Life on other worlds

Man has always been fascinated by the possibility of life on other worlds. As long ago as the second century, science fiction writers were peopling the universe with bizarre creatures. When scientists began to develop instruments capable of analyzing distant planets, they generally dismissed the possibility of extraterrestrial life. It was suggested that the atmospheres and temperature ranges of those planets should be different from those of ther earth, which is still the only known life-supporting planet. In recent years, however, scientists have begun to change their minds. They understand how life might have originated under conditions that would appear alien to us now. At the dawn of life on earth, its atmosphere must have resembled that of such apparently hostile planet as Jupiter. Accepting the possibility of life is one thing. Proving it is another. It should be emphasized that great interplanetary distance is still the major obstacle to exploration. But scientists are developing machines and techniques for finding life, preparing for the inevitable day when those distances would be spanned – and man would make his first contact with living beings on another world.

Grammar Review

Expressions to remember:

Anyway

After all

In some respects

First of all

In many ways

In detail

To some extent

As a whole

In particular

So far

At present

Scientifically speaking

Broadly speaking

1. Give Russian equivalents:

1. If you never thought of asking a question you are not interested in having the answer. 2. If you want to succeed in interesting the audience you should not try surprising them with an isolated fact. 3. By having defined one’s research objective one has already made the first, and the most important, step towards the final success. 4. Many useless experiments were prevented from being made by an adequate theory. 5. A true scientist is interested in being told about his mistakes. 6. Research is searching without knowing what you are going to find. 7. Any single card should contain notes from only one source. This will aid in arranging and organizing the materials for your research paper. 8. We do not know how to solve the problem of interesting schoolchildren in science. 9. His research resulted in establishing a new mechanism of the process. 10. Some people say that theory is a device for saving time.

2. Translate into English:

1. Чтобы облегчить понимание данной проблемы, было выпущено несколько научных трудов.

2. Было защищено две диссертации по данной проблеме.

3. Что нужно сделать, чтобы отделить железо от примесей?

4. Для того, чтобы начать заниматься наукой, нужно прежде всего иметь сильное желание познать окружающий мир.

5. Чтобы не выглядеть несведущим, оппонент прочитал пару работ по теме диссертации, написанной молодым ученым.

6. Две эти идеи столкнулись, породив новую область знания.

3. Translate into Russian:

1. The mid-20^th century has witnessed the scientist becoming the most valued member of society. 2. The original idea of a discovery is often the product of one man working in a group environment. 3. There is more chance now of this suggestion being true. 4. A true scientist is prepared for his mistakes being pointed out to him. 5. The snobs at the institute could not tolerate electrical engineers walking around with thier dirty hands and spoiling the purity of the scientific atmosphere. 6. It is believed that there is hardly any chance of there being a mistake in these calculations.

“False friends of the translator”

Translate the sentences using one of the definitions:

ATTACK

1. нападать, атаковать 2. критиковать 3. энергично браться за работу 4. поражать (о болезни) 5. разрушать 6. начинать (что-то делать) 7. ориентировать 8. проверять

The applications that we are attacking are widely spread.

A first step might be to attack the program counter.

ATTRIBUTABLE

1. могущий быть приписанным, отнесенным; обусловленный, связанный, приходящийся на

This variation is attributable to two factors.

Other major sources of errors are attributable to high noise level.

ATTRIBUTE

1. отличительная черта, качество, свойство 2. символ, атрибут 3. определение, атрибут (грам.) 4. неотъемлемое свойство 5. характеристика 6. признак 7. возможность 8. преимущество, достоинство

The other important attribute of the inter-computer links is … .

The chip has attributes of both 8-and 16-bit processors.

We’ll discuss a number of systems which highlight one or more of these attributes.

Unit 12

Read and translate the text:

Text