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词汇 babbitt
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babbitt. Congress deemed the invention of babbitt or babbitt metal so important to the development of the industrial age that it awarded inventor Isaac Babbitt (1799–1862) a $20,000 grant. Babbitt is a soft, silver-white alloy of copper, tin, and an- timony used to reduce friction in machine bearings. It was dis- covered as a result of the inventor’s experiments in turning out the first Britannia metal tableware ever produced in America. After the Taunton, Massachusetts goldsmith successfully man- ufactured Britannia in 1824, he experimented further with the same three metals and ultimately invented babbitt, which he used to line a patented journal box in 1839. The metal proved far better than any other substance used for reducing friction and is still widely used for machine bearings today. Babbitt soap, no longer marketed, also bore the inventor’s name. Bab- bitt wasn’t the prototype for Sinclair Lewis’s ambitious, uncul- tured, and smugly satisfied American businessman in his novel of the same name, but the character’s name was probably sug- gested by Lewis’s early memories of advertisements for the soap.
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更新时间:2025/5/2 13:32:14