1. Decide whether the following statements are true (t) or false (f) in relation to the information in the text. If you think a statement is false, change it to make it true.

a

American inventor Lee De Forest invented an integrated circuit, an extremely small complex of electronic components contained on a thin chip or wafer of semiconducting material such as silicon.

b

John Logie Baird, English engineer and television pioneer invented the first commercially viable apparatus to transmit and receive visual images.

cSir Robert Watson-Watt, British physicist, is best known for his major contributions to the development of radar.

d

ENIAC, the first large-scale, general purpose, digital computer was built by American physicist John W. Mauchly and American electrical engineer John Presper Eckert, Jr.

e

The central processing unit that performs the basic operations in a microcomputer was invented in the early 1970s.

f

Since the launching of the first artificial satellite in 1960s, artificial satellites play key roles in the communications industry, in military intelligence, and in the scientific study of both Earth and outer space.

g

Many prominent American scientists, including the physicist Enrico Fermi, were associated with the development of the atomic bomb.

Year

Event

1

1901

a

Scottish engineer John Logie Baird developed the first video broadcasting system.

2

1906

b

The Soviet Union launched the first Sputnik satellite

3

1920

c

The development of the first microprocessor

4

1934

d

American physicists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented the transistor, an electronic device used to control or amplify an electrical current.

5

1935

e

American inventor Lee De Forest invented the triode, or vacuum tube.

6

1939

f

NASA designed, manufactured, tested, and eventually used the Saturn rocket and the Apollo spacecraft for the first manned landing on the Moon

7

1946

g

Italian electrical engineer Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first radio signal from Cornwall, England, across the Atlantic Ocean to a receiver near St. John’s in Newfoundland.

8

1947

h

Some scientists demonstrated that in his experiments Fermi had achieved the splitting, or fission, of the uranium atom's nucleus.

9

1957

i

American physicist Enrico Fermi began a series of experiments in which he used neutrons to bombard atoms of various elements, including uranium.

10

1969

j

The electronic numerical integrator and computer (ENIAC) was constructed by American physicist John W. Mauchly and American electrical engineer John Presper Eckert, Jr.

11

1971

k

British physicist Sir Robert Watson-Watt used radar signals to locate aircraft in flight.