Exercise 6. Read and smile

Andrew Jackson’s Poor Health

After his wife died Andrew Jackson, former President of the United States, became increasingly irritable (раздражительный). He also worried (беспокоиться) more and more about his healt Several members of his family had died after a paralytic stroke (паралич) and Jackson was sure he was going to die in the same way. He therefore lived in daily fear (страх) of getting such a stroke. One day, during a party at his home, he was playing chess with a young woman. Suddenly Jackson’s hands dropped to his side, his face became white. Several friends run to him. «At last it has come», Jackson said weakly. «I have had a stroke. My whole right side is completely paralyzed.» «How do you know?» someone asked. «Because», Jackson said, «in the last few minutes I have pinched (ущипнуть) my leg several times and there is absolutely no sensation in it». «Oh, I beg your pardon, sir», said the young woman he played with, «but it was my leg you were pinching.»

Text 5B

Прочитайте текст и найдите информацию об использовании компьюте­ров в повседневной жизни и работе людей. Выпишите и переведите опреде­лительные придаточные предложения.

Computers Concern You

When Ch. Babbage, a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, invented the first calculating machine in 1812, he could hardly have imagined the situations we find ourselves in today. Al­most everything in modern world is done with the help of comput­ers — the complicated descendants (потомки) of his simple machine. Computers are being used more and more extensively in the world today, for the simple reason that they are far more effi­cient than human beings. They have much better memories and can store (запоминать) great amount of information and they can do calculations in a fraction of the time required by a human math­ematician. No man alive can do 500,000 sums in one second, but a modern computer can.

In fact, computers can do many things we do, but faster and better. They can control machines at factories, work out tomor­row’s weather and even play chess, write poetry or compose music. Let’s look now at some of the ways in which computers concern people in their daily lives and work.

Many people associate computers with the world of science and mathematics, but they are also a great help to scholars in other subjects: in history, literature and so on. It is now possible for a scholar to find a book or an article he needs very quickly, which nowadays when a million or more new books are published each year is quite an advantage. You tell the computer which subject you are interested in and it produces any microfiche (микро­фише, диамикрокарта) you need in seconds.

There are also systems which are being developed to translate articles from foreign magazines by computer and to make up many lists of information which are needed in a modern library. So, com­puter can help us to deal with the knowledge explosion in many ways. One can imagine a time when libraries will be run by comput­ers, without human beings at all.

Or, let’s take another example. When a man drives a car for long distances he has two problems: to keep the car at a constant speed and watch that he does not run into the car in front of him. Engineers are now experimenting with a system which has a com­puter control of these two problems. The car’s computer keeps the speed constant. At the same time the distance between the car and any other car in front of it is measured by a beam of light transmit­ted forwards. The beam meets the rear reflectors of the car in front and it is reflected back, which enables to measure the distance. This information is fed to the computer which adjusts (регулировать) its speed control accordingly.

Техт 5C

Прочитайте текст и озаглавьте его. Кратко изложите основное содержа­ние текста по-английски.

Sir Isaac Newton was a supergenius of science who among other things invented calculus (исчисление), stated the laws of gravity and optics. But it turned out (оказываться) Newton also made mistakes. The University of Chicago announced recently that R. Garusto, 23, a physicist, had discovered in one of Newton’s cal­culations an error that had been undetected for three centuries.

The young scientist discovered it while he was studying New­ton’s masterpiece (шедевр) of physics «Principia» (1687). Newton had derived (выводить) a figure for the Earth’s mass based on his new theory that a single force — gravity — governed (управлять) falling bodies on the Earth and the motion of planets around the Sun. The calculation depended on the angle (угол) between two lines from the Earth to the Sun, but because that angle was not ex­actly known at the time, Newton used slightly different figures in «Principia». It was that mistake that the young scientist found, a discovery that was soon confirmed (подтвердить) by other physi­cists. The mistake has no influence on Newton’s theory, but its dis­covery was enough to get him a prize from the University of Chicago.

Text 5D

Прочитайте текст и расскажите по-английски, из каких зданий состоит комплекс Библиотеки Конгресса и каким известным деятелям посвящено каждое из них. Найдите предложения со словами houses и numbers, переведи­те и запомните их значения.

The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the Nation’s library in the USA. It serves not only to members and committees of the Congress, but to libraries throughout the USA and the world and to the scholars, re­searchers and scientists who use it.

Its foundation was laid in 1815 when President Thomas Gef- ferson offered his personal library accumulated for 50 years and considered one of the best in the United States at that time as the basis for a great national library.

Now the Library of Congress complex on Capital Hill includes three buildings. The Thomas Gefferson Building, which has been built in Italian Renaissance style, is the oldest of them. It was the largest and costliest (роскошный) library building in the world when it was completed in 1897. It is decorated with splendid sculp­ture, murals (фрески) created by 50 American artists. Its Main Reading Room is 160 feet high.

The Room houses a collection of 45,000 reference books (справочники), a part of the extensive main catalog of more than 23 million cards and desks for 212 readers. The Computer Catalog Center provides public access (доступ) to the Library’s automated catalog.

The simply designed John Adams Building faced with white marble (мрамор) was opened in 1939. Sculptures on its large bronze doors represent 12 famous writers.

The white marble James Madison Memorial Building opened in 1980 more than doubled the Library’s available Capitol Hill space. The building which is the official memorial to the Nation’s fourth President contains the James Madison Memorial Hall, exhibition areas, eight reading rooms, offices and storage areas for collections which number over 50 million items (предметов).

ДОПОЛНИТЕЛЬНЫЕ ЗАДАНИЯ

Упражнение 1. А.Прочитайте следующие словосочетания из текста 5Аи постарайтесь догадаться о значении выделенных слов в данном контексте.

