首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The world’s long romance with speed may finally be ending. Even if Concorde (协和式飞机) flies again, its antique nature was revealed
The world’s long romance with speed may finally be ending. Even if Concorde (协和式飞机) flies again, its antique nature was revealed
admin
2013-01-25
46
问题
The world’s long romance with speed may finally be ending. Even if Concorde (协和式飞机) flies again, its antique nature was revealed as soon as the Paris accident made people scratch their heads and ask quite why these odd aircraft were still flying. Much of the technology that surrounded us has, when we look at it afresh, a Jules Verne quality-solving problems that once seemed important in ways that are ingenious but not necessarily efficient or safe.
The reorientation of science toward the biological and computer frontiers is now an old story, but the 19th century fascination with motive power has retained a powerful hold on our imaginations and our economies. 71.
Advances in motive power were for a long while the main way in which progress and national competition in technology were measured. First at sea, then on the railways, then on the roads, in the air and finally in space, more and more rapid movement was seen as an Carefree good and also, in some vague way, as a key to a fuller understanding of the world.
So intoxicating was this ultimate way in which the growing speed and reach of manmade vehicles could be used that when an unknown rocket enthusiast called Hermann Oberth published his By Rocket To Interplanetary Space in the 1920s, it represented such an escape from the difficulties of the present to the anxious citizens of Weimar Germany (德国魏玛共和国) that it became a bestseller overnight.
72.
For individual sportsmen, pilots and drivers, speed had the status of a privileged substance to which, in those early days, only a minority had full access. Mechanized speed made men, and a few women, into heroes, and it remains a commodity to which males, in particular, are attracted.
The front of the Boys Own annual of half a century ago would typically feature a speeding train in the middle ground, a fast aeroplane above, and a racing car in the foreground.
Disentangling the genuine advantages of speed from its cult aspects has always been a problem, and this was certainly the case in the era in which Concorde was conceived. Land, air and sea speed records had mattered since the 20s in a way inconceivable today. This manic race was run on three tracks-of celebrity sport, of competition between civil industries, and of military development. All three were littered with casualties, whether spectators at Le Mans, Donald Campbell on Coniston Water, or numerous test pilots and astronauts through the years.
Britain was slowing down on all three courses when Concorde came along. Indeed the Concorde project survived in part because, as Harold Wilson explained in his memoirs, the agreement with the French was embodied in an international treaty, and they refused even to consider abandoning or postponing the work. "We had little choice but to go on," the then prime minister concluded.
His lack of enthusiasm suggests that, long before Concorde flew, some those responsible for it knew that it was not going to be a practical aircraft, and also that the technical spin-off would be less than advertised. The reason was that speed was such as dominant consideration that everything else had to take second place. The result was an aircraft that was both ahead of its tie and behind the times, since the era of small-scale luxury air travel was over.
A preoccupation with speed has always gone hand in hand with a preoccupation with safety, the two standards between them providing a way in which advanced states calibrate the state of civilization. Increasing speeds have world lives in constant fear of regression, of losing the scientific and organizational edge that enables it to be both fast and safe. That is one reason why air and sea accidents can attain such mythic status. The disparate treatment of first and third world accidents in the Western press is probably due more to the feeling that accidents are indicators of technical health than to any devaluation of American or Asian lives.
Speed still has its kingdom, but it is shrinking. Its limits have long ago been reached on the roads, and its value in the air, even for manned military aircraft, is diminished- agility and protection are as or more important. 73.
It is still marginally attractive to make trains go faster. The pursuit of physical speed has been replaced by the pursuit of near instantaneity on the Net, an aim which we may in time come to regard just as skeptically.
It is hard to imagine the mood in which David Lean’s The Sound Barrier was made in 1952. breaking that barrier seemed to hold the key to a mystery. But there was no mystery. Man can go faster, but that does not mean it is worth doing so.
选项
答案
让火车跑得更快依然还有一些吸引力。对网上接近瞬时的追求已经替代了对物理速度的追求。我们可能最后会用看待速度一样怀疑的眼光来看待网上接近瞬时这一目标。
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/3KqYFFFM
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Thedaywasbreakingandpeoplebegantogotoworksothemurdererwasunableto_____ofthebody.
Mostgreatartistsareexceptionally_____people.
used本题空格处的句子是一个定语从句,是说罐子是用来喝水的。短语beusedfor意为“用来做……”。
ThismonthSingaporepassedabillthatwouldgivelegalteethtothemoralobligationtosupportone’sparents.CalledtheMai
TheCommercialRevolutionwasnotconfined,ofcourse,tothegrowthoftradeandbanking.Includedinitalsowerefundamental
EdithSmithofNewYorkwasconcernedabouther18-month-olddaughter,Amanda.Thedaughterdidnotrespondwhenherparentsspok
TheparentswereworriedaboutDorothybecausenoonewasaware____shehadgone.
Forseveralyears,scientistshavebeentestingasubstancecalledinterferon(干扰素),apotentialwonderdrugthatisprovingto
OnFebruary10,theworldofpsychiatrywillbeasked,metaphorically,tolieonthecouchandanswerquestionsaboutthestate
ThepsychologistEdwinG.Boringpreferred"currentofbelief"astheEnglishexpressionfortheGermanwordZeitgeist,usedby
随机试题
男性,30岁。呼吸困难2天就诊,发病前有鼻痒,喷嚏。继往有类似病史。体检:呼吸20次/分,双肺可闻及呼气末哮鸣音,心率96次/分,律齐。动脉血气分析PaCO238mmHg,PaO296mmHg,pH7.39。根据临床表现和血气分析结果,其病情程度分级为
A.抗甲状腺药物联合甲状腺素、免疫抑制剂、球后放射治疗B.突眼度2mmC.局部用药、眼罩、利尿、限盐等D.视力减退、眼肌麻痹、复视E.以上都是非浸润性突眼
A.磷酸盐类B.硅橡胶印模材C.琼脂D.印模膏E.氧化锌印模材料非弹性不可逆的印模材料是
A.抗生素药膜局部贴敷B.口服维生素AC.去除刺激因素D.强的松E.2%硫酸氢钠溶液治疗白斑的首要措施是
要做到“安全第一”,就必须()。
下列各项属于其他业务成本的是()。
银行资本内部融资的主要来源是()。
按预期假说,如果人们预期未来短期利率下降,债券回报率(债券利率)曲线呈()。
"Whereistheuniversity?"isaquestionmanyvisitorstoCambridgeask,butnoonecangivethemaclearanswerforthereisno
—Youwillhearfiveshortrecordings.Eachspeakerissayinganad.—Foreachrecording,decidewhichthespeakeristalkingabo
最新回复
(
0
)