Match these words with their definitions.

1. acknowledged

2. long-standing

3. patent

4. dedicated

5. overturned

6. weapons of mass destruction

7. expose

8. admission

9. pacifist

A. a legal document which protects an inventor's rights to his/her invention

B. bombs, etc for killing large numbers of people

C. changed

D. recognised

E. existing for many years

F. committed to

G. somebody who is against war

H. entry

I. make open to

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest physicists of all time. Born in Ulm, Germany in 1879, his family soon moved to Munich, where he lived until he was 15. He attended the Luitpold Gymnasium and in 1894, wrote his first scientific work, The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields.

Einstein's family moved to Italy in the same year, but he stayed behind to finish school. However, one year later, he left school without telling his parents and went to Italy to be with them. Shortly afterwards, he applied for admission to the Swiss Polytechnic Institute but was not accepted; he had not done well in the non-science part of the test. He later attended the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, from which he received a degree and so was qualified to teach Physics and Mathematics. Unfortunately, however, he was not able to get a teaching position but with the help of his old classmate and friend, Marcel Grossman, was able to get a job in the Swiss Patent Office in 1902. In 1903, Einstein married his former classmate, Mileva Marie. They had three children -a daughter and two sons.

While Einstein was working at the Patent Office, he began to examine different problems in physics and came up with some remarkable discoveries. In 1905 he published three papers, one of which was about his Special Theory of Relativity, a concept which completely overturned Isaac Newton's long-standing Law of Universal Gravitation.

In the following years, Einstein and his family moved from one European capital to another. In each city he held teaching positions at local universities or in scientific institutions. He continued researching a number of different questions and published papers which had a great impact on the field of physics, including his work on the concept of relativity, which led to his Theory of General Relativity in 1915. He paid his price for creativity, however, and due to the great stress he was under, he became seriously ill in 1917.

When Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was proved to be true by British researchers in 1919, he became world famous. lie received the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics in recognition of his work (in 1905) on the photoelectric effect (when electrons are produced if matter is exposed to electromagnetic radiation, for example, in X-rays), which had been thoroughly tested and widely accepted.

Einstein was very active in polities. He moved to the US from Europe just before the start of World War 11, and advised the American President Franklin Roosevelt to start building an atomic bomb before the Nazis produced one. However, he later said that had he realised the Nazis would not produce an atomic bomb, he would never have advised Roosevelt in this way. lie never personally worked on the bomb. In fact, he was against war and weapons of mass destruction. All his life Einstein had been a pacifist, only recognising the need to fight against the Nazis when it became apparent that they had to be stopped. After the war, he dedicated himself to working for nuclear disarmament.

Einstein believed that we should never stop questioning things and keep searching for answers about the natural world. On IS1'1 April, 1955 he died of heart failure.

Read the text and choose the correct answer.

1. Einstein left Munich in

a. 1879.

b. 1894.

c. 1895.

d. 1902.

2. After completing his education at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School, Einstein

a. was not accepted at the Swiss Polytechnic Institute.

b. got a job teaching Physics and Mathematics.

c. got a job working with his friend, Marcel Grossman.

d. got a job working at the Swiss Patent Office.

3. After the publication of his 1905 papers, Einstein

a. became an international celebrity.

b. stopped working on the Theory of Relativity.

c. continued working on the Theory of Relativity.

d. spent his time teaching rather than doing research.

4. Einstein became an international celebrity

a. when his theories were proven to be true

b. when he discovered the General Theory of Relativity.

c. when he discovered the Special Theory of Relativity

d. when he won the Nobel Prize.

5. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize

a. because of his discovery of relativity.

b. because his theories overturned Newton's Law.

c. because of his earlier work.

d. because of his contributions to world peace.

6. Einstein's attitude to war could be described as

a. tolerant in certain situations.

b. totally opposed.

c. supportive.

d. undecided.

Albert Einstein

1. Альберт Эйнштейн является одним из самых великих физиков в мире.