LL. the word«electronics» is in general usage

MM. more perfectelectronic circuits

NN. billionsof operations

OO. what can be regardedas

PP. the still youthful electronic age

В.Подберите к каждому выделенному в Аслову или словосочетанию со­ответствующее ему по значению.

20. excellent, exact, accurate

21. combination of written symbols forming vocabulary of a language

22. consider

23. great or long period of time with special characteristics

24. one thousand million (GB), 10⁹ (US)

Упражнение 2.Прочитайте текст и найдите эквиваленты следующим словам и словосочетаниям:

n) number

o) tiny

p) not likely to change

q) signal to ring a bell at a fixed (certain) time

r) divide into two equal parts

s) watch that is used to time sport events, such as a race, to a fraction (small part) of a second

t) a place between the hand and the arm

u) not fast, slowly

v) smth. that helps smb. to remember, not to forget

w) start or begin a process

x) Hertz (Hz)

y) Speed

Digital Watch

In a digital watch the mechanical parts of the traditional me­chanical wristwatch have been replaced by a vibrating quartz crys­tal to keep time. The vibrating quartz crystal is controlled by minute electronic circuits. One of the advantages of quartz is that it is very stable. The artificial quartz crystals used in digital watches are designed to vibrate up to 32,768 cycles per second when the current from a battery is passed through them.

These vibrations produce electric pulses. As the pulses travel through the electronic circuits of the microchip, their rate is gradu­ally halved. The result is a pulse rate of one per second.

Each one-second pulse triggers the microchip to send signals to the liquid crystal display to advance the numerals by one second. The pulses are also used to control different functions. Such a digi­tal watch can show the day and date; it can have an alarm and a re­minder and can act as a stopwatch with an accuracy of 1/100th second.

Упражнение3. Прочитайте следующие определения компьютерных тер­минов, дайте русские эквиваленты выделенных слов и словосочетаний. Пе­реведите предложения.

QQ. Hardwaremeans the different types of equipment a com­puter consists of.

RR. A computer’s hardware comprises a central processing unit(CPU) which is the heart and brain of the computer.

SS. Input and output devicescapable of putting information into a computer and getting it out of it are types of peripheral equip­ment. Peripheralsare the units connected to the CPU: input de­vices, output devices and storage devices.

TT. The simplest and most common type of input device is a key­board, containing a typewriter keyboard.

UU. A laser printeris a kind of output device to print information.

VV. Softwaremeans the programs needed to operate computer equipment.

WW. These programs are on disks,the hard disksinside the com­puter, or floppy disks,or on CD-ROMs,that is, Compact Disk Read Only Memory, which you can put on or store a large amount of information. A diskis a storage device made of flat circular plates with magnetizable surfaces. A hard diskis a disk made from a solid magnetic material and used as a storage device. A floppy disk(also called diskette) is a disk made of flexible plastic material upon which data are stored on magnetic tracks. Tracksare areas marked on the surface of a disk. A disk driveis the electronic mechanism that actually reads what is on a disk. In hard disks, the disk and the drive are built into a single unit.

XX. A word processoris a computer used to write documents, let­ters and reports, or the software that is used for this purpose.

YY. Databasesare programs, which allow you to store, look at or change a large quantity of information quickly and easily.

ZZ. Graphicsare pictures and symbols a computer program can produce.

AAA. An extra copy on a floppy disk is called a back-up copy,a copy of data or software, usually kept in case the original disk is damaged or destroyed.

BBB. A bugpossible in a computer operation, also a virus is a software problem or error in a program. Debuggingmeans correct­ing program errors or bugs.

CCC. People send e-mail(electronic mail) messages with the help of the Internet,a system that lets computers connect by telephone lines.

A laptopis a portable computer weighing about 2—4 kg.

DDD. With a device called the mouseyou can do a number of things by clickingon different icons.

EEE. A mouseis a small input device, on the top of which there are one or more buttons for communicating with the computer.

FFF. Clickingis a basic mouse action to place a cursor to close a window, etc.

GGG. An iconis a small picture representing an object, process or function.

Упражнение 4.Заполните пропуски, образуя общеизвестные компьютер­ные термины. Запомните их.

25. data ...

26. integrated ... or chip

27. soft ...

28. ... ROM

29. hard ...

30. floppy ...

31. ... disk

32. input, output ...

33. super ...

34. physical ...

35. ... network

36. mini ...

37. ... copy

38. fifth ... computer

39. ... processor

40. e-...

41. ... age

42. photon ...

43. ... writer

44. key ...

45. laser ...

46. mini ...

Упражнение 5.Заполните таблицу на словообразование.

Verb, Noun	Adjective
create	...
	possessive
act	...
compete	competitive
attract	...
...	comparative
expense	...
sense	...
mass	...

Упражнение 6.Назовите прилагательные с суффиксом -ible/-able, озна­чающие:

z) that can be done, can exist, happen;

aa) that cannot be done, cannot exist, happen;

HHH. that can be used;

III. that may be obtained, can be used;

JJJ. that may be relied on;

KKK. that cannot be relied on;

LLL. which may be questioned;

MMM. which may not be questioned;

NNN. absolutely essential.

Упражнение 7.Заполните таблицу на словообразование.

Noun	Adjective	Adverb
...		questionably
availability
capability	• • •	• • •
...	usable
		possibly
reliability
quality	...	...
quantity	...
...	...	intensively
indispensability	...

Упражнение 8. А.Назовите 15—20ключевых слов и выражений на тему

«Computer».

В. Speak about:

47. A lot of people are becoming computer literate(have experi­ence of working with computers and know how to use them). Are you computer literate? Do you find most computers «user- friendly»(easy to use)?

48. The Internet and its influence on our daily life. Can it help people from different countries to learn English?