ИНОСТРАННЫЙ ЯЗЫК В ТЕХНИЧЕСКОМ УНИВЕРСИТЕТЕ (И. В. Орловская, Л. С. Самсонова, А. И. Скубриева - Учебник английского языка), страница 17

electron, operate, compute, calculate.

Упражнение 22. Расположите слова в алфавитном порядке.

still, start, specialist, speed, speak, second, search, science, so­phisticated, surround, supercomputer, ship, simultaneously.

90

Упражнение 23. Назовите исходную форму слов.

factories, carried, living, more, depends, components, highest, took, qualitatively.

Упражнение 24. Найдите в колонке В эквиваленты словосочетаниям из колонки А.

Упражнение 25. Найдите антонимы.

simple, untrue, begin, sophisticated, reliable, efficient, close to, true, complete, low, disadvantage, far from, high, unreliable, inefficient, advantage.

Упражнение 26. Переведите выделенные слова и запомните их.

1. In the past «Engineer» meant a designer of engines. 2. The word «a means» means «средство». 3. The meaning of «telemetry» is «measuring at a distance» and is a combination of Greek and Latin words. 4. By means of satellites we can communicate with any country of the world. 5. There were no means of direct commu­nication before the telephone was invented. 6. By communication we mean various ways to send information. 7. Scientists reported that we had technical means to use more channels on a TV set. 8. The importance of space means of communication is increasing every year. 9. By what means is speech transmitted over a distance? 10. By means of telephone people communicate with each other at great distances. 11. The mean distance between these two objects is not known yet.

Упражнение 27. Заполните пропуски словами few или a few.

1. ... people know that the first programmer in the world was Lord Bayron's daughter. 2. In the past astronomers spent all their lives to make ... hundred thousand calculations. 3. A calculator makes these calculations in ... seconds. 4. In the next ... years a

91

new generation computer will be developed. 5. ... people read that the first electric light illuminated the laboratory of Vasily Petrov, a St. Petersburg physicist, in 1862.

Упражнение 28. Обратите внимание на перевод слова which.

1. In our institute the study of theory is linked with practical training, which is very important for future engineers. 2. Students have industrial training at various plants, which allows them not only to watch production processes, but also to take part in produc­tion. 3. It is now possible to find a book or an article in this library very quickly, which is extremely important for specialists. 4. Pierre Curie studied the properties of crystals, which led him to the dis­covery of the piezoelectric phenomenon.

Упражнение 29. Переведите следующие предложения, обращая внима­ние на неопределенные местоимения.

1. There are some students in the room now. 2. Are there any students in the classroom now? 3. Everybody knows that one can find any book in the Lenin library, 4. There are no students in the classroom now. 5. I was looking for the new reference book on physics everywhere, but couldn't find it. 6.1 must have some paper, I can't write anything. 7. This man knows something, but he does not want to tell us. 8.1 have seen you somewhere before. 9. No one said anything to us about it at the meeting. 10. In our institute li­brary I always find everything I need. 11. We could park our car no­where. 12. They found nobody at home. 13. I have been nowhere this summer. I had no vacation. 14. Every faculty at our institute has a computer.

Упражнение 30. Дайте недостающие формы глаголов, запомните их. won, rung, driven, run, fed, laid, read

Упражнение 31. Прочитайте и переведите без словаря.

Let's look at the progress the computers have made in their development. Besides the great changes in size and speed, we now have machines which change numbers into pictures, words and sounds. The next big change will be when we get computers that will understand human language. But now if you want to programme your own computer, you must learn its language. It does not understand yours. For example you talk with an English­man. You make one small grammar mistake «have» instead of «has». The man understands what you mean and the talk goes on. But if you make even the smallest mistake in computer language, the talk breaks down and you must go back to the beginning.

92

CONVERSATION

Exercise 1. Answer the questions.

1. What influences the operation of an integrated circuit? (the quality of microscopic components it consists of) 2. What is the function of a computer? (making a great number of calculations at a very high speed) 3. What will be the speed of the fifth-generation computers? (100 billion operations a second) 4. What can in­crease the operation speed many times compared to the present computers? (a photon) 5. What physical phenomenon can be used to improve a computer's speed? (light) 6. What are the advantages of light for computation purposes over electronics? (the capability to move faster, in parallel lines and pass one another)

Exercise 2. Make a sentence out of the two parts.

1. Nowadays electronic devices

2. We are surrounded

3. There are

4. A personal computer

1. People are carried by

2. The modern production is unthinkable

3. It is impossible to imagine

1. airplanes, ships, trains and cars
having built-in electronic circuits
and instruments.

2. is being used more widely at
home and in office.

3. without electronically con­
trolled machine-tools.

4. with electronics everywhere in
everyday life and at plants and
factories.

5. scientific research without
computers.

6. are in general usage.

7. electronic watches we wear,
telephone, radio, and TV sets we
speak, listen to and watch.

Exercise 3. Read and learn.

Computers

Mary: Have you seen an interesting advertisement (реклама) in the last issue of «The Economist»?

John: I have not read it yet.

M.: The School of Engineering offers a new programme in infor-

mation system. Applications are invited for jobs in this field.

93

J.: Professor Smith has told me about it. This programme is

interesting. It is designed to meet the needs of persons with a computing background for their work in manage­ment and industry.

M.: Don't you think that our son can lecture on this new

programme?

J.: Why not? He graduated from the Department of Compu-

ter Science and for some years was taking part in the rese­arch project connected with the problems of super­computers and their manufacturing.

M.: As far as I remember his research interests cover software

(программное обеспечение) and application.

J.: And what do they say about the contract?

M.: It is a three years' contract and it may be extended for fur-

ther two years. I'll write Mike a letter.

J.: It's too long. You'd better call him.

A.: How do you like these new electronic games?

В.: I am crazy (mad) about them. And you?

A.: Really, I don't know what you see in them.

В.: Well, I think a real computer game resembles real life as

closely as possible, doesn't it?
A.: May be you are right, but I am not sure.

В.: Oh, but I find them rather relaxing for a change and try to

spend every spare (свободное) minute playing.

Exercise 4. Speak about:

1. The application of electronics in everyday life,

2. New developments in computers.

Use exercise 1, 2 and the following words and word combinations for your topic: to be in general usage, research is going on, throughout the world, further develop­ment, high speed electronic circuits of the highest quality, according to some re­searchers, a photon computer, by means of light, advantage over, in a few decades.

Exercise 5. Comment on the following statement.

Electronic games are very popular today. There are already up to 10,000 different computer games in the world.

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 health.

94

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

95

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 5С

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.