1、The Problem Of The SnakesWhen I called up my mother in the countryside on the telephone she was very upset. There are some snakes in our courtyard, she told me. Snakes come near the house now and then, and they seem to have made their home here, not far from the walnut tree. Can you get rid of them

2、please? I felt very proud. Here was a chance for .me to distinguish myself by inventing something merciful that would catch snakes but not harm them. I knew my parents would not like me to hurt these living creatures!The first thing I did was to see if there were any products that might help me, but

3、 there only seemed to be powders designed to kill snakes. A new approach was clearly needed. I set about researching the habits of snakes to find the easiest way to trap them. Luckily these reptiles are small and that made the solution easier.Prepared with some research findings, I decided on three

4、possible approaches: firstly, removing their habitat; secondly, attracting them into a trap using male or female perfume or food; and thirdly cooling them so that they would become sleepy and could be easily caught. I decided to use the last one. I bought an ice-cream maker which was made of stainle

5、ss steel. Between the outside and the inside walls of the bowl there is some jelly, which freezes when cooled. I put the bowl into the fridge and waited for 24 hours. At the same time I prepared some ice-cubes.The next morning I got up early before the sun was hot. I placed the frozen bowl over the

6、snakes habitat and the ice-cubes on top of the bowl to keep it cool. Finally I covered the whole thing with a large bucket. Then I waited. After two hours I removed the bucket and the bowl. The snakes were less active but they were still too fast for me. They abruptly disappeared into a convenient h

7、ole in the wall. So I had to adjust my plan.For the second attempt I froze the bowl and the ice-cubes again but placed them over the snakes habitat in the evening, as the temperature was starting to cool. Then as before, I covered the bowl with the bucket and left everything overnight. Early the nex

8、t morning I returned to see the result. This time with great caution I bent down to examine the snakes and I found them very sleepy. But once picked up, they tried to bite me. As they were poisonous snakes, I clearly needed to improve my design again.My third attempt repeated the second procedure. T

9、he next morning I carried in my hand a small net used for catching fish. This was in the expectation that the snakes would bite again. But monitored carefully, the snakes proved to be no trouble and all went according to plan. I collected the passive snakes and the next day we merrily released them

10、all back into the wild.Pressed by my friends and relations, I decided to seize the opportunity to get recognition for my successful idea by sending my invention to the patent office. Only after you have had that recognition can you say that you are truly an inventor. The criteria are so strict that

11、it is difficult to get new ideas accepted unless they are truly novel. In addition, no invention will get a patent if it is:a discoverya scientific idea or mathematical modelliterature or arta game or a businessa computer programmea new animal or plant varietyNor will you receive a patent until a se

12、arch has been made to find out that your product really is different from everyone elses. There are a large number of patent examiners, too, whose only job is to examine whether your claim is valid or not. If it passes all the tests, your application for a patent will be published 18 months from the

13、 date you apply. So I have filled in the form and filed my patent application with the Patent Office. Now its a matter of waiting and hoping. Youll know if I succeed by the size of my bank balance! Wish me luck!ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Scotland, but when he was

14、 young his family moved to Boston, USA. His mother was almost entirely deaf, so Alexander became interested in helping deaf people communicate and in deaf education. This interest led him to invent the microphone. He found that by pressing his lips against his mothers forehead, he could make his mot

15、her understand what he was saying. He believed that one should always be curious and his most famous saying was: Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. Follow it up, explore all around it,

16、and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the result of thought.It was this exploring around problems and his dynamic spirit that led to his most famous invention - the telephone in 1876. Bell never set out to invent the

17、telephone and what he was trying to design was a multiple telegraph. This original telegraph sent a message over distances using Morse code (a series of dots tapped out along a wire in a particular order). But only one message could go at a time. Bell wanted to improve it so that it could send sever

18、al messages at the same time. He designed a machine that would separate different sound waves and allow different conversations to be held at the same time. But he found the problem difficult to solve. One day as he was experimenting with one end of a straw joined to a deaf mans ear drum and the oth

19、er to a piece of smoked glass, Bell noticed that when he spoke into the ear, the straw drew sound waves on the glass. Suddenly he had a flash of inspiration. If sound waves could be reproduced in a moving electrical current, they could be sent along a wire. In searching to improve the telegraph, Bel

20、l had invented the first telephone! Bell was fully aware of the importance of his invention and wrote to his father: The day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just like water or gas and friends will talk to each other without leaving home. The patent was given in 1876, but it was not until five days later that Bell sent his first telephone message to his assistant Watson. The words have now become famous: Mr Watson - come here - I wan