盤點由女性發明的10件東西(上)

At the end of the 20th century, only 10 percent of all patents were awarded to female inventors. When you compile a list of the most famous inventions of the past few centuries, few women will show up as the creators of those items. It's not that women lack ingenuity or a creative spirit, though; it's just that women have faced many hurdles in receiving credit for their ideas. Take the case of Sybilla Masters, a woman who lived in the American colonies. After observing Native American women, she came up with a new way to turn corn into cornmeal. She went to England to obtain a patent for her work, but laws at the time stipulated that women couldn't own property, which included intellectual property like a patent. Such property was considered to be owned by the woman's father or husband. In 1715, a patent for Sybilla Masters' product was issued, but the name on the document is that of her husband, Thomas.

截止20世紀末，世界上授予女發明家的專利只有10%。當你在清單上列出過去幾個世紀以來最著名的發明創造時，你會發現幾乎沒有什麼是女性發明的。這並不代表女性缺乏創造力和創新精神，而是因爲女性在獲取發明專利時會遇到很多阻礙。比如西比拉·馬斯特斯，她是一個居住在美國殖民地的著名發明家。通過觀察美國原住民婦女，她想出了一個將玉米磨成粉的新方法。之後她去英國申請專利；但是當時的法律規定女性不能擁有財產，其中包括專利等知識產權。人們都認爲這些東西都歸屬於其父親或者丈夫。1715年，西比拉·馬斯特斯的專利產品發佈了，但專利所屬人卻是她的丈夫托馬斯。

Such property laws prevented many women from acquiring patents for inventions several centuries ago. Women were also less likely to receive a technical education that would help them turn an ingenious idea into an actual product. Many women faced prejudice and ridicule when they sought help from men in actualizing their idea. And some women came up with ideas that would improve life in their households, only to see their inventions treated with scorn for being too domestic and thus unworthy of praise. Mary Kies was the first American woman to earn a patent in her own name. In 1809, she developed a way of weaving straw into hats that was an economic boon for New England. By receiving that piece of paper with her name on it, Kies led the way for other female inventors to take credit for their ideas. In this article, we'll salute 10 things invented by women.

這種產權法在過去的幾個世紀剝奪了很多女發明家申請專利的權利。另外，由於那時的女性很少有機會接受技術教育，所以無法將自己的想法轉化爲發明。當這些婦女企圖從男人們那裏尋求幫助來實現自己的想法時，她們經常遭到歧視和嘲笑。一些婦女在做家務的過程中想出了一些簡化家務勞動的辦法，但她們的發明常常因爲僅用於家庭而被忽視。瑪麗·凱斯是第一位用自己的名字獲得發明專利的美國女性。1809年，她發明了一種編織稻草帽的方法，這種方法成爲了新英格蘭的經濟福利。凱斯收到專利文件之後，開啓了其他女發明家成功爲自己申請專利的序幕。在本文中，我們將一起向這10件由女性發明發明的東西致敬！

ular Saw

10.圓鋸

In the late 18th century, a religious sect known as the Shakers emerged. Shakers valued living communally (albeit celibately), equality between the sexes and hard work. Tabitha Babbitt lived in a Shaker community in Massachusetts and worked as a weaver, but in 1810, she came up with a way to lighten the load of her brethren. She observed men cutting wood with a pit saw, which is a two-handled saw that requires two men to pull it back and forth. Though the saw is pulled both ways, it only cuts wood when it's pulled forward; the return stroke is useless. To Babbitt, that was wasted energy, so she created a prototype of the circular saw that would go on to be used in saw mills. She attached a circular blade to her spinning wheel so that every movement of the saw produced results. Because of Shaker precepts, Babbitt didn't apply for a patent for the circular saw she created.

在18世紀晚期，一種被稱爲震教的教派出現了。震教徒的信仰在於追求共產主義生活（儘管保持獨身生活）、平等的兩性關係和努力工作。塔比莎·芭比特是一名紡織工，住在馬薩諸塞州一個震教徒聚居地。但是在1810年，她想出了一種方法幫她的教友減輕工作負擔。她通過觀察發現，如果男人用大鋸子鋸木頭，需要兩個人來回用力拉扯鋸子。雖然鋸子來回拉動了兩次，但是隻有往前時纔有作用，拉回鋸子時卻是在做“無用功”。在芭比特看來，這樣做無疑是在浪費人們的力氣，因此她製作了最原始的圓鋸，隨後在鋸木廠得到了使用。她將一張圓形刀片綁在自己的手搖紡車上面，這樣鋸子的移動都是有用的。令人感到遺憾的是，由於震教組織的信仰，芭比特沒有爲圓鋸申請專利。

olate Chip Cookies

9.巧克力奇普餅乾

There is no doubt that many treasured recipes came about through accidental invention in the kitchen, but we must single out one of the most enduring -- and delicious -- of these recipes: the chocolate chip cookie.

