Tasks and exercises

1. Answer the following questions:

a) What device did Volta make before becoming a teacher at high school?

b) What did Luigi Galvani call ‘animal electricity’?

c) What was Volta sceptical about in Galvani’s conclusions? How did he find out that Galvani was mistaken?

d) Describe Volta’s ‘stack’.

e) What did Volta’s discoveries lead to?

2. In the text find words that have the following meanings:

a) “smth that helps smb/smth to develop better or more quickly”;

b) “place, location, status”;

c) “persistency, determination”;

d) “disclose, display”;

e) “an action or a service that helps to cause or increase smth”;

f) “opposite of internal”;

g) “a collection of cells that form tha different parts of an organism”.

3. Study the collocations in which some of the general scientific words from the text are used:

a) effect [ɪ'fekt]¹: far-reaching/important/strong/significant/ minimal/main/principal effects, damaging/destructive /harmful effect, positive/desired/remarkable effect; to produce an effect, to observe/assess/examine/measure/study an effect;

b) to affect [ə'fekt]: to affect smth(smb) greatly/radically /significantly/very much/slightly/clearly/seriously, to be likely to affect;

c) similar: to be similar in smth, to be similar to, extremely/strikingly similar, basically/roughly ['rʌflɪ]/somewhat similar, superficially similar, qualitatively similar;

d) position (n): in a favourable/ideal/perfect/weak position;

e) to position: centrally/correctly/wrongly;

f) fact: obvious/important/inescapable fact, to establish/find out a fact, to collect/gather/select facts, to recognise/accept a fact, to deny/dispute a fact, draw attention to the fact that;

g) idea: valuable/innovative/constructive/brilliant idea, to come up with an idea, to contribute an idea, to generate ideas, to put forward an idea, to occur to smb, to clarify an idea, to be open to ideas;

h) stimulus: a powerful/major/negative/positive stimulus, an internal/external stimulus, to act as/give provide a stimulus, in response to a stimulus;

i) to separate: to separate completely/clearly/easily/formally, to be difficult/impossible to separate, sharply separated;

j) degree: considerable/great degree, low/small/minimal degree, to a lesser degree, with varying degrees of success, in an equal degree, with a fair degree of accuracy.

4. Fill in the gaps:

We can measure these values with a fair ____ of accuracy. Giving grants should act as a _____ to scientific activity. Brainstorming is a good way of _____ ideas. No one can deny this ____. A magnet _____ out scrap iron from the rubbish. Our laboratory has been working on these problems with varying _____ of success. A brilliant new idea occurred to him during the seminar. This phenomenon will especially ____ large animals greatly, and to a lesser ____, birds and insects. These two branches of science have now become clearly _____. Could you, please, clarify this ___ for me? The two experiments are _____ in their results. The drug produces a powerful ____ on the brain. Students need time to collect the ____. Theoretical and experimental physics are not always sharply _____. The smell of this chemical is ____ to nitric ['naɪtrɪk] acid. Recent discoveries have drawn the scientists’ attention to this ___. The emission of these gases is likely to ____ the environment. That is precisely the ____ I was aiming at. The three objects are extremely _____. We had problems with this experiment, but this chemical gave the desired effect. These are elements with basically ____ properties. Clarke realised that if you ______ a rocket containing a satellite and orbiting the Earth at approximately 42,164 km from its centre, then the speed with which it moved would be the same as that of the Earth’s rotation.

5. Make up your own sentences in English with the collocations from ex.3.

6. Translate into English:

a) Вскоре Вольта получил повышение до профессора физики и через три года переехал в университет Падуи, где занял аналогичную должность.

b) Гальвани был убежден, что в ходе экспериментов сумел получить эффект того, что он называл «животным электричеством».

c) Тот факт, что получить электричество можно было и без животной биологической ткани, доказал, что идея Гальвани была ошибочной, и в то же время показывал, что мускулы реагировали на стимулы извне.

d) Он разделил диски слоями плотной бумаги, пропитанной соленой водой.

e) Чего Вольта не знал, так это, что атомы различных металлов с разным ‘упорством’ расстаются с электронами.

7. Below you can see a list of some of the key events in the history of electricity. Can you match these events with the names of the scientists who were involved in them?

