Lesson 1. Will technical progress stop?

I. Read and memorize the following words and word combinations:

to surround – окружать

handy – зд. доступный, под рукой

wage – заработная плата

to substitute – заменять

network of wireless-connected computers – беспроводная компьютерная сеть

to merge – сливаться

up - to - date – современный, новейший

benefit – преимущество, выгода

f oreseeable – прогнозируемый, предсказуемый

vaccination record – записи прививания

 

II. Read and translate the text.

As the years go forward our life becomes faster, a lot of new things appear, our mind develops and it cannot stop. It’s like a strong river which never ends to run and it is rapidly spreading all over the earth. Many centuries ago people even couldn’t imagine that we will be able to exchange information using telephone, fax, Internet as long as they couldn’t think that there are a lot of planets except our Earth and that people can fly there. If we think how everything had developed, how many new things had appeared and how he minds of people had become so wide we even won’t be able to understand it because nowadays we cannot imagine our life without such inventions as lamps, ovens, central heating and others. During the centuries people have been inventing things to make our life easier. A great invention such as transport plays one of the most important roles in our life. We live in flats, can appear in any point of the Earth within a day, can say hello to people who live in another point of the world. All those things are a product of technical progress and it doesn’t stop to grow and develop. Nowadays we live surrounded by machines and other inventions. With new inventions we become happier because nearly everything is being made by machines and not by ourselves. From day to day more and more new things appear. And we don’t think about how the first inventions were created. The only thing we know that we never will return to the life which people lived a lot of centuries ago because there is no way back.

Everything is handy. We use at home vacuum cleaners to clean the flat, ovens to cook, lifts to walk down in our houses, lamps to make our flats light.... There are a lot of such things and we even don’t think about when and where and who invented it. And it’s so simple and so dear to us that we cannot live without it. Our century is a century of developing informational connections. Faxes, TV, Internet, and Telephone became the most popular ways of getting and sending information. One of the greatest inventions of the century is computer. It’s the coup in the technology. When Charles Babbage (1792-1871), Professor of mathematics at Cambridge University invented the first calculating machine in 1812 he could hardly have imagined the situation we find ourselves today. Computer becomes like a brain of human but the only thing it cannot do is to feel. Other things are easy to it. As everything computers also develop. The possibilities of it are so wide. It can do more than 500,000 sums in a fraction of a second. Programming became one of the most useful and popular profession. Nowadays computers can pay wages, reserve seats on planes, control sputniks, compose music. Also everybody knows the words CD ROM, a means of storing information on a disk to be read by a computer, e-mail, which becomes one of the ways to exchange information, the Internet — a network that is a way to get information, to communicate with people, to find everything you need. More and more people become Internet users because we can do so many things there: we can chat there, find job, pay bills, get music, buy something, find essays, learn the latest news, exchange information with other people by e-mail and so on. It became a usual thing to be connected to Internet. It attracts by a wide variety of different kinds of information which is necessary to people. The main point of many inventions ― vacuum cleaners, which we use at home, radio, TV sets, mixers, refrigerators, one of the most important thing in every flat ― is that they all appeared only after the invention of electricity. So the question of technical progress is very wide but one thing is quite obvious ― it won’t ever stop and machines will continue substituting everything except the human being.

Notes

It’s the coup in the technology – Это был переворот в технике.

III. Give the Russian equivalents.

Spreading all over the earth, exchange information, nowadays, central heating, great invention, technical progress, informational connection, a fraction of a second, reserve seats on planes, a means of, a wide variety of.

 

IV. Give the English equivalents.

Расти и развиваться, много веков назад, самый распространенный способ получения и отправки информации, вычислительная машина, программирование, оплачивать счета, искать рефераты, обмениваться информацией, изобретение электричества.

 

V. Complete the sentences.

1. Nowadays we live surrounded by ___. 2. We use at home vacuum cleaners to ___, ovens to ____, lifts to ___, lamps to ___. 3. Our century is a century of ___. 4. Faxes, TV, Internet, and Telephone became ___. 5. Programming became ___. 6. Internet attracts users by ___ which is necessary to people.

 

VI. Answer the following questions.

1. What are the most important inventions of today? 2. How can we exchange information? 3. Why is computer the greatest invention of the century? 4. What is Charles Babbage famous for? 5. What can a modern computer do? 6. What is the Internet useful for? 7. Why does the author think that the technical progress won’t stop?

 

VII. Find in the text the information on:

•the history of computers;

•the great inventions of humankind;

•the difference between human brain and computers;

 

VIII. Do you agree with the author when he says that “the technical progress won’t stop and the machines will substitute everything except one the human”? Prove it.