ИНОСТРАННЫЙ ЯЗЫК В ТЕХНИЧЕСКОМ УНИВЕРСИТЕТЕ (956018), страница 45
Текст из файла (страница 45)
People communicate instructions to the computer in symbolic languages and the easier this communication can be made, the wider the application of computers will be. Scientists are reported to be already working on Artificial Intelligence and the next generation of computers may be able to understand human languages.
Упражнение З. А. Прочитайте текст упражнения 2 и заполните пропуски словами.
programming compiler programmed program assembler language programmers portable low-level machine code
1. A computer ... is a set of instructions that tells the computer what to do. 2. Converting an algorithm into a sequence of instructions in a programming language is called .... 3. Most computer ... make a plan of the program before writing it. 4. Coding is the translation of the logical steps into a programming .... 5. In the next century computers will be ... in natural languages like English or French. 6. A ... is a special program that converts a program written in a high-level language into a program written in a lower level language. 7. It is difficult to use ... ... , which is the only language understood by the processor. 8. A special program called ... converts a program written in a low-level language into machine code. 9. If the same program can be used for different computers, it is called ... . 10. In a ... language each instruction has a corresponding machine code equivalent.
B. Speak about:
The new programming language you have heard of or read about.
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SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS
To be read after Lesson 1
Education
Most Americans start to school at the age of five when they enter kindergarten. Children do not really study at this time. They only attend for half the day and learn what school is like. Children attend elementary school for next six years. They learn to read and write and work with numbers. They also study the world and its people. After they leave elementary school, children go to junior high school for three years and senior high school for another three years. This is called secondary education. In some places the children go to elementary school for eight years and high school for four. At any rate, elementary and secondary education together take twelve years to complete excluding kindergarten.
In their secondary schooling children get more advanced knowledge and begin to concentrate on their special interests. They usually study further in history, geography, government and English language and literature.
They may choose to study foreign languages, advanced mathematics or science, such as physics or chemistry. Students who plan to go on to college or professional training must take some of these courses in order to enter college. Other students who do not intend to go on with school may take classes in accounting or typing or other subjects that will help them in the business world. Some senior high schools are vocational. Boys may learn to operate machines or do other work. Girls may learn cooking, sewing or office work. High schools have athletic teams which play against teams from other schools. Many boys enjoy playing football, basketball or baseball. These games take place after school hours. Girls are given physical education too, but they do not usually play teams from another schools.
In the most places in the US children must attend school until they are sixteen, or until they finish high school, usually at the age of seventeen or eighteen. Some children who are not good students drop out of school at the age of sixteen. This is a growing problem, for it is harder and harder for people to find work when they have not finished their high school education.
Public schools are free for all boys and girls, but some parents prefer to send their children to private schools. Some private schools are connected with churches and children receive religious
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instruction as well as their regular studies. Other private schools are not religious, but have small classes and very good teachers so that the parents think their children will get a better education there than in the larger classes of the public schools. The private schools do not receive any tax money, so most of them must charge the students several hundred dollars a year to pay for the cost of the school. Boys and girls attend the public schools together, but many private schools are for girls only or for boys only.
To be read after Lesson 2
The Trees Fell — So Did the People
Early civilisations may have killed themselves off by plundering (хищнически уничтожать) local plants and animals. New archeo-logical findings suggest that far from living in perfect harmony with nature, prehistoric civilisation dealt major and sometimes fatal blow to natural surroundings. Many investigators now question the idea that environmental problems began only with the industrial revolution in the 19th century.
Long before the appearance of industrial civilization prehistoric societies were destroying (уничтожать) forests, plants, animals and farmland. Such destruction sometimes destroyed them in turn.
The mysterious disappearance of Anasasi Indians may be a dramatic example of this. In territories that are now New Mexico and Arizona the Indians built a complex of roads, irrigation systems and giant «houses» with 800 rooms and more. All were abruptly left by them around A.D. 1200. Until now, the majority of archeologists have believed that the reason was a prolonged drought (засуха), but by using an electron microscope to analyze the tree rings American scientists found that over two centuries or so the Indians were systematically deforesting the canyon where they lived until the forests' ability to replenish itself was destroyed.
Some Words About Words
With about 200,000 words in current usage English is generally regarded as the richest of the world's languages. Few other languages can match this word power. Chinese comes close. German has a vocabulary of only 184,000 words, and French has fewer than 100,000 words.