1746. Leyden jars are invented in Holland. 1751. The word ‘electrician’ is first used in print. 1752. The kite experiment in Philadelphia is carried out: atmospheric electricity is conducted down a wet string of the kite and charges a Leyden jar. This leads to the invention of the lightning conductor. 1791. Commentary on the Effects of Electricity on Muscular Motion is published. 1800. The first electric battery is made of piles of alternate plates of silver and zinc. 1820. The link between electricity and magnetism is discovered. 1831. Electromagnetic induction is discovered. 1830s-1840s. The idea of an electrical or magnetic field created by ‘lines of force’ between charged particles. 1837. The first electric telegraph is invented. 1837. The alphabetic code of dots and dashes is invented. 1864. Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field is published. Faraday’s qualitative descriptions of the electromagnetic field are translated into mathematics in the form of wave equations. They explain the propagation of electrical and magnetic forces across the whole spectrum from gamma waves to radio waves and show that light too is electromagnetic radiation. 1867. A revolutionary dynamo1 is announced, which results in cheap electric lighting and power. 1879. The incandescent light bulb is invented. 1887-8. Maxwell’s prediction that electromagnetic waves can be transmitted is confirmed. Radio waves are discovered. 1895. Wireless telegraphy is developed.

Benjamin Franklin Hans Christian Oersted Heinrich Hertz Michael Faraday Samuel Morse Charles Wheatstone James Clerk Maxwell Ernst Werner von Siemens ['siːmənz] Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan Alessandro Volta Luigi Galvani Guglielmo Marconi Pieter van Musschenbroek

8. Make a written resume of the text about Alessandro Volta (10–15 sentences) and retell the text orally relying on what you have written.

Michael Faraday ['maɪk(ə)l 'færədɛ]

S ome people rise to fame by being born into the right family. Michael Faraday did so because he was brilliant and determined. Born in the area of London now called Elephant and Castle¹, Faraday grew up in a poor, but highly religious environment that led him to expect to find a unifying order in the way the world was made.

Born: 1791, Newington, England.

Education: no formal education.

Major achievement: pioneered work in electricity and magnetism.

Died: 1867, Hampton Court, England.

Before reading the text, study the words in the right column (practise pronouncing those which are transcribed):

Aged fourteen, Faraday started work as an apprentice bookbinder, but enjoyed reading the books more than binding them. In one book he found instructions that enabled him to build his own electrostatic machine and join the City Philosophical Society, which met every week to hear and discuss lectures on scientific topics. After attending a Royal Institution lecture given by Humphry Davy (1778–1829), Faraday became Davy’s chemical assistant and toured the continent as Davy’s valet. Among many scientific luminaries he met on his travels was the aged Volta, who inspired Faraday to investigate electricity when he returned to London in 1815. In 1820 the Danish ['deɪnɪʃ] natural philosopher Hans Christian Oersted (1777–1851) ['ɜːstəd]2 wrote a paper describing how a compass needle deflects from magnetic north when an electric current is switched on or off in a nearby wire. This showed that electricity passing through a wire generated a magnetic field. In 1821 Faraday took this a step further. He pushed a piece of wire through a cork and floated the cork on water. The ends of the wire made a contact with blobs of mercury and through these he was able to transmit electricity to the wire. When a magnet was nearby the wire moved each time he applied a current. Bending the wire, he found a way of making it and the cork rotate when he fed electricity through it and hence discovered electromagnetic rotation, a discovery that led to the invention of electric motors. Convinced that energy was always conserved within a system, he decided that if electricity could produce a magnetic field, the reverse should also be true – magnetism should be able to produce electricity. It wasn’t until almost ten years later that he showed that moving a powerful magnet near a coil of wire could cause a brief pulse of electricity to flow in a wire – he had discovered electromagnetic induction, the principle behind the electric transformer and generator. This discovery, more than any other, allowed nineteenth-century scientists to turn electricity from a scientific curiosity into a powerful technology. As Faraday gained fame and reputation he never forgot the excitement of science he had felt as a child, and in 1826 gave the first Royal Institution Christmas lecture for children – a concept that still carries on to the present day.

Apprentice [ə'prentɪs] – подмастерье, ученик Bookbinder ['bukˌbaɪndə] переплетчик City Philosophical Society – Лондонское философское общество Royal Institution of Great Britain (often abbreviated as the Royal Institution or RI) Королевский институт Великобритании Valet ['væleɪ], ['vælɪt] – слуга, лакей Luminary ['luːmɪn(ə)rɪ] – светило Aged – в возрасте To inspire – вдохновить Compass ['kʌmpəs] needle стрелка компаса To switch – переключать Nearby – ближний Take smth a step further – продвинуться в чем-либо Cork – пробка To float – плавать, держаться на поверхности воды Blob – капля, шарик, клякса Hence – таким образом Reverse – обратное Coil – катушка Brief – краткий Electric transformer электрический трансформатор To gain fame and reputation – прославиться и завоевать репутацию To carry on – (зд.) продолжать существовать