An English Reader on Science 3 страница

Tasks and exercises

1. Answer the following questions:

a) When did Joule produce his first major scientific results?

b) What did Joule’s experiment with the paddle consist in and what did it lead to?

c) How did Joule overturn the caloric theory?

d) What is the Joule-Kelvin effect?

e) How can you evaluate Joule’s contribution to science?

2. In the text find words that have the following meanings:

a) “the same in all parts and at all times”;

b) “to start to go faster”;

c) “a situation in which two or more objects crash into each other”;

d) “the opposite of ‘to contract’ ”;

e) “to a fairly large degree, especially when compared to smth else”;

f) “(of statements or pieces of evidence) to be so different from each other that one of them must be wrong”;

g)“typical or normal”;

h) “to operate smth”;

i) “to change smth”;

j) “a judgement or opinion about the quality or value of smth”;

k) “not intended to be moved”;

l) “to make smth happen”;

m) “immediately”;

n) “preceding” [prɪ'siːd ɪŋ].

3. Study the collocations in which some of the general scientific words from the text are used:

a) proportion (n): correct/direct/inverse proportion, keep smth in proportion, proportion of smth to smth, out of proportion;

b) to refer: be used to refer to smth, to refer briefly to smth, frequently/often/commonly referred to;

c) rate (n): at a constant/expected/regular rate, fast/slow rate, improve/increase/slow down rate;

d) to transform: considerably/profoundly/entirely/totally, to manage to transform smth, to transform from into;

e) to transfer: carefully/directly/easily/immediately/gradually /eventually;

f) mechanism: effective/precise, to work/operate;

g) estimate: approximate/conservative, official/current, to be based on, to vary;

h) term: to denote smth, to coin a term, to apply a term, a specific/broad/precise term;

i) unit: a unit of smth, a basic/standard unit.

4. Fill in the gaps:

Data are easily ____ electronically. Marie Curie ____ a damp storeroom in the Paris Municipal School into a laboratory. They created an effective ­_____ for lifting weights. The ___ ‘acid rain’ was ____ in the 19th century. As you grow older your metabolic ___ slows down. The human population in this region is expanding in inverse _____ to the wildlife. Skills cannot be _____ directly from the teacher to the student. The ____ of oxygen to nitrogen was three to one. The ___ ‘renewable energy’ is ____, for example, to energy deriving from solar radiation. The term ‘M-theory’ is used to ____ to a ‘grand unifying theory’ that would integrate general relativity and quantum mechanics. The costs of this project are out of ____ to the budget. He briefly ____ to the report. The costs of this project are increasing at a constant ___.

5. Make up 10 sentences in English with the collocations from ex.3.

6. Translate into English:

a) Он обнаружил, что количество энергии, на которое провод нагревался, было пропорционально квадрату величины электрического тока.

b) Он сформулировал это в уравнении, которое сейчас обозначают как закон Джоуля.

c) Нагревание происходит быстрее по мере усиления электрического тока, так как более быстрый поток создает намного больше столкновений.

d) Эта энергия превращалась в тепло в результате ударов весла о поверхность воды.

e) Теплота (caloric) считалась жидкостью, которая могла передаваться от одного тела к другому, но не могла быть создана или уничтожена.

f) Это открытие, известное как эффект Джоуля-Томсона, лежит в основе механизма, который управляет системами охлаждения.

g) Джоуль и Томсон также написали статью, в которой впервые приблизительно посчитали скорость движения молекул газа.

h) Имя Джоуля увековечено в термине «Джоуль», используемом как единица измерения энергии.

7. A number of English nouns (usually with Greek and Latin cores) have special plurals: datum, stimulus, phenomenon, matrix, thesis, etc. Open the brackets putting the nouns in the plural:

a) These (datum) show that the experiment was successful.

b) The latest findings reflected in these (thesis) are of special interest to us.

c) Physics studies natural (phenomenon).

d) The animals were conditioned to respond to auditory (stimulus).

8. Make a written resume of the text about James Joule (10-15 sentences) and retell the text orally relying on what you have written.

