读写3级7单网络挂件 WJ制作YYJ审改.docx

1、读写3级7单网络挂件 WJ制作YYJ审改英语读写(3) 第七单元语言文化知识部分（文件名：B3RW-01）I. Information Related to the Text1. Thomas Edison American Inventor, 1847 -1931Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio. With only three months of formal education he became one of the greatest inventors and industrial lead

2、ers in history. Edison obtained 1,093 United States patents, the most issued to any individual.Edisons greatest contribution was the first practical electric lighting. He not only invented the first successful electric light bulb, but also set up the first electrical power distribution company. Edis

3、on invented the phonograph, and made improvements to the telegraph, telephone and motion picture technology. He also founded the first modern research laboratory.Edison was also a good businessman. He not only designed important new devices, he created companies worldwide for the manufacture and sal

4、e of his inventions. Along with other manufacturing pioneers of his era, Edison helped make the United States a world industrial power. He and Henry Ford became friends after Edison encouraged Ford to use the gasoline powered engine for the automobile.Edison was also a ruthless businessman who fough

5、t viciously to defeat his competitors. One of the most notorious examples of his competitive vigor was the lengths he went to discredit Nicola Teslas Alternating Current system, which is the system of electrical distribution in use today.Edison had great faith in progress and industry, and valued lo

6、ng, hard work. He used to say, “Genius was 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” Edison believed that inventing useful products offered everyone the opportunity for fame and fortune while benefiting society.2. Alexander Graham Bell BELL, Alexander Graham, physicist, born in Edinburgh,

7、Scotland, 3 March 1847. He is a son of Alexander Melville Bell, mentioned below, and was educated at the Edinburgh high school and Edinburgh University, receiving special training in his fathers system for removing impediments in speech. He removed to London in 1867, and entered the University there

8、, but left on account of his health, and went to Canada with his father in 1870. In 1872 he took up his residence in the United States, introducing with success his fathers system of deaf-mute instruction, and became professor of vocal physiology in Boston University. He had been interested for many

9、 years in the transmission of sound by electricity, and had devised many forms of apparatus for the purpose, but the first public exhibition of his invention was at Philadelphia in 1876. Its complete success has made him wealthy. His invention of the photophone, in which a vibratory beam of light is

10、 substituted for a wire in conveying speech, has also attracted much attention, but has never been practically used. It was first described by him before the American association for the advancement of science in Boston, 27 August 1880. After the shooting of President Garfield, Professor Bell, toget

11、her with Sumner Tainter, experimented with an improved form of Hughess induction balance, and endeavored to find the exact location of the ball, but failed. Professor Bell has put forth the theory that the present system of educating deaf-mutes is wrong, as it tends to restrict them to one anothers

12、society, so that marriages between the deaf are common, and therefore the number of deaf-mute children born is on the increase. His latest experiments relate to the recording of speech by means of photographing the vibrations of a jet of water. He is a member of various learned societies, and has pu

13、blished many scientific papers. He has lived for some time in Washington, District of Columbia.3. Harvard University Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in

14、 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is also the first and oldest corporation in North America.Initially called New College or the college at New Towne, the institution was named Harvard College on March 13, 16

15、39, after a young clergyman named John Harvarda graduate of Englands Emmanuel College, Cambridge (a college of the University of Cambridge) and St. Olaves Grammar School, Orpington in the United Kingdomwho bequeathed the College his library of four hundred books and 779 (which was half of his estate

16、). The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a university occurs in the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.During his 40-year tenure as Harvard president (1869 1909), Charles William Eliot radically transformed Harvard into the pattern of the modern research university. Eliots reforms

17、included elective courses, small classes, and entrance examinations. The Harvard model influenced American education nationally, at both college and secondary levels. Eliot also was responsible for publication of the now-famous Harvard Classics, a collection of great books from multiple disciplines

18、published by P. F. Collier and Sons beginning in 1909 that offered a college education in fifteen minutes a day of reading; the collection soon became known as Dr. Eliots Five-Foot Shelf. During his unprecedentedly influential presidency, Eliot, a prolific book and magazine writer and widely travele

19、d speaker in the pre-radio age, became so widely recognized a public figure that by his death in 1926 his name (and, not coincidentally, Harvards) had become synonymous with the universal aspirations of American higher education.In 1999, Radcliffe College, founded in 1879 as the Harvard Annex for Wo

20、men, merged formally with Harvard University, becoming the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.Harvards library collection contains more than 15 million volumes, making it the largest academic library in the United States, and the fourth among the five mega-libraries of the world (after the Libra

21、ry of Congress, the British Library, and the French Bibliothque nationale, but ahead of the New York Public Library). Harvard is consistently ranked number one in international college and university rankings, and has the largest financial endowment of any non-profit organization except for the Bill

22、 & Melinda Gates Foundation, standing at $38.7 billion as of 2008.1. IBM IBM Logos International Business Machines Corporation, abbreviated IBM and nicknamed Big Blue, is a multinational computer technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company is one of the

23、few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and offers infrastructure services, hosting services, and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology.IBM has

24、 been known through most of its recent history as the worlds largest computer company; with over 388,000 employees worldwide, IBM is the largest information technology employer in the world. Despite falling behind Hewlett-Packard in total revenue since 2006, it remains the most profitable. IBM holds

25、 more patents than any other U.S. based technology company. It has engineers and consultants in over 170 countries and IBM Research has eight laboratories worldwide. IBM employees have earned three Nobel Prizes, four Turing Awards, five National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Scie

26、nce. As a chip maker, IBM has been among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders in past years, and in 2007 IBM ranked second in the list of largest software companies in the world.NicknameBig Blue is a nickname for IBM; several theories exist regarding its origin. One theory, substantiated

27、 by people who worked for IBM at the time, is that IBM field reps coined the term in the 1960s, referring to the color of the mainframes IBM installed in the 1960s and early 1970s. All blue was a term used to describe a loyal IBM customer, and business writers later picked up the term. Another theor

28、y suggests that Big Blue simply refers to the Companys logo. A third theory suggests that Big Blue refers to a former company dress code that required many IBM employees to wear only white shirts and many wore blue suits. In any event, IBM keyboards, typewriters, and some other manufactured devices,

29、 have played on the Big Blue concept, using the color for enter keys and carriage returns.IBM company values and JamIn 2003, IBM embarked on an ambitious project to rewrite company values. Using its Jam technology, the company hosted Intranet-based online discussions on key business issues with 50,0

30、00 employees over 3 days. The discussions were analyzed by sophisticated text analysis software (e-Classifier) to mine online comments for themes. As a result of the 2003 Jam, the company values were updated to reflect three modern business, marketplace and employee views: Dedication to every client

31、s success, Innovation that matters - for our company and for the world, Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships.In 2004, another Jam was conducted during which 52,000 employees exchanged best practices for 72 hours. They focused on finding actionable ideas to support implementation of

32、 the values previously identified. A new post-Jam Ratings event was developed to allow IBMers to select key ideas that support the values. The board of directors cited this Jam when awarding Palmisano a pay rise in the spring of 2005.In July and September 2006, Palmisano launched another jam called InnovationJam. InnovationJam was the largest online brainstorming session ever with more than 150,000 participants from 104 countries. The participants were IBM employees, members of IBM employees families, universities, partners, and customers. InnovationJam was divided i