2. Свою первую научную работу «Исследование состояния эфира в магнитных полях» Эйнштейн написал, будучи учеником Луитпольдской гимназии.

3. Эйнштейн получил квалификацию, позволяющую ему преподавать физику и математику, но он не смог найти работу учителя.

4. Работая в патентном бюро, он начал заниматься научной работой в области физики и сделал ряд выдающихся открытий.

5. Теория относительности Эйнштейна потрясла научный мир, так как полностью опровергла существующий издавна закон всемирного тяготения.

6. Нобелевская премия в области физики в 1921 году была присуждена Эйнштейну за работу в области фотоэлектрического эффекта. Он доказал, что, когда материя подвергается воздействию электромагнитного излучения, наблюдается появление электронов.

7. Эйнштейн никогда не работал над созданием атомной бомбы, так как всегда был против войны и оружия массового поражения.

 

Вариант 6

Find a synonym in the box for the words or phrases in bald in the sentences.

knowledgeable tutor prosperity synthetic geometry goal advance on the continent analytic geometry harsh

1. The country was going through a time of successfulness.

2. The climate was very cold and unpleasant.

3. Her aim in life was to become a philosopher.

4. He lived in Europe, not Britain.

5. She studied a kind of geometry that used theorems and observations to reach conclusions.

6. He taught a kind of geometry involving curves and understanding them.

7. She is very well-educated; she always beats me at Trivial Pursuit.

8. Computer technology is expected to develop immensely in the next couple of years.

9. She wants to find a Maths teacher to teach her children at home.

Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes was born in France on 31st March, 1596, at a time of major change in the world. The great wars which had been going on throughout Europe had finally ended, creating an atmosphere of peace and stability which encouraged creative thinking, experimentation and the questioning of old beliefs and ways. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Greek and Islamic texts had been rediscovered and read by learned men around Europe. Ideas of the great Renaissance artists and thinkers had quickly spread across the continent. What is more, with the discovery of the New World by Columbus in 1492, a period of exploration, expansion and prosperity had begun.

After completing his education at the Jesuit College and the University of Poitiers, both in France, Descartes began to work on his goal of presenting a new way of looking at philosophy and mathematics. Although his first essays were probably written earlier than 1628, the year he moved to Holland, he was not well known until 1637, when a collection of his essays appeared and attracted the interest of the scientific world.

His great work Discourse on the Method was one of the essays included in this collection.

Descartes was knowledgeable about the work of Plato and Aristotle, as well as that of earlier European philosophers like Augustine and Aquinas. Descartes' goal was to reach true knowledge about things by applying mathematical methodology to find answers to philosophical questions. Starting with the principle that the only thing he could be sure of was that he himself existed (Gogito, ergo sum meaning, / think, therefore I am), he reached his own conclusions about God and the physical world. Because his ideas were very different from traditional ideas of his time, he was often criticised by religious leaders. His work had a great influence on later philosophers, including Benedict de Spinoza, Blaise Pascal, John Locke and Immanuel Kant.

Another of his goals was to advance the field of mathematics, particularly geometry. Until that time, Euclidean geometry was the type most well known. Also known as synthetic geometry, Euclidean geometry uses theorems and observations to reach conclusions.

Building on the work of the ancient Greek, Apollonius of Perga (262-190 BG), Descartes realised that it would be useful and important to be able to measure curved lines in addition to straight ones. This led to his invention of the Cartesian coordinate system, a way of algebraically measuring curves and understanding things about them. This was the start of analytic geometry (also called coordinate geometry and Cartesian geometry) and eventually led to the invention of calculus. In addition to his work in philosophy and geometry, Descartes contributed to algebra, optics and even physiology and psychology.

Descartes became one of the most important figures of his time. Queen Christina of Sweden invited Descartes to tutor her, which he did. However, he became ill in Sweden, possibly because he was not used to the cold, harsh climate, and died on 11th February, 1650. To honour him for his many contributions, people call him the 'Founder of Modern Philosophy' and the 'Father of Modern Mathematics'.