Ernest Rutherford['ɜːnist 'rʌðəfəd]

When he died suddenly in 1937, the New York Times wrote that in a generation that saw one of the greatest revolutions in the entire history of science Rutherford was known as the leading explorer of the infinitely complex universe within the atom, a universe that he was first to penetrate.

Born: 1871, Spring Grove, New Zealand.

Education: Canterbury College, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Major achievement: “father of nuclear physics” (concept of radioactive half-life, alpha and beta radiation, Rutherford model of the atom, discovery of the proton, etc.).

Died: 1937, Cambridge, England.

Before reading the text, study the words in the right column (practise pronouncing those which are transcribed):

Ernest Rutherford was brought up in New Zealand, and went to study and do research in several key universities around the world. But it was in his native country that he developed simple but effective mechanisms and monitoring equipment to determine whether iron was magnetic at very high frequencies of magnetising current.   After three failed attempts at getting into medicine, Rutherford succeeded in getting a grant to study science and found himself working with Joseph John Thomson (1856–1940) ['tɔmsən] in Cambridge University’s Cavendish laboratory ['kæv(ə)ndɪʃ lə'bɔrət(ə)rɪ]. Here Rutherford adapted his detector of “fast transient circuits” and used it to investigate some of the properties of insulating materials. Impressed with his ability, Thomson invited him to join a special team studying the electrical conduction of gases. During this work, Rutherford discovered that there were two different forms of rays coming from radioactive elements. Passing a beam of such rays through a magnetic field, he quickly saw that some were bent, while others travelled straight on. The ones that were straight on he called alpha particles – which are in fact helium atoms with their electrons stripped off – while those bent by the magnetic field he called beta particles, which turned out to be electrons.   Moving to McGill University in Montreal [ˌmɔntrɪ'ɔːl], Canada, Rutherford discovered radon, a chemically unreactive but radioactive gas, and published his first book on radioactivity. His work in McGill University was the basis for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he was awarded in 1908.   It was when he returned to England, this time moving to the University of Manchester ['mænʧɪstə], that he had an insight that would change our appreciation of the world. He had given a student a laboratory practical to run, in which they fired alpha particles at thin films of gold. Most of the particles shot through the gold leaf, but a few were deflected, while one or two bounced straight back. Rutherford said that this was as if a large naval artillery round had been deflected by a piece of tissue paper.   It was not until 1911 that he deduced this could only have occurred if the mass of gold atoms was contained in an incredibly tiny nucleus. He left it for a young Danish ['deɪnɪʃ] scientist, Niels Bohr [ˈniːls ˈbɔː(r)] (1885–1962) to add that the rest of the atom would consist of a halo of electrons flying around the nucleus, much in the way that planets orbit around a star.

Mechanism ['mekənɪz(ə)m] To determine [dɪ'tɜːmɪn] –определить Iron ['aɪən ] Magnetising current ['mægnətaɪzɪŋ 'kʌr(ə)nt] – ток намагничивания Fast transient circuit [fɑːst 'trænzɪənt 'sɜːkɪt] – быстрая переходная схема Insulating ['ɪnsjəleɪtɪŋ] – изоляционный, непроводящий Insulating material – диэлектрик Conduction – проводимость Beam [biːm] – пучок, луч Alpha ['ælfə] Helium ['hiːlɪəm] To strip off– снимать Beta ['beitə] Radon ['reɪdɔn] Insight ['ɪnˌsaɪt] –понимание, догадка Appreciation [əˌpriːʃɪ'eɪʃ(ə)n] – понимание, оценка Film – пленка, тонкий лист To deflect – заставить изменить направление, отклонить To bounce – прыгать, отскакивать Naval artillery round – военно-морской артиллерийский снаряд   Tissue paper – тонкая оберточная бумага Incredibly – невероятно Halo ['heɪləu] – ореол

Tasks and exercises

1. Answer the questions:

a) Why is Ernest Rutherford considered the father of nuclear physics?

b) What scientific achievements did he make in New Zealand?

c) In what field did he want to work before going to the Cavendish laboratory?

d) What famous physicist did he work with there?

e) What is the difference between alpha and beta radiation?

f) What did Rutherford discover in his “gold foil experiment”?

g) How did Niels Bohr continue Rutherford’s research?

