Getting an Idea off the Ground

　　The crowd was quiet. The wings felt strong on his back. He ran towards the edge of the cliff. Faster and faster ?his arms flapping...

　　Daredevil or crazy? Who were these people trying to fly like birds? It took hundreds of years before people made it into the air.

　　飞离地面的创想

　　人群一片寂静。他感觉背上的翅膀很结实。他跑向了悬崖的边缘，速度越来越快，他振动双臂展翅飞翔……

　　冒失鬼还是疯子？这些试图像鸟一样飞翔的人是谁？几百年后，人们才真正飞上了天。

　　cliff: a high very steep face of rock. 悬崖

　　daredevil: a person who is prepared to take risk. 冒失鬼

　　An Ideas Man

　　Leonardo da Vinci was a genius. He was a painter, a scholar and a scientist who lived in the 1400s. But his ideas were far ahead of the times in which he lived. He drew designs for amazing things people thought were impossible: bicycles, parachutes and the craziest of all —flying machines.

　　Leonardo believed that humans would be able to fly in machines. He studied everything he could about birds. He drew plans for flapping wings attached to a person. He even designed a helicopter.

　　Leonardo da Vinci was able to imagine what things could exist in the future. Who knows what fantastic ideas he might come up with if he was alive today?

　　一个足智多谋的人

　　莱昂纳多·达·芬奇是位天才。他是15世纪的画家、学者和科学家。但他的思想却远远超出了他所生活的时代。他绘制了许多设计图，令人惊奇且难以置信：自行车、降落伞，还有最令人惊奇的——能飞行的机器。

　　莱昂纳多相信人类将会乘坐机器飞行。他尽其所能研究了关于鸟类的一切。他绘制了把拍动的翅膀绑在一个人身上的图纸。他甚至还设计了直升飞机。

　　莱昂纳多·达·芬奇能想象出在未来世界里存在的事物。如果他今天还活着，谁知道他会提出什么样的奇思妙想呢？

　　geniu: someone who has very high mental ability. 天才

　　scholar: a person of great learning. 学者

　　parachute: an apparatus made of cloth and is fastened to a person dropped from a plane to make him fall slowly. 降落伞

　　helicopter: an aircraft with metal blades fixed on top. 直升飞机

　　exist: be present. 存在

　　fantastic: strange. 奇异的

　　Flying High

　　In 1782 two Frenchmen, Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier, made a balloon out of paper and cloth. Then they lit a fire beneath the balloon. The hot air rising from the fire pushed the balloon up into the sky. The Montgolfier brothers decided that the balloon was now ready for passengers. They must have been short on human volunteers because the first passengers were a sheep, a duck and a rooster!

　　在高空飞行

　　1782年，两个法国人，约瑟夫和埃蒂安那·蒙哥费埃用纸和布料制作了一个气球。他们在气球下点燃了火，火焰发出的热气把气球推向了天空。

　　蒙哥费埃兄弟认为气球现在可以载人了。但他们当时一定缺少志愿者，因为热气球的首批乘客是绵羊、鸭子和公鸡！

　　beneath: under. 在……下面

　　volunteer: person who offers to do sth. for someone else. 志愿者

　　survive: continue to live after a dangerous situation. 幸存

　　In 1783, two other Frenchmen stepped forward and said they would take to the skies in a Montgolfier balloon. They stayed in the air for 25 minutes and travelled more than 8 kilometres. This balloon was the first successful flying craft to carry humans. Anything now seemed possible!

　　1783年，另两位法国人把热气球的研制向前推进了一步，他们说会用热气球把自己送上天空。他们在空中停留了25分钟，并且飞行了超过8公里。这只热气球是第一个成功载人的航天器。任何事情在现在看来都是可能的！

　　The Wright Stuff

　　Orville and Wilbur Wright wanted to fly. While they were at school, they read all about the theories of flight and built kites to see how they flew. They studied gliders, which had been invented in 1804, and wondered how they could improve them.

　　They designed their own glider and added a 12-horsepower petrol engine to it. They called it The Flyer. In 1903, they tossed a coin on Kill Devil Hill in North Carolina to see who would fly the plane. Orville Wright won the toss and became the pilot of the first powered flight in history.

　　Soon aircraft became better and faster, and aviators flew around the world. Suddenly the world seemed much smaller. People wondered where they could fly to next. Maybe to the moon?

　　莱特兄弟

　　奥维尔和威尔伯·莱特想在空中飞行。当他们在学校时就阅读了所有关于飞行的理论并制作了风筝，看它们是如何飞起来的。他们研究了于1804年问世的滑翔机，想知道如何将它进行改进。

　　他们设计出了自己的滑翔机并为它添置了一台12马力的汽油发动机。他们把它叫做“飞行者”。1903年，在北卡罗来纳州的基尔戴维尔山上，他们用掷钱币猜正反面的方式来决定谁将驾驶这架飞机。奥维尔·莱特猜赢了，并成为历史上第一位驾驶有动力装置飞机的飞行员。

　　很快，飞机的装置变得越来越先进，飞得越来越快，飞行员也作了环球飞行。突然间这个世界仿佛变小了。人们想知道他们下一步会飞向哪里。也许是月球吧？

　　theory: the general principles of an art or science. 理论

　　glider: motorless aeroplane using gravity or air current. 滑翔机

　　improve: make better. 改进

　　horsepower: a unit of measurement of power. 马力

　　toss: flip coins to decidc an issue. 掷硬币决定某事

　　pilot: person who operates an aircraft. 飞行员

　　aviator: a pilot. 飞行员