Tasks and exercises

1. Answer the following questions:

a) What did Röntgen study besides X-rays?

b) What kind of experiments did Röntgen carry out in 1895?

c) What happened after Röntgen placed his wife’s hand in front of the rays he was studying?

d) Why did Röntgen call the phenomenon X-rays?

e) How did his work influence further investigations in electromagnetic radiation?

2. Find words in the text that have the following meanings:

a) “normal and ordinary”;

b) “specific, special”;

c) “a variety of things of a particular type”;

d) “the action of releasing a substance”;

e) “chance, possibility”;

f) “that has never happened, been done or known before”;

g) “to send out heat/light/sound/gas etc.”;

h) “to prevent smth from entering”;

i) “a continuous flow”.

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

a) problem: an approach to a problem, the scale of a problem, a complicated/difficult problem, to be confronted with (by) a problem, to handle/avoid/deal with a problem;

b) characteristic (n): basic/general/fundamental;

c) influence (n): be under the influence of, be independent of the influence of, have an influence on smth/smb, considerable/enormous/powerful influence;

d) to influence: considerably/strongly, seem to influence;

e) to modify: highly modified, in a modified form, a modified version;

f) opportunity: take the opportunity to do smth, to have the opportunity to do smth;

g) range (n): broad/wide/poor/limited range;

h) to expose: be directly/constantly/regularly exposed to smth;

i) ability: have/demonstrate/develop/lack an ability, a range of abilities, inherent/natural abilities.

4. Fill in the gaps:

Our university provides excellent educational _____. American universities have an enormous ____ on world science. Students can choose from a wide ____ of options. The two objects have two basic ______ in common. This compound is independent of external _____. The research team was ____ with all sorts of _____.

5. Make up 10 sentences with collocations from ex.3.

6. Translate into English:

a) Многим ученым удается найти решение для значительного количества научных проблем.

b) Рентген изучал необычные электрические характеристики кварца, влияние давления на отражение света жидкостями, модификации поляризованного света.

c) Неудивительно, что, когда у него появилась возможность учиться в университете, Рентген занимался техническими науками, но вскоре перешел на изучение физики.

d) Рентген понял, что у этих лучей более широкий спектр.

e) Рентгеновские лучи дали врачам беспрецедентную возможность заглядывать внутрь человеческого тела.

f) Заинтригованный этими лучами, Рентген помещал на их пути предметы различной толщины и обнаружил, что они экспонируют фотопластинки в различной степени.

7. Find sentences in the text which are in the Passive voice and translate them.

8. The passive voice is often used in academic writing. Read the following information:

the passive voice is formed by putting the verb “to be” in the same tense as an active tense and adding the past participle of the active verb. When a verb is conjugated in the passive voice it is the verb “to be” that changes, the main verb having the same form – that of the past participle:

	Indefinite	Continuous	Perfect
Present	I am asked	I am being asked	I have been asked
Past	I was asked	I was being asked	I had been asked
Future	I will be asked	-	I will have been asked
Fut. in the Past	I would be asked	-	I would have been asked

The passive is used:

a) When it is not necessary to mention the doer of the action, as it is obvious who she/he is/was/will be: “Your hand will be X-rayed”.

b) When we don't know, or don't know exactly, or have forgotten, who did the action: “Titanium was discovered in the late 18^th century”.

c) When the subject of the active sentence would be the indefinite pronoun “one” (“you” – in colloquial speech): “One sees this sort of phenomena everywhere” = “This kind of phenomena is seen everywhere”.

d) When we are more interested in the action than in the doer: “A new university building is being constructed”.

e) A speaker may use the Passive to disclaim responsibility for disagreeable announcements: “The letter has been opened!” instead of “You've opened the letter!”

Prepositions with passive verbs:

When a verb + preposition (adverb) + object combination is put into the passive, the preposition (adverb) will remain immediately after the verb: “We must write to him” = “He must be written to”; “You can pour the liquid into this beaker quite safely” = “This beaker can be filled with the liquid quite safely”; “They threw away the old newspapers” = “The old newspapers were thrown away”; “He looked after the laboratory well” = “The laboratory was well looked after”.

Infinitive constructions:

Infinitive constructions are used after the verbs acknowledge, assume, believe, claim, consider, estimate, feel, know, presume, report, say, think, understand, etc.: “People said that he was the author of this paper” = “He was said to be the author of this paper”; “People think he has information which will be useful to us” = “He is said to have information which will be useful to us”.