2. Find additional information about Ernest Rutherford and answer the questions:

a) What kind of family was he born into?

b) Was he a good teacher?

c) Who are John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton?

d) What chemical element was named after Rutherford and when?

3. Find words in the text that have the following meanings and make sentences of your own using these words:

a) “most important, essential, critical, vital”;

b) “to discover the facts about smth, to establish”;

c) “to modify”;

d) “understanding”;

e) “to form an opinion about smth based on the information or evidence that is available”.

4. Study the collocations in which the following words occur:

a) to acknowledge: be generally/widely acknowledged, to refuse to acknowledge smth, openly/fully/publicly acknowledge smth;

b ) university: attend/go to/study at/apply for/enter/graduate from university;

c) to monitor: to monitor the situation, monitor smth carefully/closely/constantly;

d) distinct: distinct from, clearly/ fundamentally/ formally/ qualitatively distinct.

5. Fill in the gaps:

The workers are constantly _____ for exposure to radiation. He publicly _____ that he might have made a mistake. She’s at _____, studying engineering. It is necessary to keep these two issues ____. This is a universally _____ truth. There is stiff competition for _____ places. These organisms are quite ____ from one another.

6. Translate the following sentences:

a) Эрнест Резерфорд учился и вел научную работу в нескольких важнейших университетах мира.

b) Резерфорд получил грант на обучение и работу в лаборатории Кэвендиш под руководством Дж. Дж. Томсона.

c) Впечатленный его талантом, Томсон пригласил Резерфорда присоединиться к команде ученых, исследовавших электропроводность газов.

d) В ходе этой работы Резерфорд открыл и дал имя альфа и бета излучению.

e) Во время своего пребывания в университете Макгилла
в Монреале, Резерфорд открыл радиоактивный газ радон и опубликовал свою первую книгу о радиоактивности.

f) Резерфорд поставил опыт по рассеянию (scattering) альфа-частиц на металлической фольге (foil), сделав вывод о существовании в атоме массивного ядра.

g) Исследования Резерфорда продолжил Нильс Бор, внеся значительный вклад в теорию атомного ядра.

7. Quite a few sentences in the text contain emphatic constructions. For example, “it was in his native country that he developed simple but effective mechanisms and monitoring equipment to determine whether iron was magnetic at very high frequencies of magnetising current”. Stylistic inversion can be formed with the help of the introductory “it” (as in the previous example), the words “only”, “not only … but (also)”, “never”, “hardly/scarcely…when”, “no sooner… than”, “do + affirmative infinitive”, etc.

Consider the following examples:

Only in the University of Munich can you find equipment like this.

Not only did he read the book, but he understood it very well.

Never have I seen such a thing.

Hardly/scarcely had we sat down when the lecturer came in.

No sooner had we sat down than the lecturer came in.

“[…] though we don’t yet have a complete quantum theory of gravity we do know that the origin of the universe was a quantum event” (Stephen Hawking).

8. Find sentences containing emphatic constructions in the text and translate them.

9. Paraphrase the following sentences adding emphasis:

a) In his early work Rutherford discovered the concept of radioactive half-life.

b) The chemical element rutherfordium (element 104) was named after Rutherford in 1997.

c) He pioneered the “Rutherford model of the atom”, through his discovery and interpretation of “Rutherford scattering” in his gold foil experiment.

d) In 1932 John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton conducted the first experiment to split the nucleus in a fully controlled manner.

e) Rutherford’s work in McGill University was the basis for the Nobel Chemistry Prize that he was awarded in 1908.

10. Write a resume of the text in 10-15 sentences.

11. Retell the text orally.

Edwin Hubble['edwɪn 'hʌbl]

In the 1920s most of Edwin Hubble’s colleagues ['kɔliːgz] believed the Milky Way galaxy made up the entire cosmos ['kɔzmɔs]. But peering[17] deep into space, Hubble realised that the Milky Way is just one of millions of galaxies, and that these galaxies are all rushing away from each other.