毫無疑問的是，很多不可多得的食品都是在廚房裏偶然發明出來的，而我們將挑出其中長盛不衰、美味無限的一種：巧克力奇普餅乾。

Ruth Wakefield had worked as a dietitian and food lecturer before buying an old toll house outside of Boston with her husband. Traditionally, toll houses were places weary travelers paid their road tolls, grabbed a quick bite and fed their horses. Wakefield and her husband converted the toll house into an inn with a restaurant. One day in 1930, Wakefield was baking up a batch of Butter Drop Do cookies for her guests. The recipe called for melted chocolate, but Wakefield had run out of baker's chocolate. She took a Nestle chocolate bar, crumbled it into pieces and threw it into her batter, expecting the chocolate pieces to melt during baking. Instead, the chocolate held its shape, and the chocolate chip cookie was born. Nestle noticed that sales of its chocolate bars jumped in Mrs. Wakefield's corner of Massachusetts, so they met with her about the cookie, which was fast gaining a reputation among travelers. At Wakefield's suggestion, they began scoring their chocolate (cutting lines into the bar that allow for easier breaking) and then, in 1939, they began selling Nestle Toll House Real Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels. The Wakefield cookie recipe was printed on the back of the package; in exchange, Ruth Wakefield received free chocolate for life.

露絲·韋克菲爾德和他的丈夫曾經做過營養師和食品講師，後來在波士頓郊外買了一處收費站陳舊的房子。收費站除了收取過路費，還可以向過往的旅客提供快餐及餵養馬匹等服務。韋克菲爾德和丈夫卻將房子改造成了一個帶有餐廳的旅店。1930年某一天，韋克菲爾德要爲她的客人們烘焙一些黃油夾心曲奇。做這種食品需要將巧克力融化，但是烘培用的巧克力已經用完了，於是韋克菲爾德把雀巢巧克力條弄碎，扔進了麪糊，希望巧克力會在烘焙時融化。然而，這些巧克力還是維持原樣，就這樣巧克力奇普餅乾誕生了。雀巢公司發現自己的巧克力在馬薩諸塞州的韋克菲爾德家附近的銷量猛增，隨後拜訪了韋克菲爾德夫婦，談到了巧克力奇普餅乾的事情——這種餅乾贏得了過往遊客的讚譽。在韋克菲爾德的建議下，雀巢公司開始改良巧克力（在巧克力條上劃線以便切碎）。1939年，雀巢公司開始銷售“雀巢收費站半甜巧克力食品”。韋克菲爾德的配方就印在包裝袋後面；同時作爲交換，露絲·韋克菲爾德將終身獲得免費的巧克力。

id Paper

8.修正液

Bette Nesmith Graham was not a very good typist. Still, the high school dropout worked her way through the secretarial pool to become the executive secretary for the chairman of the board of the Texas Bank and Trust. It was the 1950s, and the electric typewriter had just been introduced. Secretaries often found themselves retyping entire pages because of one tiny mistake, as the new model's carbon ribbon made it difficult to correct errors.

貝蒂·奈史密斯·格萊姆並不是一個出色的打字員，且高中就輟學了，但她卻從一個小小的祕書做到了德克薩斯信託銀行行長執行祕書的職位。20世紀50年代，電動打字機纔剛剛問世。祕書們常常會由於一個小錯誤而不得不重打一整頁文字，因爲在新型的條帶複寫紙上太難修改了。

One day, Graham watched workers painting a holiday display on a bank window. She noticed that when they made mistakes, they simply added another layer of paint to cover them up, and she thought she could apply that idea to her typing blunders. Using her blender, Graham mixed up a water-based tempera paint with dye that matched her company's stationary. She took it to work and, using a fine watercolor brush, she was able to quickly correct her errors. Soon, the other secretaries were clamoring for the product, which Graham continued to produce in her kitchen. Graham was fired from her job for spending so much time distributing what she called "Mistake Out," but in her unemployment she was able to tweak her mixture, rename the product Liquid Paper and receive a patent in 1958. Even though typewriters have been replaced by computers in many offices, many people still have a bottle or two of that white correction fluid on hand.

