Soon after taking up his position, Davy began to bang out new elements one after another—potassium, sodium,magnesium, calcium, strontium, and aluminum or aluminium, depending on which branch of English you favor.
上任不久，戴維開(kāi)始宣布發(fā)現(xiàn)一種又一種新的元素：鉀、鈉、錳、鈣、鍶和鋁。
The confusion over the aluminum/aluminium spelling arose because of some uncharacteristic indecisiveness on Davy's part. When he first isolated the element in 1808, he called it alumium. For some reason he thought better of that and changed it to aluminum four years later. Americans dutifully adopted the new term, but many British users disliked aluminum, pointing out that it disrupted the -ium pattern established by sodium, calcium, and strontium, so they added a vowel and syllable.
對(duì)aluminum/aluminium的拼寫產(chǎn)生混淆的原因是因?yàn)榇骶S猶豫不決。當(dāng)他在1808年首次分離此元素時(shí)，稱其為alumium。四年后，出于某些原因，他覺(jué)得把它的名字改成aluminum更好。美國(guó)人則完完全全地接受了這個(gè)新術(shù)語(yǔ)，但很多英國(guó)使用者卻不喜歡aluminum這個(gè)名字，指出其破壞了由sodium, calcium, and strontium建立起的-ium的形式，因此他們?cè)赼luminum的基礎(chǔ)上加了一個(gè)元音和一個(gè)音節(jié)。
He discovered so many elements not so much because he was serially astute as because he developed an ingenious technique of applying electricity to a molten substance—electrolysis, as it is known. Altogether he discovered a dozen elements, a fifth of the known total of his day. Davy might have done far more, but unfortunately as a young man he developed an abiding attachment to the buoyant pleasures of nitrous oxide. He grew so attached to the gas that he drew on it (literally) three or four times a day. Eventually, in 1829, it is thought to have killed him.
他發(fā)現(xiàn)那么多種元素，與其說(shuō)是因?yàn)樗闱辶嗽氐呐帕校蝗缯f(shuō)是因?yàn)樗l(fā)明了一項(xiàng)巧妙的技術(shù)：把電流通過(guò)一種熔融狀態(tài)的物質(zhì)——就是現(xiàn)在所謂的電解。他總共發(fā)現(xiàn)了12種元素，占他那個(gè)時(shí)代已知總數(shù)的五分之一。戴維本來(lái)會(huì)作出更大的成績(jī)，但不幸的是，他是個(gè)年輕人，漸漸沉迷于一氧化二氮所帶來(lái)的那種心曠神怡的樂(lè)趣。他簡(jiǎn)直離不開(kāi)那種氣體，一天要吸入三四次。最后，在1829年，據(jù)認(rèn)為就是這種氣體斷送了他的性命。
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