第1506期:Five things invented by women

Here’s a simple challenge: name a famous inventor. Perhaps Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci springs to mind. Or the pioneer of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell. But you might be hard-pressed to name many female inventors, even though women are behind some of the most widely used technologies in the modern world.

这是一个简单的挑战：命名一位著名的发明家。也许文艺复兴时期的博学家列奥纳多·达·芬奇会浮现在脑海中。或者电话的先驱亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔。但是你可能很难说出许多女性发明家的名字，尽管女性是现代世界一些最广泛使用的技术的幕后推手。

For example, where would we be without the windscreen wiper? Back on a freezing winter’s day in 1902, Mary Anderson was travelling by tram through New York city. Snow was falling, forcing the driver to stop repeatedly and get out to clear it. Each time the door opened, Mary suffered a gust of sub-zero air. She had a brainwave: why not make some kind of a rubber blade that could be operated from inside the vehicle? And that’s exactly what she did. 

例如，如果没有挡风玻璃雨刷器，我们会在哪里？回到 1902 年一个寒冷的冬日，玛丽·安德森乘坐电车穿越纽约市。雪在下，迫使司机反复停车并下车清理。每次门打开，玛丽都会遭受一阵低于零的空气。她有一个脑波：为什么不制造某种可以在车内操作的橡胶刀片呢？而这正是她所做的。

Let’s step in from freezing New York for our next invention. The dishwasher dates back even earlier to the 19th Century, and to the dinner parties thrown by a lady called Josephine Cochrane. As a frequent host, she wanted a machine that could wash dishes faster than people. Her response was to develop what was to become the first commercially successful dishwasher. Interestingly, innovation was in her blood: her grandfather had invented the steamboat. 

让我们从寒冷的纽约踏入我们的下一个发明。洗碗机的历史可以追溯到更早的 19 世纪，以及一位名叫 Josephine Cochrane 的女士举办的晚宴。作为常客，她想要一台洗碗速度比人还快的机器。她的反应是开发成为第一台商业上成功的洗碗机。有趣的是，她的血液里流淌着创新：她的祖父发明了汽船。

Need something to do while the dishwasher is whirring away? How about a round of Monopoly? One of the most popular board games around, the rules were first drawn up by a lady called Elizabeth Magie, and patented in 1904. Her intention was to create a game to highlight what she saw as the pitfalls of capitalism. It was originally called The Landlord’s Game. 

洗碗机运转时需要做点什么吗？一轮垄断怎么样？作为最受欢迎的棋盘游戏之一，规则首先由一位名叫伊丽莎白玛姬的女士制定，并于 1904 年获得专利。她的目的是创造一款游戏来突出她所看到的资本主义陷阱。它最初被称为房东的游戏。

To an altogether different kind of innovation: Kevlar is the lightweight fibre used in bulletproof vests. The material is used by millions every day and has saved countless lives. The super tough fabric is also used in objects ranging from gloves to aeroplanes to wind turbines. Incredibly, its strength-to-weight ratio is five times higher than steel. Again, it was invented by a woman, the American chemist Stephanie Kwolek, in 1964. 

一种完全不同的创新：Kevlar 是用于防弹背心的轻质纤维。该材料每天被数百万人使用，并挽救了无数生命。这种超坚韧的织物也用于从手套到飞机到风力涡轮机的各种物品。令人难以置信的是，它的强度重量比是钢的五倍。再一次，它是由一位女性、美国化学家 Stephanie Kwolek 在 1964 年发明的。

Finally, one of the most important inventions of the 20th Century must surely be the computer programme. The world of programming is notoriously unbalanced in terms of gender. Men vastly outnumber women, and take home around 30% more pay than their female counterparts on average. But back in the 1940s and 50s, women were at the forefront of this new field. Grace Hopper is credited with inventing the first compiler in 1952, which serves as the bridge between code and the binary ones and zeros understood by computers.

最后，20 世纪最重要的发明之一肯定是计算机程序。众所周知，编程世界在性别方面是不平衡的。男性的人数远远超过女性，平均而言，男性的工资比女性高出约 30%。但早在 1940 年代和 50 年代，女性就处于这一新领域的前沿。Grace Hopper 因在 1952 年发明了第一个编译器而受到赞誉，它充当了代码与计算机理解的二进制 1 和 0 之间的桥梁。

词汇表

polymath 博学者，博学的人

spring to mind 突然呈现在脑海中
pioneer 先锋
hard-pressed （由于缺少时间）面临困难的
where would we be without… 假如没有…我们将会是怎样的？
windscreen wiper 雨刷器
sub-zero 温度在零度以下的
brainwave （突发的）灵感，妙计
dishwasher 洗碗机
throw (a party) 举办（聚会）
in someone’s blood 在某人的血液中，在骨子里
whirr （洗衣机）发出嗡嗡声
patent 注册专利权
pitfall 陷阱
bulletproof vest 防弹背心
wind turbine 风力发电机
notoriously 出了名地（负面），声名狼藉地
gender 性别
outnumber 在数量上压倒
binary 二进位制