某天，格萊姆偶爾看到有工人爲慶祝節日在銀行窗口上畫裝飾畫，她注意到他們畫錯了的時候就簡單地用一層顏料把錯誤遮住。格萊姆靈光一現，想到她打字粗心犯錯的時候也可以用這種方式解決。她用攪拌機把水性顏料和與公司紙張顏色一致的染料混在一起，再借助一把小巧的水彩筆刷，這樣就能在工作時簡便快捷地更正自己的錯誤了。很快，其他祕書也都嚷嚷着想要這種產品，格萊姆只好在自家廚房裏不斷生產這種產品。由於格萊姆在調配她稱爲“錯誤消除神器”的產品上花費了太多時間，她被開除了。但在她失業期間，她不斷完善混合比例，把終極成品重命名爲修正液，並在1958年取得了專利。即便現在很多辦公室都用電腦取代了打字員，很多人仍習慣手裏有一兩瓶修正液。

Compiler and COBOL Computer Language

7.編譯程序和通用商業語言（COBOL）

When we think about advancements in computers, we tend to think about men like Charles Babbage, Alan Turing and Bill Gates. But Admiral Grace Murray Hopper deserves credit for her role in the computer industry. Admiral Hopper joined the military in 1943 and was stationed at Harvard University, where she worked on IBM's Harvard Mark I computer, the first large-scale computer in the United States. She was the third person to program this computer, and she wrote a manual of operations that lit the path for those that followed her. In the 1950s, Admiral Hopper invented the compiler, which translates English commands into computer code. This device meant that programmers could create code more easily and with fewer errors. Hopper's second compiler, the Flow-Matic, was used to program UNIVAC I and II, which were the first computers available commercially. Admiral Hopper also oversaw the development of the Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL), one of the first computer programming languages. Admiral Hopper received numerous awards for her work, including the honor of having a U.S. warship named after her.

每當說起計算機方面的成就時，我們很容易聯想到查爾斯·巴貝奇、艾倫·圖靈和比爾·蓋茨等等，但格蕾絲·莫爾·霍珀上將在電腦行業也是個名聲赫赫的人物。1943年，霍珀上將參軍後被安排在哈佛大學，研究美國國際商用機器公司開發的哈佛馬克一號電腦，這是美國首臺大型電腦。她是第三個爲這臺電腦編程的人，並親手寫了一冊操作指南，以便讓後續參與研究的學會她的編程。20世紀50年代，霍珀上將發明了一種能將英文命令轉化爲電腦編碼的編譯程序。使用此裝置可更簡便地編程，同時減小犯錯率。霍珀的第二種編譯語言是“the Flow-Matic語言”，被用於第一代商用電腦：通用自動計算機一號和二號。霍珀上將還指導了COBOL語言的發展——這是首批電腦程序語言之一。霍珀上將在職業生涯中獲得了無數榮譽，甚至有艘美國軍艦都是以她的名字命名的。

red Flare System

6.有色照明彈系統

When Martha Coston was widowed in 1847, she was only 21 years old. She had four children to support, but she hadn't a clue about how to do so. She was flipping through her dead husband's notebooks when she found plans for a flare system that ships could use to communicate at night. Coston requested the system be tested, but it failed.

瑪莎·科斯頓在1847年就成爲寡婦，當時她才21歲。她要撫養四個孩子，但她不知道該怎樣做。當她翻閱她死去的丈夫的筆記簿時，她發現了一些平面圖，上面畫有可以讓船隻在夜晚傳遞信息的照明彈系統。科斯頓爲這個系統申請了測試，但是測試失敗了。

Coston was undeterred. She spent the next 10 years revising and perfecting her husband's design for a colored flare system. She consulted with scientists and military officers, but she couldn't figure out how to produce flares that were bright and long-lasting while remaining easy to use at the spur of the moment. One night she took her children to see a fireworks display, and that's when she hit upon the idea of applying some pyrotechnic technology to her flare system. The flare system finally worked, and the U.S. Navy bought the rights. The Coston colored flare system was used extensively during the Civil War. Unfortunately, the flare system wasn't the best way for Coston to support her family. According to military documents, Coston produced 1,200,000 flares for the Navy during the Civil War, which she provided at cost. She was owed $120,000, of which she was only paid $15,000; in her autobiography, Coston attributed the Navy's refusal to pay to the fact that she was a woman.

科斯頓不爲所動。在接下來的十年裏，她不斷修改和完善她丈夫設計的有色照明彈系統。她諮詢過科學家和軍事人員，但她不知道如何製作出既能在短時間內方便使用，又可以持久發出明亮光線的照明彈。一天晚上她帶孩子去看煙花，偶然想到了將煙花技術應用到照明彈系統的主意。這個系統終於可以使用了，美國海軍買下了專利權。科斯頓有色照明彈系統在內戰中得到廣泛使用。不幸的是，對科斯頓來說照明彈系統不是養活家人的最好方式。根據軍方文件，科斯頓在內戰中按成本價爲海軍生產了120萬枚照明彈。她本應該得到12萬美元，但是海軍只支付她1.5萬美元；在她的自傳裏，科斯頓把海軍拒絕付款的原因歸咎於她是個女人。

審校：敖有沒 來源：前十網