ЗНУ Project
1) Theme
What do you think of science? Do science and technology do more good than harm or more harm than good?
2) Plan
1. Inventors and Inventions (foreign and Ukrainian scientists and their discoveries)
2. Futurology
3. Five Bold Predictions for the Future of Humanity
3) Exercise on comprehension and mastering of the material.
a. Answer the questions.
b. Choose the right answer.
c. Comment on the following statements.
d. Give a reason for your opinion.
What Do You Think of Science?
Do Science and Technology Do More Good Than Harm, More Harm Than Good, or About Equal?
Modern technology is rapidly spreading all over the earth. Scientists, researchers, engineers and designers are eager to emulate the material achievements and living standards of the industrially advanced countries. One can hardly imagine our present day life without such trivial gadgets as can-openers, food processors, air conditioners or vacuum cleaners. Every office is equipped with a PC, an answer-phone, a fax machine and a photocopier. Every teenager is able to use a remote control unit, a video recorder, a camera or a Walkman.
I'm absolutely sure that all these things make our life more exciting, save a lot of time and help to avoid health problems. For example, most of my friends have a microwave in the kitchen. We use it almost every day without realizing how considerably it revolutionized the way food is cooked both at home and within food industry. Although it met with the disapproval of many top chefs, when invented, it is becoming an increasingly common sight in many restaurant kitchens. Its greatest advantage is a huge reduction of time needed to prepare a dish. Secondly, it's easy to clean and high temperatures minimize the risk of infection. It's also a great time saver for those who don't wish to waste their times weating over a hot cooker or use cancer causing fats when frying.
When Charles Babbage (l792-1871), a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University invented the first calculating machine in 1812 he could hardly have imagined the situation we find ourselves today. In fact, the PCs are being used in almost every field today for the simple reason that they are more efficient than human beings, doing 500,000 sums in afraction of a second. They can pay wages, reserve seats on planes, control sputniks in space, work out tomorrow's weather, play chess and compose music. They even help police fight crime, saving the detective from checking the information, identifying the fingerprints or making a photo robot. It's needless to say that speed there is very essential.
Moreover, scientists predict that virtual reality will soon be a part and parcel of life. This amazing thing allows us to experience another dimensions. H is not quite as immediate as the real world, hut it is startling and experts say that in a few years every home will be using a VR set. I must say that it is already used in Japan to sell kitchens. Instead of renting huge displays, companies can do with one small office. VR goggles and gloves allow the customers to build their own kitchen from thousands of options. In fact there are countless applications for VK. Say, children will be taken to visit castles of the past and medical students will be able to practice without using real people.
However, as the technologies advance people inevitably face various problems. This certainly causes a good deal of disenchantment among the specialists and consumers. For example, when nuclear power was discovered everybody thought it to be a clean and cheap alternative to burning coal, fuel and natural gas. This seemed to be solving the problem of air pollution, wasted lands and health hazards. The future looked rosy. But when the first nuclear reactor in Sell afield caught fire it released a radioactive waste in the air. Animals died, people developed skin complaints, and abnormal babies were born. These endless calamities were caused due to the fact that uranium, a radioactive element that causes cancer, is used in the nuclear reactor.
1. Inventors and Inventions (foreign and Ukrainian scientists and their discoveries)
It is very hard to even think about the state of early man of earth when he had no home, no instruments or weapons, and no clothes. Man, unlike other living beings, has a more active and functional brain. However, his brain is not the sole factor which has made him far more progressive, advanced and developed than any other animal.
The first invention of man is said to be a primitive tool which consisted of a split stone and served a wide range of purposes. After this basic tool, man prepared the hand axe, knife, and many other tools and instruments. All these discoveries and inventions led to the evolution of human civilization.The word “Science” is derivative of the Latin word “ Scientia ” which means knowledge. Science is probably the most important and helpful subject of study for human race.
Thomas Edison
He is the author of a large number of inventions, but the most well-known one is the electric bulb. Among other discoveries of Thomas Edison there are telegraph devices, phonograph, carbon transmitter, direct current generator, universal electric motor, and more.
Sir Isaac Newton
He I best known for his explanation of Universal Gravitation and three laws of motion, and he was able to prove that the reason of both the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are controlled by the same Neutral laws.
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday is best known for his pioneering contributions to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry, including the discoveries of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and laws of electrolysis.His invention of electromagnetic rotary devices allowed electricity to become a viable option for use in technology.
Hans Geiger
He is perhaps best known as the co-inventor of the Geiger counter and for the Geiger -Marsden experiment which discovered the Atomic nucleus.
Ernest Rutherford
He is best known for establishing the theory of the nuclear atom, and is known as the father of nuclear physics.
Olexandr Usykov
He developed powerful mpulse generators for radiolocation devices. He headed the research of millimeter waves for perfect radiolocation equipment.
