Unit 6. Science and technology

6.1. Read the text and answer the questions:

1. What sciences have healing and star-watching developed into?

2. What is the difference between science and technology?

 

Activities such as healing, star-watching, engineering, and warfare have been practiced in many societies since ancient times, often with success. The European scientific revolution between about 1650 and 1800, however, propelled all these activities into an accelerating rate of progress. The continued success of that revolution, and its economic value, is shown by the worldwide spread of applied science.

Scientists are remembered for their brilliant discoveries, and technologists for inventions, as the main aim of all of the sciences is to produce reliable explanation of, and laws about, the material world, while the main target of technology is to apply science for practical purposes.

 

6.2. Read the second part of the text about Leonardo da Vinci and get ready to name his main inventions.

THE GREATEST OF ALL TIMES

LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519)

Part 2

Although da Vinci was a great painter, he was more interested in his experiments in other subjects. He is thought to be the first world’s real scientist because he always looked for a new understanding of how nature worked, gained through observations and experiments. For example, he was one of the first people to dissect human bodies. His notebook filled with more than 5,000 anatomical drawings (the Anatomy of Man) shows he was a great biologist.

Da Vinci was a great inventor. His scientific research and knowledge of architecture and mathematics let him design lots of things, many of which where ahead of his time. For example, he drew a flying machine 400 years before the airplane was invented. He also designed an air conditioner, an alarm clock, a reading lamp, scissors and many other things. In his notebooks, there were plans for a tank, a helicopter and a submarine as he was a brilliant military engineer as well.

All in all, Leonardo designed more than 1,000 inventions. Unfortunately, he did not have time to develop most of his ideas because he was more interested in thinking and planning projects than embodying them.

 

Notes:

an observation - наблюдение

to dissect – анатомировать, препарировать

scissors – ножницы

 

6.3. Try to match the discoveries(1-5) with how they were discovered (a-e)

1) the equation e=mc² a) scientists worked together as a team

2) Hubble’s law b) there was a lucky accident

3) penicillin c) a scientist observed something very carefully

4) the first computer d) a scientist had a moment of inspiration

 

6.4 Read the text and check your guesses from exercise 6.3.

LANDMARKS OF SCIENCE

In the summer of 1905, a young man was sitting at home after a day’s work. While playing with his baby, he thought something over. Suddenly, it came to him! The equation e=mc² was born, the equation which would change our understanding of the universe but would help to create the nuclear bomb. Albert Einstein knew about the recent developments, such as Marie Curie’s research into radioactivity, but he had been working on his own. His mould-breaking equation showed how a small piece of mass could produce an unbelievable amount of energy.

By the time Einstein had become world-famous, a young ex-lawyer returning from the First World War started to work at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California. Using the most high-powered telescope of its time, he began a slow observation of nebulae, small patches of light that appeared outside the galaxy. Edwin Hubble was on the brink of making the greatest astronomical breakthrough of the century. He discovered that these nebulae were in fact galaxies like our own, millions of light years away from us, which proved that the universe was much larger than had previously been thought.

Just before Hubble’s Law was published in 1929, another remarkable finding was made by the son of a Scottish shepherd. Before going on holiday, he left a dish with bacteria near the window of his laboratory. When he came back, he was going to throw the dish away when he noticed something out of the ordinary. He saw a blue mould in the dish around which the bacteria was destroyed. It was the natural form of penicillin which Fleming realized was an effective way of killing bacteria. A few years later, penicillin became mass-produced and helped to save the lives of millions.

During the Second World War when penicillin was first being used, the US Navy were looking for ways of improving the accuracy of their artillery shells. They turned to Eckert, an engineer, and Mauchly, a physicist to produce a machine to do these complex calculations. Although they did not finish the machine until after the war, in February 1946, it did not matter. They had produced the world’s first computer. It was named Eniac.

Notes:

recent – последний, недавний

nebulae - туманности

a patch – небольшой участок

a shepherd - пастух

a shell – снаряд

 

6.5. Are these statements true (T) or false (F) according to the text or is there no information (NI)?

1. Einstein was at work when he thought of the formula e=mc².

2. Einstein took part in the programme that developed the nuclear bomb.

3. Hubble studied the nebulae for over twenty years.

4. Hubble discovered that our galaxy is bigger than we thought it was.

5. Fleming was studying bacteria in his laboratory when the discovery happened.

6. There was a blue mould around the bacteria in the dish.

7. Fleming developed the process for manufacturing penicillin.

8. The Eniac project failed to fulfill its original purposes.

9. The Eniac computer was extremely difficult to program.

 

6.6. Examination Task. Reading Comprehension. Read the text and do the tasks after it.

STEVE JOBS

Steve Jobs (1955-2011), an American computer-industry executive, best-known as the co-founder and mastermind of Apple computers, was born in San-Francisco, California, USA. Jobs was given up for adoption after birth and raised by his adoptive parents in Silicon Valley. He attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon for one semester before dropping out.

