Who Was Thomas Alva Edison 爱迪生Chapter 4 His Invention Factory

In the mid¹ 1800s, a man in France and a man in Massachusetts both came up with ways to record sound—but as a pattern on paper much the way the dots and dashes of Morse code look on paper.

Nobody had figured out how to record sounds and play them back so they could be heard again. That’s what Tom wanted to do. He had an idea. But he didn’t know if it would work. He had drawn² some rough sketches⁴. But that was all.

For eight months Tom and his team kept working on his idea for a phonograph. They were working on other inventions too. They were not in a big hurry. But then an article appeared in an important magazine, Scientific American. It said that Thomas Edison had invented an amazing machine. It played the human voice. “A wonderful invention,” they announced with great fanfare⁵. Tom knew that everyone would be asking to hear his amazing phonograph.

Now Tom was in a big hurry.

Had someone at Menlo Park told a reporter about what Tom was working on? Maybe. Tom didn’t mind. Maybe he even knew who had told the magazine about the phonograph. He liked publicity⁶. But now he had to make his phonograph. And soon.

It was November 1877. Tom sat down and did another rough sketch³. He gave it to his best machinist. Anyone else might look at his drawing and wonder how to follow it. But this machinist was used to Tom’s sketches. A week later he came back with a model.

The model had a long screw with a handle at one end. The screw ran through the middle of a metal cylinder⁷ wrapped in tinfoil⁸. On either side of the cylinder was a metal disk with a pin and a short hollow tube.

Tom leaned toward the machine, turned the handle, and spoke⁹ into one of the tubes as the cylinder moved along the screw. “Mary had a little lamb. Its fleece was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.”

The sound of Tom’s voice made the metal disk with the pin vibrate and scratch a sound pattern on the tinfoil. When he stopped speaking, Tom pulled the pin away from the cylinder. He turned the handle in the opposite direction and moved the cylinder back to where it had been. He put the pin on the other side against the cylinder.



Now was the big moment. Tom turned the handle again. The cylinder moved along the screw and out came his voice speaking the lines of the familiar nursery rhyme.

Tom was almost as surprised as everyone else. He could hardly believe that his phonograph worked the very first time.

Tom went to the offices of Scientific American to play his wonderful phonograph. The excited editors crowded around. Wow! They had never seen—or heard—anything like it.

In April 1878, Tom traveled to Washington, D.C. There he spoke to the National Academy of Sciences about his invention. He also had his photograph taken by Matthew Brady, the famous Civil War photographer.



After a long day of meetings and receptions, President Rutherford B. Hayes asked Tom to come to the White House. It was eleven o’clock at night by the time he got there. The president was so impressed with Tom’s phonograph that he made Mrs. Hayes get out of bed to hear it.

At first Tom thought companies would use his phonograph in business. He saw it as a kind of dictating¹⁰ machine for writing letters. Businesses did use it. It was called the Ediphone.

But during his lifetime Tom saw his phonograph’s popularity grow in ways he hadn’t expected.

There was a big demand for music—in concert halls and in penny arcades¹¹. For five cents, several people could listen to a song at the same time. Soon people wanted their own phonographs at home.

Years later Tom wrote an article about all the ways the phonograph might be used one day. He saw far into the future. He even predicted audiotapes. He called them “talking books.”

Tom was always working on more than one idea at a time. Perhaps he didn’t pay as close attention to his phonograph as he should have. His company, the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company in New York City, made and sold phonographs using his cylinders¹². But other companies went on to develop a more popular machine. It used flat disks called records.

Tom was only thirty years old when he invented his phonograph. At that young age, he became known as “The Wizard of Menlo Park.”

The phonograph may have been Tom’s “baby”—and his favorite. But it was the next invention that made him far more famous. Tom was about to work on something that would change the way people live forever.

HOW THE PHONOGRAPH WORKS

TO RECORD: SOUND ENTERS HORN, VIBRATES A DIAPHRAGM WITH A NEEDLE THAT CAUSES INDENTATIONS ON A TURNING CYLINDER COVERED WITH TINFOIL.