Olexandr Davydov
He enriched the world science with discoveries which were named after him. He opened the road to understanding of the nature of compound molecules.
Solomon Pekar
Academician Pekar offered the diffusion theory of rectification in semiconductors. His researches deal with nuclear forces and gas chemical lasers.
All these things prove the power and the greatest progressive role of science in our life. But every medal has its reverse. And the rapid scientific progress has aroused a number of problems that are a matter of our great concern. These are ecological problems, the safety of nuclear power stations, the nuclear war threat, and the responsibility of a scientist. But still we are grateful to the outstanding men of the past and the present who have courage and patience to disclose the secrets of the Universe.
Futurology.
Futurology, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is “the systematic forecasting of the future, especially from the present trends in society.”
As an independent discipline, futurology has been gaining prominence over the last three decades with the work of people like Herman Kahn gaining wide appeal.
Among the world’s early futurologists, was the Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794), a French mathematician and philosopher, who in his sketch for a Historical picture of the progress of the Human Mind, predicted such development as free public education, old age pensions, the growth of science and equal rights for women.
Following in the foot-steps of Condorcet, the futurologist of today has turned a trained scientist. His forecasts have little to do with clairvoyance or guesswork. Instead they are based on deductive reasoning as present trends are combined with past developments, before making forecasts.
The futurologist must also take the errors made by his predecessors into consideration. However, predictions of the futurologist are vulnerable to certain factors. War, for instance, is a factor that could change a futurologist’s forecast as it influences, for better or worse, the economies of the countries involved.
Some scientists employ the Delphi Method- named after the ancient Greek oracle-with a group for researchers. Some have gone as far as to predict the possibility of growing new limbs through use of drugs by 2010, control over the aging process by 2025 and a permanent base in the Mars by the year 2050.
The study of possible future scenarios can also help place present problems in perspective. For example, if the world of the future is assumed to have abundant energy and raw material resources, the present energy crisis may be viewed as a transitory phase. On the downside, a pessimistic view may prevail, wherein the present day industrial progress appears as a prelude to ecological disaster.
Kahn has been charting out both positive and negative scenarios of the future. While forecasting stable populations, rising standards of living and unlimited energy resources over the next two centuries, he also paints a picture of an overpopulated world with depleted resources and a situation of uncertainty and crisis.
In the past, futurologists have made fairly accurate predictions. For instance, they had well foreseen that man would set foot on the moon and that artificial hearts and organ transplants would be used to prolong human lives.
Futurologists are confident that the man of the future will be able to farm the oceans just as efficiently as he now farms lands. Among other projections are elimination of birth defects through genetic engineering, designed brain modifications, memory pills and psychological control through electronics. Futurologists have also predicted the development of a car that will drive itself, once the destination has been fed into its computers.
Arthur Clarke, scientist and author of many best selling science fiction books says’- “We may someday learn to control gravity and the family home may float from one continent to another, and it may be possible to exactly reproduce human beings in laboratories.”
Although these possibilities remain beyond the scope of today’s science, they may not be as fantastic as they seem. One must remember the scepticism that greeted ideas like the atom bomb and space travel which are very real today.
One scientist had said of the bomb’ “It is the biggest fool thing that we have ever done,” and went on to predict that it would never explode. Space travel was also dismissed as “utter bilge” by scientists.
Today, futurologists are busy charting future scenarios with present day crises on their minds. Overpopulation and lack of sufficient food and living space are some of the problems that concern them.
Only the future can tell whether futurologists will be proved right or wrong.
Do you enjoy forecasting?;
Science is really nothing more than exactly that: capturing all of our knowledge in the form of relationships that predict outcomes.
The Five Predictions
Sometimes, however, it’s a fun exercise to make long-term predictions that may or may not reveal themselves in our lifetime. Strangely enough, I believe it’s easier to predict the distant future than it is the near future; while the path to a destination may be filled with surprises, the destination itself can sometimes be much clearer.
Below are five predictions that we made as a result of considering and analyzing the little we know and reaching pragmatic conclusions based on that analysis.
1. We will all look like Brazilians
Only a few decades ago, even in so-called “progressive” nations, interracial marriages were considered taboo. This has been changing over the past few decades and it’s reasonable to expect it to become increasingly more prevalent at an exponentially-growing rate. It’s interesting to consider the full circle that humanity will have traveled: very early humans were interrelated and thus belonged to a single ethnicity; over thousands of years as they traveled the continents and became increasingly isolated by geography, distinct ethnicity evolved.
We are now at the precipice of a return journey to our origins: future generations of humans will continue on a path of confluence with an ever-increasing number of us becoming of mixed ethnicity. Yale research published last year corroborated this line of thinking and described the end result of this phenomenon as “we will all look Brazilian”. It cited Brazil as arguably the world’s most diverse melting pot with representation from native Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans, and others.
