Изобретения и изобретатели. Учебно-справочное пособие для изучающих английский язык Елена Долматовская

It is a slender rod of a solid marking substance, such as graphite, enclosed in a cylinder of wood, metal, or plastic; used as an implement for writing, drawing, or marking.

Invention of the Pencil. In 1565 the German-Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner first described a writing instrument in which graphite, then thought to be a type of lead, was inserted into a wooden holder. Gesner was the first to describe graphite as a separate mineral, and in 1779 the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele showed it to be a form of carbon. The name graphite is from the Greek graphein, “to write.” The modern lead pencil became possible when an unusually pure deposit of graphite was discovered in 1564 in Borrowdale, Cumberland, England. The pure graphite was sawn into sheets and then cut into square rods. The graphite rods were inserted into hand-carved wooden holders, forming pencils. They were called lead pencils by mistake – at the time, the newly-discovered graphite was called black lead – it looked and acted like lead, and it was not known at the time that graphite consisted of carbon and not lead. The English had a monopoly on the production of pencils since no other pure graphite mines were known and no one had yet found a way to make graphite sticks.

The Germans manufactured graphite sticks (made from powdered graphite), but they were impractical. The breakthrough in pencil technology came when French chemist Nicolas Conte developed and patented the process used to make pencils in 1795. He used a mixture of clay and graphite that was fired before it was put in a wooden case. The pencils he made were cylindrical with a slot. The square lead was glued into the slot and a thin strip of wood was used to fill the rest of the slot. Conte’s method of kiln firing powdered graphite and clay allowed pencils to be made to any hardness or softness by varying the ratio of graphite to clay.

The more graphite used, the “softer,” or darker, is the mark made. Some pencil manufacturers use the letter “H” to indicate a hard pencil. Likewise, a pencil maker might use the letter “B” to designate the blackness of the pencil’s mark. Pencil makers also use combinations of letters – a pencil marked “HB” is hard and black; a pencil marked “HH” is very hard, and a pencil marked “HHBBB” is very hard and really, really black! In 1812 the American William Monroe invented a process still used today by which the graphite-clay mixture could be encased between two pieces of cedar wood.

In 1861, Eberhard Faber built the first pencil factory in the United States in New York City.

The mechanical pencil, patented in 1877, consists of a cylindrical piece of pencil lead inserted into a metal or plastic barrel against a movable rod that can be adjusted by a screwing motion to expose part of the lead. The basic design of the mechanical pencil changed little until a modification of a mechanical drafting pencil was introduced in 1976. Originally marketed as a trade tool for engineers, drafters, and artists, the thin-lead mechanical pencil is now used by the general population.

Pencil sharpener

A pencil sharpener is a device for sharpening a pencil‘s point by shaving one end. Pencil sharpeners are available in both electric and hand-powered forms.

It was John Lee Love of Fall River, MA who designed the “Love Sharpener”. Love’s invention was the very simple, portable pencil sharpener. The pencil is put into the opening of the sharpener and rotated by hand, and the shavings stay inside the sharpener. A blade inside the sharpener shaves the wood of the pencil, thus sharpening the tip. Such sharpeners can be bare or they are enclosed in a container to collect the shavings. A mechanical pencil sharpener is hand-powered. Love’s sharpener was patented on November 23, 1897 (U.S.)

carbon углерод

cedar кедр

clay глина

graphite графит

lead свинец

plastics пластмасса

wood дерево

hardness твердость

softness мягкость

cylinder-shaped tool инструмент цилиндрической формы

stick палочка

wooden holders деревянная ручка, держатель

pencil lead грифель карандаша

pencil’s point кончик карандаша

blade лезвие

device прибор, устройство

electric pencil sharpener электрическая точилка для карандашей

pencil sharpener точилка для карандаша

cut (cut, cut) резать

enclose вкладывать, вставлять

fire поджигать

glue клеить

insert вставлять

kiln обжигать (в печи)

power приводить в действие

rotate вращать(ся)

saw (sawed, sawn) пилить

Complete the table using information from the text

a. Write a few paragraphs (one or three) about the inventions you have read about. Use the table above as a support.

b. Answer (in written) the question: “How could we live without a pencil?”

1. Describe (orally) a pencil that you wish someone could invent for you.

2. If you think you could do it yourself say how.

Morse code is a system of representing letters, numbers and punctuation marks by means of a code signal sent intermittently. It was developed by Samuel Morse[1] and Alfred Vail in 1835.

Morse code is a method for transmitting information, using standardized sequences of short and long marks or pulses – commonly known as “dots” and “dashes” – for the letters, numerals and special characters of a message. Originally created for Samuel Morse‘s electric telegraph in the mid-1830s, it was also extensively used for early radio communication beginning in the 1890s. However, with the development of more advanced communications technologies, the widespread use of Morse code is now largely obsolete, apart from emergency use and other specialized purposes, including navigational radio beacons, and by CW (continuous wave) amateur radio operators. Morse code is the only digital modulation mode designed to be easily read by humans without a computer, making it appropriate for sending automated digital data in voice channels, as well as making it ideal for emergency signaling, such as by way of improvised energy sources that can be easily “keyed” such as by supplying and removing electric power (e.g. by switching a breaker on and off).

Morse code can be transmitted in a number of ways: originally as electrical pulses along a telegraph wire, but also as an audio tone, as a radio signal with short and long pulses or tones, or as a mechanical or visual signal (e.g. a flashing light) using devices like an Aldis lamp or a heliograph. Because Morse code is transmitted using just two states – on and off – it was an early form of a digital code. International Morse code is composed of six elements:

1. short mark, dot or “dit” (·)

2. longer mark, dash or “dah” (–)

3. intra-character gap (between the dots and dashes within a character)

4. short gap (between letters)

5. medium gap (between words)

6. long gap (between sentences)

However, the variable length of the Morse characters made it hard to adapt to automated communication, so it was largely replaced by more regular formats.