into a vessel.你应该把水装入容器中。

10 boiler   

n.锅炉；煮器(壶，锅等)

参考例句：

• That boiler will not hold up under pressure.那种锅炉受不住压力。
• This new boiler generates more heat than the old one.这个新锅炉产生的热量比旧锅炉多。

11 finesse   

n.精密技巧，灵巧，手腕

参考例句：

• It was a disappointing performance which lacked finesse.那场演出缺乏技巧，令人失望。
• Lillian Hellman's plays are marked by insight and finesse.莉莲.赫尔曼的巨作以富有洞察力和写作技巧著称。

12 varnish   

n.清漆；v.上清漆；粉饰

参考例句：

• He tried to varnish over the facts,but it was useless.他想粉饰事实，但那是徒劳的。
• He applied varnish to the table.他给那张桌子涂上清漆。

13 translucent   

adj.半透明的；透明的

参考例句：

• The building is roofed entirely with translucent corrugated plastic.这座建筑完全用半透明瓦楞塑料封顶。
• A small difference between them will render the composite translucent.微小的差别,也会使复合材料变成半透明。