2. Animals will have rights comparable to humans
Animals are not as different from humans as societal norms would have us believe.
Only decades ago, even humans didn’t consider all races equal enforcing shameful policies like slavery and apartheid. It took us a long time to come to a conclusion that now seems absurdly simple: all humans should have equal rights.
Sometime in the future, as we continue to understand and appreciate how phenomenally precious all life is, we will endow animals with increasing rights. Some day, unfortunately likely only after we’ve developed a means of synthesizing meat, animals will have rights that would be nearly unbelievable to us today.
3. The Earth will become overpopulated.
Some might be surprised to learn that it is believed that Earth’s population won’t keep going up forever; instead, it will peak. What’s more, it will peak in the not-too-distant future between 2030 and 2050 at somewhere between 8 and 10 billion people. To say the world is “getting smaller” is truly going to become a reality with 1) population peaking and potentially even decreasing for the first time in human history, 2) technology making real-time communications with anyone anywhere possible, and 3) transportation advancements making covering large distances increasingly more tractable.
4. We will only have two primary spoken languages and dozens of minimally-spoken “historical languages”
As the world “gets smaller”, humanity continues to lose languages while not adding new ones. As the world’s languages unify, it is our belief that we will have two primary languages. However, for practical reasons, children will be required to study the other language and, thus, we will all speak one native language and a second language spoken by other humans.
Many other languages beyond the primary two will likely remain for prosperity’s sake but will be spoken and understood by only small amount of society; an example of such a language today is Latin.
While it’s sad to think that, even today, we continue to lose natural languages that were spoken for hundreds or thousands of years, language confluence does mean being able to communicate more effectively with each other and removes another barrier of difference between humanity.
5. Our first scalable space colony will be on the Moon, not Mars
Those of us who are enamored with space love hearing about all of the recent plans to colonize Mars.
However, for a number of very practical reasons, we have a layman’s perspective on why we believe the Moon will be the first scalable space colony:
1. The Moon is tethered to Earth whereas Mars is tethered to the sun. The consequence of this statement is quite significant: the Moon remains equidistant to Earth at all times whereas Mars’ distance from Earth varies between 55 million km and 400 million km.
2. The Moon is now believed to have natural water. In fact, very recently, scientists have discovered that the Earth and Moon have water from the same source.
3. Communication with the Moon via radio frequency signals, while slow, is near real-time whereas it takes between 3 and 22 minutes for a signal to travel between Earth and Mars.
Exercises
Answer the questions.
1) What are scientists and researchers eager to do?
2) What things make our life more exciting?
3) What problems do people face as the technologies advance?
4) Why are people getting more and more concerned about the future of our planet?
Choose the right answer.
a. One can hardly imagine our present day life without
a. Crime
b. Travelling round the world
c. Modern amenities
d. Family
2. Modern facilities make our life
a. Boring
b. Difficult
c. Unhealthy
d. exciting
3. Scientist predict
a. The end of the world
b. The star wars
c. Virtual will soon be a part of life
d. The discovery of new worlds
4. Nowadays people tend
a. To grow cheap food
b. To use pesticides in agriculture
c. To grow ecologically clean food
d. To use minerals
5. Today people are getting more and more concerned about
a. The relations between people
b. Travelling to other planets
c. Buying computers
d. The future of our planet
Comment on the following statements
1. Modern technology spreading all over the world.
2. Scientists predict that virtual reality will be soon a part of life.
3. The development of science brings only progress.
4. The discovery of the nuclear power was a great progress of science. It does not have any negative sides.
5. Science and technology should be used only in peaceful purposes.
What do you think? Give a reason for your opinion.
1. Scientific research brings much profit to a researcher.
2. The virtual reality is an amazing thing.
3. Science brings lots of problems.
4. Science brings more good than harm.
Keys
Answer the questions.
5) What are scientists and researchers eager to do?
Scientists, researchers, engineers and designers are eager to emulate the material achievements and living standards of the industrially advanced countries.
6) What things make our life more exciting?
Such trivial gadgets as can-openers, food processors, air conditioners, vacuum cleaners, PC’s, answer-phones, fax machines, photocopiers, video recorders, cameras make our life more exciting.
7) What problems do people face as the technologies advance?
As the technologies advance people inevitably face various problems. This certainly causes a good deal of disenchantment among the specialists and consumers. For example, when nuclear power was discovered, this seemed to be solving the problem of air pollution, wasted lands and health hazards. But when the first nuclear reactor caught fire it released a radioactive waste in the air. Animals died, people developed skin complaints, and abnormal babies were born. These endless calamities were caused due to the fact that uranium, a radioactive element that causes cancer, is used in the nuclear reactor.
