1. What problems plague the world today?
2. Why can no nation solve these problems separately?
3. What should the nations do to think above the level of nationalism?
4. Why does the author accept the "tyranny" of a "world government"?
5. Why should the scientists be responsible (according to the author) for the problems that beset us?
6. Why could only scientists (according to the author) find the solutions to these problems?
7. Why are scientists most likely (according to the author) to rise above the limitations of national prejudice?
8. Why are the nations of the world divided in culture?
9. Why are the scientists, according to the author, not divided in culture?
• Look through the passage and fill in the blanks with the proper information. In some cases grammatical changes are necessary.
1. According to Isaac Asimov, the problems that plague the world are the following: 1) the world population ...; 2) the world resources are ...; 3) the wastes are ...; 4) environment is ... ; 5) the cities are ... ; 6) the quality of life is ... .
2. The author thinks that the US is..., the USSR wasand China is....
3. The author's idea about the US is that the country's population is its soil is its water is its air is its wastes are ... .
4. The author thinks that the world scientists should be responsible for ... because they ....
PUBLIC OPINION POLL
Which, if any, of the things on the list do you think could be areas where scientific discoveries could have very dangerous effects (vd), dangerous effects (rf), not dangerous effects (я).
| Branch of science/technology | Men | Women | Total |
| Nuclear energy | |||
| Biotechnology and genetic engineering | |||
| National defence and armaments | |||
| Space exploration | |||
| Agriculture and plant science | |||
| Medical research | |||
| Control and reduction of pollution | |||
| Robotics | |||
| New forms of energy | |||
| Information technology and computers | |||
| Astrology |
• Discuss the results of the public opinion poll in class. Give reasons for your opinion.
CLASSWORK
READING (2B)
• Read the passage and find arguments to prove that people can look up at the stars and down at the atoms with an equal degree of infer- and superiority.
OUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE
In our everyday life wc encounter objects of widely differing sizes. Some of them are as large as a barn and others are as small as a pinhead. When we go beyond those limits, either in the direction of much larger objects or in the direction of much smaller ones, it becomes increasingly difficult to grasp their actual sizes. We know that mountains are very large, but at a distance they look quite small. While at a short range we can see but a few rocks and cliffs. We know that bacteria are very small, but to sec them we have to use a microscope, through which they look quite big.
Objects that are much larger than mountains, such as our earth itself, the moon, the sun, the stars, and stellar systems, constitute what is known as the macrocosm (i.e., "large world" in Greek). Very small objects, such as bacteria, atoms, and electrons belong to the microcosm (i.e., "small world" in Greek).
Ifwc use the standard scientific unit, a centimeter (0.3937 inch), for measuring sizes, objects belonging to the macrocosm will be described by very large numbers, and those forming the microcosm by very small ones. Thus, the diameter of the sun is 139,000,000,000 cm, while the diameter of a hydrogen atom is only 0.0000000106 cm. Scientists customarily express such numbers in terms of positive or negative powers of ten, and write 1.39 x 10" cm for the diameter of the sun and 1.06 x 10 s cm for the diameter of a hydrogen atom. Sometimes special very large or very small units are used. Thus, in the macrocosm we use the so-called astronomical unit (symbol: A.U.), which is defined as the mean distance of the earth from the sun and is equal to 1.4964 x 10'3cm, or a still larger unit known as a light-year (symbol: l.y.) which is defined as the distance travelled by light in the course of one year and is equal to 9.463 x 10" cm. In the microcosm we often use microns (symbol: m ), defined as l()~4 cm, and Angstroms (symbdl: A), defined as 10 8 cm.
It is interesting to notice that the size of the human head is just about halfway between the size of an atom and the size of the sun, or halfway between the size of an atomic nucleus and the diameter of the planetary system (on the logarithmic scale in both cases, of course).
Similar vast variations will be found in the time intervals encountered in the study of the microcosm and the macrocosm. I n human history we ordinarily speak about centuries; in geology the eras arc usually measured in hundreds of millions of years, while the age of the Universe itself is believed to be about 10-20 billion years. The revolution period of an electron in the hydrogen atom, on the other hand , is 1015 sec, and the oscillations of particles constituting atomic nuclei have a period of only 10 22 sec. Notice that the wink of an eye is just halfway between the age of our stellar system and the rotation period of an electron in an atom. Thus, it seems that we are located pretty well in the middle between the macro- and microcosm and can look up at the stars and down at the atoms with an equal degree of infer- and superiority.
• Rc-rcad the passage and find English equivalents for the following Russian phrases.
повседневная жизнь; размеры колеблются от... до...; некоторые величиной с сарай; постичь их действительные размеры; так называемая астрономическая единица; одно деление масштабной линейки; другие размером с булавочную головку; десятичный логарифмический масштаб; с равной степенью неполноценности и превосходства; на малом расстоянии
• Look through the passage again and supply answers to the following questions.