Born: 1889, Marshfield, USA.

Education: University of Chicago [ʃɪ'kɑːgəu] and University of Oxford.

Major achievement: showed that the universe is huge and expanding.

Died: 1953, San Marino USA.

Before reading the text, study the words in the right column (practise pronouncing those which are transcribed):

Having studied science in Chicago and Oxford, Edwin Hubble started to examine the stars at Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin [wɪs'kɔn(t)sɪn] before moving on to the prestigious Mount Wilson Observatory in California, which housed the world’s most powerful telescope. The main focus of his attention was on strange, fussy clouds of light called ‘nebulae’.   At Mount Wilson, Hubble found himself working alongside Harlow Shapley (1885-1972), an astronomer who had recently measured the size of the Milky Way. Using bright stars called Cepheid variables as standardised light sources, he had calculated that the galaxy was 300,000 light-years across – ten times bigger than anyone had thought. Shapley was convinced that the Milky Way contained all the stars and matter in the universe – that there was nothing beyond it. Shapley believed that the luminous nebulae that interested Hubble were just clouds of glowing gas, and they were relatively nearby.   In 1924 however, Hubble spotted a Cepheid variable star in the Andromeda [ən'drɔmɪdə] nebula, and using Shapley’s technique showed that the nebula was nearly a million light-years away – a fact that placed it way outside the Milky Way. We now know that this is the nearest of tens of billions of galaxies.   This alone didn’t satisfy Hubble’s curiosity. As he studied Andromeda, he realised that the light coming from it was slightly redder than he would have anticipated. The effect is similar to listening to the siren of a moving police car. As it approaches, the tone goes higher, and as it passes the tone drops. A shift towards red is equivalent to a drop in tone. The most likely cause of this so-called red shifting was that the galaxies were moving away from the Milky Way – from our own galaxy. By measuring the shift in all the nebulae he could find, Hubble came to realise that the farther away a galaxy is from Earth, the greater the red shift – in other words, the faster it is moving away from us. The explanation was extraordinary: the entire universe is expanding.   When Einstein heard of Hubble’s discovery, he was thrilled. A decade earlier Einstein’s new general theory of relativity had predicted that the universe must either be expanding or contracting. Astronomers had told him it was static, so he added an extra ‘cosmological term’ to account for the universe’s stability. Hubble had demonstrated that this cosmological term wasn’t needed, and that Einstein’s own instincts had been right.

To examine [ɪg'zæmɪn] – изучать, рассмат-ривать Observatory [əb'zɜːvətrɪ] Prestigious [pres'tɪʤəs] To house –вме-щать, содержать Fussy ['fʌsɪ] подвижный, беспокойный Nebula – nebuale (pl) ['nebjulə; 'nebjuliː] – туманность Cepheid [ˈsɛfiːɪd] – цефеида, класс пуль-сирующих переменных звёзд с довольно точной зависимостью период /светимость, названный в честь звезды δ Цефея Luminous ['luːmɪnəs] – светящийся, ярко освещенный To spot – заметить Technique [tek'niːk ] – техника, метод Way outside – далеко за пределами (way в данном случае усилитель, ср. This is way too much) To anticipate [æn'tɪsɪpeɪt] – ожидать Siren ['saɪərən] To approach – приближаться To drop – падать, понижаться Shift – изменение, сдвиг, смещение Red-shifting – красное смещение   To predict – предсказывать   Static ['stætɪk]

Tasks and exercises

1. Answer the following questions:

a) What was Edwin Hubble’s main focus of attention when he worked at Mount Wilson Observatory?

b) What did Harlow Shapley think about nebulae and the Milky Way?

c) What technique did Shapley use in his investigations?

d) What did Hubble discover about the Andromeda nebula?

e) What is red shifting?

f) How does the red shift show that the universe is expanding?

g) In what way did Hubble’s work affect Einstein’s theory? What happened to the cosmological constant Einstein had introduced?

