Carver Mead, a pioneer in integrated circuits and a professor of computer science at the California Institute of Technology,

卡弗。米德 -- 集成电路的一位先驱，加州理工学院的计算机教授 --

We endeavour to avoid the old, romantic idea of a gusher, which wastes oil and gas.

我们尽量避免使用陈旧天真的喷井方法，那样会浪费石油和天然气。

Although mankind has undergone no general improvement in intelligence or morality, it has made extraordinary progress in the accumulation of knowledge.

虽然人类有智力和道德上没有得到普遍提高，但在知识积累方面却取得了巨大的进步。

the strangest of them being perhaps the hovercraft.

其中最新奇的要数气垫船了。

Was the philosopher who refused to look through Galileo's telescope more culpable than those who alleged that the spiral nebulae observed with Lord Rosse's great telescope in the eighteen-forties were scratches left by the grinder?

某位哲学家曾拒绝使用伽利略的望远镜去观察天空；到了19世纪40年代，有人硬把罗斯勋爵高倍望远镜观测到的螺旋状星云说成是磨镜工留下的磨痕。难道反对伽利略的哲学家比诋毁罗斯勋爵造谣者应受到更大的谴责吗？

A run-down watch is still a watch and can be rewound.

手表停了依然是只手表，还可以重上好发条。