When I was about five years old, I was living with my parents in New York. It was the 1980s and one day I sat in front of my favourite lunchbox. This one held my huge collection of crayons (蜡笔). Like most children, I was curious and I wanted to “discover” what was inside my crayons. So I broke them in two. I was rather disappointed to find nothing but more crayon inside of them. Growing up, I saw my television taken apart to see the parts inside. In fact, my childhood interest in the building blocks (构成要素) of things led me to pursue a career in engineering.
I realized that inside all of the human-made things in the world around us are fundamental building blocks. Without them our complex machinery wouldn’t exist.
It is this idea that inspired my book, one in which I have selected what I believe to be the seven core elements that form the basis of the modern world: the nail, the wheel, the spring, the magnet (磁铁), the lens, the pump (泵) and string. Together they have a vast range of innovations. They have created and changed our technology and our history, society, communication, transportation, arts and culture.
I-selected these seven objects during the first 2020 lockdown. Trapped at home, I let my mind wander freely while looking around at my possessions dismantling them to see what lay inside each of them. For example, the speaker on my phone through which I could hear the voices of my family and friends relied on a magnet. Even as I thought about larger and more complex objects-skyscrapers, tunnels, satellites and so on, I came back to the same seven basic innovations.
Look around yourself and ask questions about what you see: reignite (重新燃起) that childhood curiosity. Hopefully, this will inspire you to investigate the increasingly complicated world of engineering, and is something which will lead you to form a better understanding of the building blocks of our world.
【小题1】Why did the author share his childhood experience in the beginning?| A．To explain how his hobby formed. | B．To introduce the topic of this passage. |
| C．To refresh his happy memory when young. | D．To advise readers to follow his example. |
| A．They didn’t come along until 2020. |
| B．They set people free during the lockdown. |
| C．They were only applied in our daily items. |
| D．They are the necessary and crucial parts of machinery. |
| A．Separating things into small parts. |
| B．Observing things with certain tools. |
| C．Creating something new with building blocks. |
| D．Finding new ways of communication with a new device. |
| A．Perseverance leads to victory. | B．Failure is the mother of success. |
| C．Small things matter in our daily life. | D．Engineering dream should start young. |