8) Why are people getting more and more concerned about the future of our planet?
People are getting more and more concerned about the future of our planet, because there appeared a lot of different things, inventions which destroy slowly the atmosphere of the Earth, and there is still no ideahow to recover it.
Choose the right answer.
1 One can hardly imagine our present day life without
a. Crime
b. Travelling round the world
c. Modern amenities
d. Family
2 Modern facilities make our life
a. Boring
b. Difficult
c. Unhealthy
d. exciting
3. Scientist predict
a. The end of the world
b. The star wars
c. Virtual will soon be a part of life
d. The discovery of new worlds
5. Nowadays people tend
e. To grow cheap food
f. To use pesticides in agriculture
g. To grow ecologically clean food
h. To use minerals
6. Today people are getting more and more concerned about
e. The relations between people
f. Travelling to other planets
g. Buying computers
h. The future of our planet
We live in the era of science and hi-fi technologies. Modern technology is rapidly spreading over the Earth. Scientists, researchers, engineers and designers are eager to improve living standards of the industrially advanced countries. One can hardly imagine our present day life without such trivial gadgets as can-openers, air conditioners or vacuum cleaners, calculators, electric kettles, cookers, fridges etc.
Here are some spheres which benefit from new technologies. Let’s explain how technology helps these spheres develop.
Technology helps to advance science. It provides science with new and more accurate instruments for its investigation and research. (ex.: With the help of computers scientists have made many new discoveries in different fields Physics, Chemistry, Medicine-computers help to find cures for many illnesses and diseases.
Technology makes our life easier and faster. Household appliances help to save our energy and time.
Technology has become a valuable academic tool. All modern possibilities of the Internet with its access to information, computers, laptops with their different functions, calculators enable you to study more effectively. Some classrooms are equipped with Interactive Whiteboards, projectors, sound systems, laptops which enable teachers to make lessons interesting and effective.
This sphere also benefits from technology. Having a mobile phone, for example, you can be quickly connected with your friend or business partner and solve the problem instantly. Having a web camera and the Net you see and talk to a person who is far away from you. Also you can send and get information in a matter of seconds.
Technology plays an enormous part in the film industry today. Filmmakers rely on technologies to create amazing special effects and animation.
There are a lot of modern technologies which help us keep entertained, for example TV, the Internet, musical systems, digital cameras, mobile phones, PCPs, laptops etc.
-Which invention mentioned today do you think should win the prize for being the greatest invention of the 20th century? (Computers, since scientists have made a great deal of progress with computer technology in recent days.)
There are strong arguments both for and against the use of computers. They have replaced humans in many jobs and made our lives considerably easier. It’s difficult to imagine life without them.
In conclusion, technology is developing all the time. It affects different spheres of our life, our language. We know how important today to be prepared to learn how to use new technology. Moreover we should expect major technological advances in the near future.
Let’ list pros and cons of computers.
Advantages | Disadvantages | ||||||
Computers are essential tools in almost every field of work from constructing models of the universe to predicting tomorrow’s weather reports. · Computers are influencing ways of teaching and learning. Education benefits from using computers ( a) School subjects become more interesting when presented on a computer screen. b) The one-to-one interaction students have with a computer helps to promote independent learning. c) They allow to organize your time in a more productive way. ) · Computers are valuable to any business (They make life easier and save time by being capable storing and retrieving (to get back information that has been stored in the memory of a computer) vast amounts of info at the touch of a button.). · Computers are used to solve different problems such as calculations, bank account transactions, airline reservations and scientific and engineering computations (вычисления). · Computes are important in the collection, organization, storage, retrieval and interpretation (объяснение) of info. · Personal gains can be seen as the use of computers increases powers of concentration. · In the film industry, computers are used to create graphics for scenes, animated characters, beautiful backgrounds, and amazing special effects. · Computer technology enables the pilots to train I flight simulators which create the illusion of the flight. (It is safer and cheaper than training stuff in airplanes.) · The computer has become a great source of entertainment with the introduction of interactive Virtual Reality programs which are available on CD-ROMs or through the Internet. (They enable people located in different places to come together and interact with one another in real time using speech, sound and 3-D animated graphics.) · It’s possible to explore sites on anything you are interested in, or even chat with celebrities, experts and others who share your interest. · The Internet keeps you up-to-date with the latest news, fashions and reports. · You can work from home. · Programs for different purposes can be downloaded free from different sites. | Many people do not like using computers, and prefer dealing with a person instead. · You have to attend at least computer classes for beginners before dealing with the machine. · Computers can get viruses and sometimes computers fail and people lose the work they had done. · Computers quickly become obsolete, so they soon need to be replaced or updated. · If a computer is not working properly, most people do not know how to fix it, and this can be very annoying. You have to turn for help to the technical support/expert. It can be expensive.
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