9. Put the verbs into the passive voice. Do not mention the agent unless it seems necessary:

a) They haven't checked the results.

b) They didn't pay me for the work; they expected me to do it for nothing.

c) She didn't introduce me to the laboratory chief.

d) A loud noise distracted me.

e) A Japanese firm makes this equipment.

f) A machine could do this much more easily.

g) We can't use this device.

h) The examiner will read the passage twice.

i) They took the lecturer for a Frenchman: his French was so good.

j) You should have taken these books to the library.

k) We have warned you.

l) You shouldn't leave these documents on the desk; you should lock them up.

10. Put the verbs into the passive voice:

a) Everyone looked up to him.

b) All his colleagues will see him off (проводят) at the airport.

c) They took down the notice.

d) No one has taken out the cork.

e) People often take him for his brother.

11. Put the following sentences into the passive using an infinitive construction where possible:

a) We believe that he has knowledge and expertise that may be useful in this project.

b) You have to see it to believe it (two passives).

c) Don't touch this switch.

d) They shouldn't have told him.

e) People know that he is an excellent physicist.

f) We consider that she was the best scientist that Poland has ever produced.

g) We know that the expedition reached the South Pole in May.

h) We will have to get someone to see it.

i) It is impossible to do this.

j) Before they invented printing people had to write everything by hand.

12. Make a written resume of the text about Wilhelm Röntgen (10-15 sentences) and retell the text orally relying on what you have written.

Heinrich Hertz ['haɪnrɪk hɜːts]

People who die before the age of 37 don’t often leave a huge legacy¹. Heinrich Hertz was an exception. Born in Hamburg, Germany, Hertz studied at the Universities of Munich and Berlin, and started working with a group of eminent physicists that included Hermann von Helmholtz ['helmˌhɔlts] (1821-1894). While there, Hertz completed a PhD on electromagnetic induction in rotating spheres.

Born: 1857, Hamburg, Germany.

Education: Universities of Munich and Berlin.

Major achievement: made sense of electromagnetic radiation.

Died: 1894, Bonn, Germany.

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

In 1883 Hertz became a lecturer in theoretical physics at the University of Kiel [kiːl]2. Here he studied the recent electromagnetic theory of James Clerk Maxwell [ʤeɪmz klɑːk 'mækswəl] (1831–1879). This theory was based on unusual mechanical ideas about the ‘luminiferous ether’. Ether was a hypothetical substance supposed to fill all ‘empty’ space, and was thought to be the material that allowed light to travel through the universe. While another scientist performed some intriguing experiments that proved that this ether didn’t exist, Hertz looked at the equations used to make sense of electromagnetic theory. He found that if you could reconstruct these the idea no longer required ether. Electromagnetic theory had just taken a huge step further. Moving to be Professor of Physics at Karlsruhe ['kɑːlzruːə]3 University in 1885, Hertz soon discovered the photoelectric effect – where ultraviolet radiation knocks electrons from the surface of metal and creates an electrical current – which is now the basis of many photovoltaic cells used on items from satellites to road signs. Although Hertz realised the significance of the photoeleсtric effect, his attention was drawn elsewhere. In 1888, in a corner of his classroom, he generated electric waves using a circuit consisting of a metal rod that had a small gap in it. The gap was small enough for the circuit to be completed by sparks jumping across it. Hertz then showed that these sparks could be picked up on a second, similar set of apparatus some distance away in the room. In further experiments he showed that, like light, the waves could be focused or reflected, and that they could pass straight through non-conducting materials. Originally called Hertzian waves, we now think of them as radio waves. Hertz saw no practical use for the discovery, but others were quick to see the relevance. An English mathematical physicist, Oliver Heaviside (1850–1925), said in 1891, “Three years ago, electromagnetic waves were nowhere. Shortly afterward, they were everywhere”. The end result was that a young Italian by the name of Guglielmo Marconi [gɪl'jelməu mɑː'kəunɪ] (1874–1937) heard about Hertz’s discovery while on holiday in Austria. He rushed home and started developing the idea until he could transmit a signal for more than one mile. In 1901 Marconi transmitted a signal across the Atlantic from Cornwall to Newfoundland, and radio came of age.

Luminiferous [ˌluːmɪ'nɪfərəs] – cветоносный Ether ['iːθə] – эфир Hypothetical [ˌhaɪpə(u) 'θetɪk(ə)l] – гипотетический Photovoltaic [ˌfəutəu vɔl'teɪɪk] cell – фотогальва-нический элемент To draw one’s attention to – привлечь чье-либо внимание Rod – стержень Gap – прорезь, пробел Apparatus [ˌæp(ə)'reɪtəs] – оборудова-ние Spark – искра, вспышка Relevance – значимость Shortly afterward – вскоре после этого To rush – кинуть-ся, (зд.) быстро вернуться To come of age – достичь зрелости