Unit 3《The secret of success》文字素材1（译林版选修11）.docVIP

Unit 3 The secret of success Part I Background Information I. More information about Sir Clive Sinclair Sir Clive Sinclair (born in July 30, 1940) is a well-known British entrepreneur and inventor of the worlds first slim-line electronic pocket calculator in 1972 and the ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, amongst many other things. The ZX80 was the UKs first mass market home computer to be sold for under ￡100. Sinclair was fascinated by electronics and miniaturization from his teenage years. In 1961 he started his own company, Sinclair Radionics Ltd, after spending several years as assistant editor for Practical Wireless and Instrument Practice to raise funds. In recent years Sinclair has become a keen poker player and appeared in the first three seasons of the Late Night Poker TV series. He won the first season final of the Celebrity Poker Club spin-off, defeating Keith Allen His most recent invention is the A-bike, an ingenious folding bicycle for commuters that weighs only 5.5 kilograms (12 pounds) and folds to a very small size for easy carrying on a train or bus. Early life, family and education. Sinclairs father and grandfather were engineers; both had been apprentices at Vickers the shipbuilders. His grandfather George Sinclair was an innovative naval architect who got the paravane, a mine sweeping device, to work. George Sinclairs son Bill Sinclair attempted to break the family tradition of engineering by expressing a preference for going into the church - or perhaps becoming a journalist. His father suggested he train as an engineer first; Bill became a mechanical engineer and has been in the field ever since. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939 he was running his own machine tools business in London and later worked for the Ministry of Supply. Clive Sinclair was born in 1940 near Richmond. He and his mother left London to stay with an aunt for safety in Devon, where they eventually travelled to Teignmouth. A tele