Being a college dropout, Steve Jobs teamed up with Steve Wozniak in 1976 to sell personal computers assembled in Job’s garage. That was the beginning of Apple Company, which launched the personal-computer revolution by introducing its first product, the Apple II computer in 1977, and made Steve Jobs a multimillionaire before he was 30 years old. As a result of buying Pixar Animation Studios in 1986, he became a billionaire in 2006.

The Apple computers were attractive, user-friendly, graphically oriented alternative to the IBM-Microsoft personal computers. Some famous Apple Company products are the colourful iMac computer and the iPod music player. S. Jobs oversaw the development of elegantly designed music players, smartphones, and computer tablets whose enormous success also led Apple to become a significant music and software seller.

Jobs was diagnosed with cancer in 2003. Though he refused to speak publicly about his health, he survived several surgeries, and had to take a long medical leave of absence from Apple twice, in June of 2009 and in January of 2011. He remained with the company as Chairman of the Board until he died in the autumn of 2011.

 

Notes:

an executive -руководитель

a mastermind - вдохновитель

to adopt – усыновлять

to drop out – бросать учебу

to launch - начинать

surgery - операция

to oversee – возглавлять, отвечать за…

 

1. Are the sentences below true, false or the information is not stated?

 

1. Steve Jobs grew up in San Francisco.

2. He got higher education.

3. The Apple Company started making their first computers in the garage.

4. Jobs was the inventor of a personal computer.

5. He left the Apple Company several times only because of his health problems.

6. Jobs was an important figure in the computing industry for many years.

 

2. Choose the statement that gives the main idea of the text.

1. Steve Jobs was successful all his life.

2. He completely changed the computer industry.

3. The Apple competed with the IBM Microsoft Company..

 

 

Keys to the exercises.

6.3. 1-d, 2-c, 3-b, 4-a

6.5. 1-F, 2-NI, 3-NI, 4-T,5-F, 6-T, 7-NI, 8-T,9-NI

6.6. 1) 1-F, 2-NS, 3-T, 4-F, 5-NS, 6-T; 2) 2

 

6.6. Read the text and say if the sentences below the text are true (T) or false (F).

RUSSIAN NOBEL PRIZEWINNERS

Every year, six Nobel prizes are awarded for outstanding work in science, literature, economics and the promotion of peace. This international prize was founded by the Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite and built up companies and laboratories in countries all over the world.

Many Russians have been nominated for the Nobel Prize since it started in 1901, and 19 of them have received the Nobel Prize for their outstanding contributions, particularly in the field of physics and literature, but also in other areas.

Boris Pasternak is a Russian poet and novelist, who is also known for his translations of Shakespeare’s tragedies; in 1957 he wrote the novel “Doctor Zhivago”, which was followed by the Nobel Prize.

Mickail Sholokhov, the outstanding 20^th century Russian writer, wrote and published a number of short stories while completing his most famous work And Quiet Flows the Don, which took him fourteen years to finish. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded over the years to individuals and organizations that work actively for peace and greater understanding. It was suspended during both World Wars. It was awarded to the founder of the Soviet Human Rights Committee Andrey Sakharov (1975) and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev (1990).

 

1. The Nobel Prize is awarded annually.

2. The Nobel Prize is not awarded to mathematicians.

3. Pasternak received the Nobel Prize for his translations of Shakespeare’s tragedies.

4. The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded annually since 1901.

5. Two Russians have been the Nobel Peace Prize winners.

 

6.7. Put the numbers of descriptions of Russian Nobel Prizewinners 1-5 into the right boxes.

Nobel Prizewinners	Andrei Sakharov	Ivan Pavlov	Pyotr Kapitsa	Nikolay Semyonov	Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov
№

 

1. The first Russian Nobel winner for medicine in 1904. He made many remarkable discoveries about blood circulation and the central nervous system and he discovered the conditioned reflex through his research on the digestive system.

2. In 1964, two Russian physicists shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Charles Touwns from the USA. Their work on a project led to the development of the laser.

3. He founded the Institute for Physical Problems in Moscow, and in 1978 he became the oldest scientist ever to win the award for his work on low-temperature physics.

4. He made a great contribution to the study of chemical chain reactions, and in 1956 he became the first Russian to gain the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

5. The Soviet physicist known both as “the father of the Russian H-bomb” and as an outspoken civil rights campaigner. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1975 for his work for peace.

 

 

6.6. T, F, F, F, T

6.7. 5, 1, 3, 4, 2