高中英语 Module 5 Great People and Great Inventions of Ancient China试题（含解析）外研版必修3.doc

Module 5 Great People and Great Inventions of Ancient China中国古代的几大发明We take a lot of things for granted in the modern world. Fiber optic cables deliver en­ormous amounts of information at nearly the speed of light. You can hop into your car and shout your destination at your GPS navigation system, and a digitized and disembodied voice issues easy-to-follow directions. We have it pretty sweet here in the 21st century.是否有了像GPS导航这样的发明，我们就忘记了古代文明的价值？要知道，正是这些文明，为我们今天的一切奠定了基石我们对当今世界的很多技术都已经习以为常光纤电缆以近乎光速的速度传输着海量信息；你进入驾驶室，对着GPS导航仪说出你的目的地，就会有数字化模拟人声简单明了地给你指明路线……21世纪的生活真是让我们尝遍了甜头。

Perhaps no other ancient culture has contributed more to this advancement of human progress than the Chinese. Here are some of the greatest inventions of the ancient nation, in no particular order.说到为人类进步所做的贡献，大概没有哪种古老的文明能与古代中国相比下面就是这个古老国度的几项伟大发明，排名不分先后Gunpowder 火药We’ll begin with arguably the most famous ancient Chinese invention. Legend has it that gunpowder was accidentally discovered by alchemists looking for a concoction that would create immortality in humans. Ironically, what these ancient chemists stumbled upon was an invention that could easily take human life.Early gunpowder was made of a mixture of potassium nitrate (saltpeter), charcoal and sulfur, and it was first described in 1044 in the Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques, compiled by Zeng Goliang. It’s assumed the discovery of gunpowder occurred sometime earlier, since Zeng describes three different gunpowder mixtures and the Chinese used it for signal flares and fireworks before appropriating it for military use in rudimentary grenades. Over time, we realized that metals added to the mixture created brilliant colors in gunpowder explosions and — kaboom! — modern fireworks displays were born. It also makes a handy explosive for projectiles like bullets.首先说到的火药，应该是中国古代发明中最杰出的一项了。

传说火药是炼金术士在炼制长生不老丹药的过程中偶然发明的然而很讽刺的是，这一发明不仅不能让人长生不老，却能轻易地取人性命早期的火药是由硝酸钾（硝石）、木炭和硫磺混合而成的，最早记载于1044年曾公亮主编的《武经总要》一书中此书中记录了三种火药，早在将火药用于军事用途、制作简易手榴弹之前，中国人已经用其来制作信号弹和鞭炮，由此可推断火药的发明时间应该还要更早随后，人们发现在火药中加入一些金属元素可以使其爆炸时呈现出缤纷的色彩，于是，嘭！嘭！嘭！现代烟花表演诞生了除此之外，火药的发明还催生了子弹之类的便携式弹药The Compass 指南针Where would we be without the compass? We’d be lost, that’s where. Those of us who hike in the woods or fly various aircraft have the Chinese to thank for guiding us home safely. Originally, the Chinese created their compasses to point to true south. This was because they considered south, not north, their cardinal direction. The earliest compasses were created in the fourth century B.C. and were made of lodestone.The mere existence of lodestone is the result of a bit of luck. Lodestone is a type of magnetite (a magnetic iron ore) that becomes highly magnetized when struck by lightning. The result is a mineral that’s magnetized toward both the north and south poles. We’re not certain precisely who came up with the clever idea of discerning direction using lodestone, but archaeological evidence shows the Chinese fashioned ladles that balanced on a divining board; the ladles would point the direction to inner harmony for ancient Chinese soothsayers.如果没有指南针，我们会在哪里呢？应该已经迷路，不知身在何处了吧！在森林中远足的背包客，还有穿梭在各航班之间的空中飞人，真要好好感谢古代的中国人，他们发明的指南针，指引着大家平安回家。

中国人发明指南针的初衷在于让它指向正南，因为他们认为主位是正南，而不是正北最早的指南针出现在公元前4世纪，由天然磁石磨制而成天然磁石的存在委实是上天的眷顾天然磁石是一种被雷电击中之后高度磁化的磁铁矿石（带有磁性的铁矿石），可以自然指向南北两极是谁这么聪明，想出用天然磁石来辨别方向的主意，我们已不得而知，但据考古学资料显示，是古代中国人发明了杓，并使其能在占卜盘上平稳转动；而杓也为中国古代的占卜者们指明了方向，助其走向内心的和谐与安宁Paper 纸It’s not entirely clear who first came up with the notion to convert thoughts into a written language. There was a horse race between the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, the Harappa in present day Pakistan and the Kemites in Egypt to be the first to formulate a written language. We do know that the first languages appear to have emerged around 5,000 years ago. One can even make the case that it dates back earlier — that is, if one included artistic expressions like cave paintings as a form of written language. Once language began to develop, though, humans wrote on anything that would lay still long enough. Clay tablets, bamboo, papyrus and stone were only a few of the earliest writing surfaces. Things changed once the Chinese — specifically, a man named Cai Lun — invented the prototype for modern paper. Before Cai’s breakthrough, the Chinese wrote on thin strips of bamboo and lengths of silk, but in A.D. 105, he created a mixture of wood fibers and water and pressed it onto a woven cloth. The weave in the cloth allowed the moisture in the pulpy mixture to seep out, resulting in a rough paper. Exactly what Cai wrote on his first piece of paper is unknown.是谁首先想到用文字表达想法的主意，到现在我们还没完全搞清。

＂世界上最早的文字创造者＂这一殊荣到底花落谁家，由美索不达米亚平原（Mesopotamia）的苏美尔人（Sumerians）、位于今巴基斯坦（Pakistan）境内的哈拉帕人（Harappa）以及古埃及的科密特人（Kemites）进行激烈的角逐我们知道语言文字的首次出现大约是在5000年前，但如果你把类似于洞窟壁画这样的艺术表现形式也纳入文字范畴的话，＂文字＂的出现就可以追溯到更早的时期然而一旦文字开始发展，人们便开始在任何东西上书写，只要它们铺起来足够长泥板，竹简，纸莎草和石头仅仅是早期文字载体中的几种自从中国人——特别是一个叫蔡伦的男子——发明了现代纸张的雏形，一切都开始改变了在蔡伦的开创性发明之前，中国人在薄薄的竹简和长长的丝帛上写字但是到了公元105年，蔡伦发明了一种木纤维。