George Daniels George Daniels, master w_跬步千里行《英刊视译》_免费在线阅读收听下载

George Daniels
George Daniels, master watchmaker（钟表匠）, died on October 21st, aged 85
A SCHOOLBOY once asked George Daniels what he had at the end of the chain（枷锁） that led to his pocket（伸进他的衣兜）. A silly question, really. But it was worth asking, because what Mr Daniels pulled out, carefully, was what he called his Space Traveller's Watch. It gave mean solar time（平均太阳时）, mean sidereal time（平均恒星时）, equation of time（时差）, and could chart（记录） the phases of the moon. Mr Daniels liked to say it would be useful for trips to Mars. He had surmised（猜测） almost the same when, at five or six, he had first prised（强行分开） open with（始于） a fairly（相当） blunt（不锋利的）） breadknife the back of an old watch he had found at home, and seen "the centre of the universe" inside. He had never imagined then that he would make the universe by hand. But he did. Every component of his Space Traveller's Watch—as of（截止到） the 36 other watches he made, each unique, over his 42 working years—was produced from scratch（白手起家）. He made the screws（螺丝）, the springs（弹簧） and the levers（杠杆）, the pallets（托盘） and gears（齿轮）, the hands and the plain, often numberless（没有号码的） dials（刻度盘）. He also made the tools that made them, except for the lathes（）（车床） and turning engines. No one else had ever learned the dozens（虚度欧） of necessary skills. But after years of teaching himself horology（钟表制造术） from clocks bought for a bob（钟摆） or two at jumble（混乱的） sales, or comrades' broken watches in the army, or the wonderful Breguet（瑞士宝玑手表） and old English timepieces（时钟） he went on to restore（复原） for collectors, he had begun to think, why not? Hour after hour（连续地）, for it wasn't the sort of work you could just do a little of and leave again, he would cut and shape, file（打磨） and polish, temper（回火） and hammer（反复敲打））. The work flowed from the tools almost unconsciously（无意识地）. He learned from a craftsman（工匠） in Clerkenwell（可拉肯维尔） how to make cases（样品）, usually of gold with a silver back and bezels（斜背面）. His first watch was sold to a collector friend, Sam Clutton, in 1970 for ￡1,900; when sold in 2002, it fetched（取得） more than ￡200,000. A hard, poor childhood in north London had given him a nose（灵敏度） for a deal（交易） and a sharp sense of the value of everything. But his pieces（作品） were private experiments, not commissions（佣金）. He wanted to build watches that kept better time than any in the 500 years before. The general public was happy, from the late 1960s, with quartz（石英石） models that lost, on average, two or three seconds（偏差） a month. But Mr Daniels was determined to show that a mechanical（机械的） watch could beat them. In the mid-1970s he made a double-escapement（擒纵结构） watch for Mr Clutton which, over 32 days, lost less than a second. His happiness at beating quartz（石英） came close to his boyhood joy when a wall-clock（挂钟） he had mended magnificently（壮观地） exploded, springs and glass everywhere, as the family ate their bread and jam at the supper table. Now he had to improve on the lever escapement（杠杆式擒纵结构）, which had

George Daniels George Daniels, master w

George Daniels George Daniels, master w

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