TO PLAY BACK: THE INDENTATIONS ON THE CYLINDER VIBRATE A NEEDLE AND DIAPHRAGM ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE AND THE SOUND EXITS HORN.

MATTHEW BRADY

MATTHEW BRADY STUDIED PHOTOGRAPHY IN NEW YORK CITY UNDER SAMUEL MORSE, THE INVENTOR OF THE TELEGRAPH. HE PHOTOGRAPHED LOTS OF FAMOUS AMERICANS, INCLUDING ABRAHAM LINCOLN. HE TOOK ONE PICTURE RIGHT BEFORE LINCOLN BECAME PRESIDENT. IT TOOK BRADY ABOUT FIFTEEN SECONDS TO TAKE THE PHOTOGRAPH. LINCOLN HAD TO WEAR A CLAMP TO HOLD HIS HEAD PERFECTLY¹³ STILL. OTHERWISE, THE PHOTO WOULD LOOK BLURRY¹⁴.

DURING THE CIVIL WAR, BRADY WAS THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPHER TO TAKE PICTURES OF BATTLEFIELDS.

1 mid   

adj.中央的，中间的

参考例句：

• Our mid-term exam is pending.我们就要期中考试了。
• He switched over to teaching in mid-career.他在而立之年转入教学工作。

2 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

3 sketch   

n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述

参考例句：

• My sister often goes into the country to sketch. 我姐姐常到乡间去写生。
• I will send you a slight sketch of the house.我将给你寄去房屋的草图。

4 sketches   

n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概

参考例句：

• The artist is making sketches for his next painting. 画家正为他的下一幅作品画素描。
• You have to admit that these sketches are true to life. 你得承认这些素描很逼真。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 fanfare   

n.喇叭；号角之声；v.热闹地宣布

参考例句：

• The product was launched amid much fanfare worldwide.这个产品在世界各地隆重推出。
• A fanfare of trumpets heralded the arrival of the King.嘹亮的小号声宣告了国王驾到。

6 publicity   

n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告

参考例句：

• The singer star's marriage got a lot of publicity.这位歌星的婚事引起了公众的关注。
• He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事，只当它是一种宣传手法。

7 cylinder   

n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸

参考例句：

• What's the volume of this cylinder?这个圆筒的体积有多少？
• The cylinder is getting too much gas and not enough air.汽缸里汽油太多而空气不足。

8 tinfoil   

n.锡纸，锡箔

参考例句：

• You can wrap it up in tinfoil.你可以用锡箔纸裹住它。
• Drop by rounded tablespoon onto tinfoil.Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.用大餐勺把刚刚搅拌好的糊糊盛到锡纸上，烘烤9至11分钟，直到变成金黄色。

9 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

10 dictating   

v.大声讲或读( dictate的现在分词 )；口授；支配；摆布

参考例句：

• The manager was dictating a letter to the secretary. 经理在向秘书口授信稿。 来自辞典例句
• Her face is impassive as she listens to Miller dictating the warrant for her arrest. 她毫无表情地在听米勒口述拘留她的证书。 来自辞典例句

11 arcades   

n.商场( arcade的名词复数 )；拱形走道（两旁有商店或娱乐设施）；连拱廊；拱形建筑物

参考例句：

• Clothes are on sale in several shopping arcades these days. 近日一些服装店的服装正在大减价。 来自轻松英语会话---联想4000词(下)
• The Plaza Mayor, with its galleries and arcades, is particularly impressive. 市长大厦以其别具风格的走廊和拱廊给人留下十分深刻的印象。 来自互联网

12 cylinders   

n.圆筒( cylinder的名词复数 )；圆柱；汽缸；（尤指用作容器的）圆筒状物

参考例句：

• They are working on all cylinders to get the job finished. 他们正在竭尽全力争取把这工作干完。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• That jeep has four cylinders. 那辆吉普车有4个汽缸。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

14 blurry   

adj.模糊的；污脏的，污斑的

参考例句：

• My blurry vision makes it hard to drive. 我的视力有点模糊，使得开起车来相当吃力。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The lines are pretty blurry at this point. 界线在这个时候是很模糊的。 来自《简明英汉词典》