2. Find words in the text that have the following meanings:

a) “to have smth inside or as a part”;

b) “to explain smth”;

c) “to consider, study, look at smth very carefully”;

d) “very large or important”;

e) “the act of paying special attention to smth”;

f) “probable, expected”;

g) “physical substance”;

h) “unexpected, surprising, strange”;

i) “to expect smth”.

3. Study the collocations in which some of the general scientific words from the text are used:

a) to calculate: accurately/exactly, according to;

b) standard (adj): become standard, almost/fairly standard;

c) to anticipate (usually in the passive): be widely/keenly anticipated;

d) to expand: considerably/greatly/gradually/rapidly;

e) to contract [kən'trækt]: to contract a muscle, the universe is contracting;

f) stable: extremely/highly, more or less/reasonably;

g) to demonstrate: to demonstrate smth experimentally/graphically, clearly/vividly.

4. Fill in the gaps:

These compounds are extremely ____. Glass ____ as it cools. The discovery of a particle resembling the Higgs boson was the most keenly _____ scientific event of the year. The amount was accurately ____ according to the number of particles. Our study clearly _____ that these particles can be detected empirically. Such organisms rarely live in completely ____ environments. This is a fairly ____ method of assessing experimental results.

5. Make up 10 sentences with collocations from ex.3.

6. In the text you can find the sentence “Hubble came to realise that the farther away a galaxy is from Earth, the greater the red shift – in other words, the faster it is moving away from us”, in which two parallel processes are confronted (“чем…, тем…”). Make up 4 similar sentences in which two phenomena are compared, then translate them into Russian and ask your groupmates to translate them back into English.

7. Translate into English:

a) Используя цефеиды как стандартизированные источники света, Хаббл вычислил, что галактика была в три раза больше, по сравнению с существовавшими на тот момент оценками экспертов.

b) Изучая туманность Андромеды, Хаббл понял, что свет, идущий от нее, был чуть краснее, чем следовало ожидать.

c) Объяснение было ошеломительным: вся вселенная расширяется.

d) 10 лет ранее, в общей теории относительности Эйнштейн предсказал, что вселенная или расширяется или сжимается.

e) Астрономы утверждали, что вселенная стабильна, поэтому Эйнштейн добавил космологическую константу, чтобы объяснить эту стабильность.

f) Хаббл продемонстрировал, что космологическая константа была не нужна и чутье не обмануло Эйнштейна.

8. Make a written resume of the text about Edwin Hubble (10-15 sentences) and retell the text orally relying on what you have written.

Wilhelm Röntgen['wɪlhelm 'rɔntjən]

Some people are prolific[18] problem solvers. Among the problems Wilhelm Röntgen studied were the curious electrical characteristics of quartz [kwɔːts], the influence of pressure on the way that fluids refract light, the modification of the planes of polarised light by electromagnetic forces and the way oil spreads on water. But he is best remembered for discovering X-rays.

Born: 1845, Prussia ['prʌʃə] (now Germany).

Education: University of Zurich ['z(j)uərɪk].

Major achievement: discovered X-rays.

Died: 1923, Munich ['mjuːnɪk], Germany.

Before reading the text, study the words in the right column (practise pronouncing those which are transcribed):

With a Dutch mother and a German father, Röntgen was born in Germany, but moved to the Netherlands ['neðələndz] when he was three years old. He showed no particular skills while at school, but in his spare time enjoyed studying nature and building machines. Not surprisingly, when he had the opportunity of going to university he studied engineering, but soon switched to physics and in time became Professor of Physics at Würzburg ['vɜːts buəg].   In 1895 he was studying what happened when he passed an electric discharge through a chamber containing gas of extremely low pressure. Previous work had shown that doing this with very high voltages could generate a stream of particles that became known as the cathode ray tubes in conventional television screens, and now we call the particles electrons.   On the evening of 8 November 1895, Röntgen enclosed the discharge tube in a thick black carton to exclude all light. When he turned off all the lights in the room, a paper plate coated with barium platinocyanide suddenly became fluorescent. He soon found that the radiation causing this was emitted when cathode rays struck the glass end of the tube, and that these rays had a much greater range in air than did the cathode rays. The plate glowed even when it was two metres from the tube. Intrigued by these rays, Röntgen placed objects of different thickness in their path and found that they exposed photographic plates to varying degrees. Then one day he placed his wife’s hand just in front of a photographic plate and shone the rays on it for a short time. When he developed the plate, the result was stunning. There was a ghostly outline of the hand, but the plate also revealed an image of the bones inside her hand and a clear mark caused by the ring she was wearing. It was the first ‘Röntgenogram’ ever taken, and gave doctors an unprecedented ability to look inside people’s bodies.   In further experiments, Röntgen went on to discover that the new rays were produced when cathode rays hit a material object. Because the nature of these rays was unknown, he called them X-rays. Later, Max von Laue ['lauə] (1879-1960) and his pupils showed that, like light, X-rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation. The difference is that they have a shorter wavelength than visible light.