English owes its exceptionally large vocabulary to its ability to borrow and absorb words from outside. Atomic, jeans, khaki, sput-
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nik, perestroika, glasnost are just a few of the many words that have come into use during this century. They have been taken or adopted from Italian, Hindi, Creek and Russian. The process of borrowing words from other languages has been going on for more than 1,000 years. When the Normans crossed over from France to conquer England in 1066, most of the English spoke old English or Anglo-Saxon — a language of about 30,000 words. The Normans spoke a language which was a mixture of Latin and French. It took about three centuries for the language to become one that is the ancestor of the English they speak today. The Normans gave us words such as «city», and «palace». The Anglo-Saxon gave us «ring and town».
Latin and Greek have been a fruitful source of vocabulary since the 16th century. The Latin word «mini», its opposite «maxi» and the Greek word «micro» have become popular adjectives to describe everything from bikes to fashion.
To be read after Lesson 3
Nuclear Power? Well, Yes
Although nuclear reactors have generated electricity commercially for more than 40 years and nearly 400 now in operation, two major accidents — in the US in 1979 and Chernobyl in the USSR in 1986 — have put the industry under a radioactive cloud. In the popular imagination, reactors are nuclear bombs; even if they don't explode, they go on accumulating waste that will finally cause a global catastrophe.
As a result, an energy source once considered as the fuel of the future became questionable. But not everywhere. Nuclear power provides nearly a quarter of the electricity generated in the industrialized Western world by the 24-member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In France more than 76 % of electric power is nuclear-generated, in Belgium — 62 %, Sweden — 50 %, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Finland come in at one third, Japan — a little less; Britain, the US and Canada — under 20 %. Some countries have no nuclear power plants at all and don't want any.
Not only the strong emotions of fear have worked against nuclear power. Energy demand grew more slowly than expected in the past decade. Prices of oil and coal have reduced. However, energy prices can rise. Moreover, supplies of fossil fuel are limited, while
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energy needs and tide (прилив) can't meet the increasing requirements. Besides, nuclear power doesn't add to global warming.
All this causes the people to believe that the world can't live and work without nuclear power.
To be read after Lesson 4
Telecommunication
A group of people enter a room, the lights go down, the screens come... the videoconference is under way.
Tomorrow's scientific fiction has become today's new technology -a daily reality for global companies who recognise the importance of regular communication between groups of people in different locations around the world.
Essentially the videoconference room resembles a usual conference room. Delegates sit along one side of a table facing their colleagues on screen on the other side. They can see, hear and talk to each other simultaneously and can present slides of diagrams, even pieces of equipment. The technology is relatively simple. A device called videocodec takes the picture, digitalizes it for transmission over a special network and reforms the picture at the other end.
The problem today is to manufacture codec to the new international standard and to improve picture quality through faster transmission speeds. Research and development is also focusing on mobile videoconferencing with broadcast quality pictures which enable to have instant communication with colleagues around the world.
There is no doubt about the effectiveness of videoconferencing, as the videoconference eliminates the working time lost through travel.
The First Travelling Post Office
The first travelling post office in the United States was Abraham Lincoln's hat. That was a strange place, indeed, for mail; but that is where it was kept. Lincoln was appointed postmaster of New Salem, a small Western town, about the year 1833. The postman visited the place once a week and brought the mail — a dozen letters, perhaps, and two or three newspapers — in his saddle (седло) bags. He was always met by Postmaster Lincoln who put the letters into his hat for safekeeping. Lincoln was also the clerk in the country store, so he had a good opportunity to distribute the mail. But if
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people did not come for it, he put on his hat and delivered it. So New Salem was the first town in the US to have rural free delivery, even though the postmaster received very small pay for his work. At that time, stamps and envelopes were not used. When the sender of a letter paid the postal charges, the postmaster wrote PAID in the large letters on the face of the letter. But the postal rates were so high that the sender seldom paid them. Thus, the mailing charges were usually collected from the person who received the mail. The postmaster always held his postal receipts until a government representative came for them.
The Internet
The Internet is a magnificent global network with millions and millions of computers and people connected to one another where each day people worldwide exchange an immeasurable amount of information, electronic mail, news, resources and, more important, ideas.
It has grown at a surprising rate. Almost everyone has heard about it and an increasing number of people use it regularly. The current estimate is that over 70 million people are connected, in some way, to the Internet — whether they know it or not.
With a few touches at a keyboard a person can get access to materials in almost everywhere. One can have access to full-text newspapers, magazines, journals, reference works, and even books. The Web is one of the best resources for up-to-date information. It is a hypertext-based system by which you can navigate through the Internet. Hypertext is the text that contains links to other documents. A special program known as «browser» can help you find news, pictures, virtual museums, electronic magazines, etc. and print Web pages. You can also click on keywords or buttons that take you to other pages or other Web sites. This is possible because browsers understand hypertext markup language or code, a set of commands to indicate how a Web page is formatted and displayed.
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