Text IV

Word-study

Exercise 1. Check the transcription in the dictionary and read the words listed below.

Nouns:

circumstances, employee, infancy, think-tank.

Verbs:

dive, mention.

Adjectives:

strategic, relevant, foremost, comprehensible, awesome.

Exercise 2. Read and translate the words and collocations.

Strategic problem, relevant figure, the missing packet, highly technical project, to split, to run the project, under the circumstances, via network, in its infancy.

Exercise 3. Match the synonyms.

Verbs:

1) split	a) hope
2) communicate	b) provide
3) participate	c) decompose
4) expect	d) contact
	e) take part

Nouns:

1) destination	a) idea
2) infancy	b) addressee
3) receiver	c) sender
4) circumstances	d) childhood
5) conception	e) address
	f) conditions

Exercise 4. Make new words from the following nouns according to the model and translate them.

Pre- + noun:

disposition, face, text, vision, position, diction, history.

Scan-reading

THE INTERNET INVENTORS

In 1979 Paul Baran, Vint Cerf, Jon Postel and Bob Braden proposed the Internet conception.

Its prehistory dates back to the early 1970s when the RAND Corporation, America's foremost Cold War think-tank, faced a strategic problem. The question was: how could the US Army communicate under circumstances of nuclear war, in zones involved into military operations? It was the Internet that became the answer.

Each message is split into data packets and sent out via the computer network. Then it goes to its destination by whatever route was available, passing through many other computers, each of them being a part of the global network. In case one packet is missing, a receiver asks a sender to send the missing packet again. The above mentioned individuals were carrying out that research.

Paul Baran, then the employee of the RAND Corporation, was running the DARPANet (Defense Advanced Research Project Network).

Vint Cerf, a.k.a.* the Father of the Internet, invented computer protocols for the DARPANet, which allowed communication between computers of various types.

Jon Postel was the Project Leader for one of the National Science Foundation Project and the Gigabit Network Communication Research Project. These two highly technical projects were completely incomprehensible to those who were not foremost scientists like Jon Postel. Postel had an M.Sc. degree in Engineering and a Ph.D. in Computer Science.

But the most relevant figure in Internet creating was a young Englishman who single-handedly made the World Wide Web. His name is Tim Berners-Lee. Actually, he did not participate in creating the Internet itself, but he designed the World Wide Web, the «killer application» of the Internet. The Web is the reason for which millions of people dive into the Net. Even though still in its infancy, the Web is fascinating, it's a global library. Once it's fully formed, it could be awesome. Tim Berners-Lee's Web is what transformed the Net from academic back-water into the global stream of fresh water it is today.

Tim Berners-Lee created the Web at the age of 32. At the same age Bill Gates was on his way to his first billion. Like Gates, Berners-Lee was introduced to computers while still a child – his parents were mathematicians. On graduating from Oxford, he developed the first Web prototype in 1980 for his personal use. Nowadays, he expects the Web to become a place where one could find any fact about anything quickly and cheaply.

The Web let the Net be used in a logical way. It created a standard that everybody could - and did - follow.

*a.k.a. – also known as.

Notes:

awesome – впечатляющий;

foremost – выдающийся, знаменитый (напр.: ученый, писатель);

think-tank – группа экспертов при правительстве или организации, консультативный совет, мозговой центр;

message destination – адресат;

killer application – программа вне конкуренции.

Academic Degrees:

B. S. (B. Sc.) – Bachelor of Science; a first university undergraduate degree.

M. S. (M. Sc.) – Master of Science; a first university graduate degree.

Ph. D. – Doctor of Philosophy; a high rank university degree granted for some research.

Comprehension check

Exercise 1. Answer the questions.

1. What way out of the possible war danger was proposed?

2. How could you characterize the conventionalists and developers of the new tool of communication?

Exercise 2.

1. Summarize the information about the reasons that could possibly spark the development of the Internet, according to the texts.

2. Retell the story of Tim Berners-Lee as a WWW founder using the information given above.

Exercise 3. Read the text and entitle it.

We know that the story of the World Wide Web started at CERN, Switzerland. That was its birthplace. But what about the present day? We must mention the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, better known as MIT. Here the Web and its founder Tim Berners-Lee currently reside. MIT collaborates with CERN and European INRA to develop the Web Project. Much research is being carried out and supervised from the Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT.

Find some extra information of your own concerning Internet-related research of today.

Language activity

Exercise 1. Paraphrase the underlined expressions and words.

1. The problem was how the army could communicate around the zones involved into the nuclear war events.

2. Bill Gates and Paul Allen are controlling the Microsoft Corporation with more than 18.000 employees and 48 companies.

3. Information goes to its destination by whatever route is available passing through many other computers on the way.

4. These two projects are so highly technical that they are completely incomprehensible to those who are not foremost scientists.

5. A special team experienced in the field of new technologies was consulting the government.

6. Tim Berners-Lee was introduced to computers while a child.

7. This engineer’s current interests include multimedia conferencing, electronic mail, very large networks and very high speed communications.

8. The Microsoft Network was intended as a pay-as-you-go online services.