Particular [pə'tɪkjələ] – особенный Opportunity [ˌɔpə'tjuːnətɪ] – благоприятная возможность, случай To switch – переключиться In time – со временем   Discharge ['dɪsʧɑːʤ] – эл. разряд   Cathode ['kæθəud] – катод   To enclose – помещать, запирать, вкладывать Carton ['kɑːt(ə)n] –картонная коробка, картон Plate – фотопластинка, стереотип To coat – покрывать Barium ['beərɪəm] Platinocyanide ['plætinəu ˌsaɪənaɪd] Fluorescent [flɔː'res(ə)nt] – светящийся Range – предел, диапазон, дальность To glow – светиться, сиять, озарять To intrigue [ɪn'triːg] To vary ['veərɪ] –изменяться, быть разнообразным To develop – (зд.) проявить Stunning – потрясающий Ghostly – призрачный Outline – очертание Röntgenogram [' rɔntjənəgræm] Unprecedented – [ʌn'presɪd(ə)ntɪd] беспрецедентный

Tasks and exercises

1. Answer the following questions:

a) What did Röntgen study besides X-rays?

b) What kind of experiments did Röntgen carry out in 1895?

c) What happened after Röntgen placed his wife’s hand in front of the rays he was studying?

d) Why did Röntgen call the phenomenon X-rays?

e) How did his work influence further investigations in electromagnetic radiation?

2. Find words in the text that have the following meanings:

a) “normal and ordinary”;

b) “specific, special”;

c) “a variety of things of a particular type”;

d) “the action of releasing a substance”;

e) “chance, possibility”;

f) “that has never happened, been done or known before”;

g) “to send out heat/light/sound/gas etc.”;

h) “to prevent smth from entering”;

i) “a continuous flow”.

3. Study the collocations in which some of the general scientific words from the text are used:

a) problem: an approach to a problem, the scale of a problem, a complicated/difficult problem, to be confronted with (by) a problem, to handle/avoid/deal with a problem;

b) characteristic (n): basic/general/fundamental;

c) influence (n): be under the influence of, be independent of the influence of, have an influence on smth/smb, considerable/enormous/powerful influence;

d) to influence: considerably/strongly, seem to influence;

e) to modify: highly modified, in a modified form, a modified version;

f) opportunity: take the opportunity to do smth, to have the opportunity to do smth;

g) range (n): broad/wide/poor/limited range;

h) to expose: be directly/constantly/regularly exposed to smth;

i) ability: have/demonstrate/develop/lack an ability, a range of abilities, inherent/natural abilities.

4. Fill in the gaps:

Our university provides excellent educational _____. American universities have an enormous ____ on world science. Students can choose from a wide ____ of options. The two objects have two basic ______ in common. This compound is independent of external _____. The research team was ____ with all sorts of _____.

5. Make up 10 sentences with collocations from ex.3.

6. Translate into English:

a) Многим ученым удается найти решение для значительного количества научных проблем.

b) Рентген изучал необычные электрические характеристики кварца, влияние давления на отражение света жидкостями, модификации поляризованного света.

c) Неудивительно, что, когда у него появилась возможность учиться в университете, Рентген занимался техническими науками, но вскоре перешел на изучение физики.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29