Automation in the research process

Our goal should be automating the routine and thereby leaving more time for the creative process.

With that word of caution, let’s proceed by arbitrarily dividing research into three stages and examining each stage to find what functions of the research process might he automated without endangering creativity. Stage one includes the dreams, the ideas, the exploratory work, selecting the problem, setting the objective, testing technical feasibility, and searching the literature. Stage two involves planning the experiment, conducting the experiment, checking the alternates, data taking and data evaluation. Stage three is the solution of the problem – drawing conclusions and making recommendations.

Although there is a great deal of creativity involved in stage one, there are also opportunities for automation. The burden of keeping up with the literature even in one’s own restricted field is becoming heavier with each passing year. The mass of reading is necessary to make a literature search increased immensely. Advances in computer technology made possible storing and quick retrieval of essentially all the scientific literature.

Grammar Review

I. Find it and passive constructions in this extract. What function do they perform?

It is generally agreed that the more difficult it is to follow the lecture, the more easily we get obsessed by sleep or other pleasant activity apart from listening to the professor. It has been observed that the father you are from the source of noise, the more you are prone to sleepiness. It is thought that his phenomenon develops due to the fact that the sound vibrations produced by the professor’s articulative organs affect the auditory receptors of the nearby listeners stronger, resulting in more vivacity and higher speed of writing.

II. Translate into English:

1.Была высказана мысль использовать другой метод. 2. Были получены новые данные в поддержку этой идеи. 3. На такой вопрос нельзя ответить в таких условиях. 4. В настоящее время химические методы очистки воды широко используются. 5. Предложенная гипотеза учитывает все экспериментальные наблюдения. 6. Постановка проблемы означает первый шаг на пути к ее решению. 7. Такие проблемы может решить только ученый, полностью осознающий возможную опасность. 8. Успех исследования зависит от определения его цели.

III. Give Russian equivalents:

1. That this factor is too important to be ignored does not require any further proof. 2. The main point that the author tries to make is that biology rather than physics will be in the forefront of the search for knowledge in the years to come. 3. That the leadership in high energy passed to Berkeley turned out to be fortunate for the English Cambridge. 4. The only real danger for physics is that it will become too pure and isolated from the practical problems of life for young people to want to study it at all. 5. That the sun is but a typical star is one of the most significant facts of modern astronomy. 6. Moreover, human speech differs from all forms of animal speech in that it can be expressed and presented in writing. 7. That this was not the case was proved when they obtained more data.

Unit 6

Read and translate the text:

Text