Vocabulary

1. Answer the questions

1. What is Albert Einstein most known for?

2. What was he awarded the Nobel prize for?

1. Read the paragraph.

The modern concept of the photon was developed gradually by Albert Einstein to explain experimental observations that did not fit the classical wave model of light. In particular, the photon model accounted for the frequency dependence of light's energy, and explained the ability of matter and radiation to be in thermal equilibrium. It also accounted for anomalous observations, including the properties of black body radiation, that other physicists, most notably Max Planck, had sought to explain using semi- classical models, in which light is still described by Maxwell's equations, but the material objects that emit and absorb light are quantized. Although these semi- classical models contributed to the development of quantum mechanics, further experiments proved Einstein's hypothesis that light itself is quantized; the quanta of light are photons.

2. Translate the underlined words.

3. Find Russian equivalents of the word combinations in bold.

4. Translate the following sentences.

Note that if a verb has a preposition, you should look it up in the dictionary with that particular preposition.

a)

1. Electric utilities account for 40 percent of the nation's emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas.

2. Since particle models cannot easily account for the refraction, diffraction and birefringence of light, wave theories of light were proposed by Rene Descartes (1637)and Robert Hooke (1665).

3. The Maxwell wave theory, however, does not account for all properties of light.

4. Theorists have determined that the earliest moments of the fiery big bang could have produced these particles in precisely the abundance to account for dark matter

5. Deforestation, largely driven by conversion to cropland, accounts for roughly 16 percent of global emissions of the carbon dioxide warming the atmosphere.

6. Crop diseases and insect pests will also thrive in a hotter or more humid climate, and the report does not take into account issues such as current agricultural lands swamped by rising sea levels. b)

1. Particle models remained dominant, chiefly due to the influence of Isaac Newton.

2. It is probably due to the same principle that the drops of rain are so much larger in thunderstorms than in ordinary showers.

3. The variations in the resistance of metals in a finely divided state were shown to be due to the action of the electrical, waves.

c)

1. All these activities generate greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

2. We face ethical as well as scientific problems and our work should contribute to welfare of future generations.

5. Write some sentences of your own using the following word combinations.

• account for,

• contribute to,

• due to.

Just for fun

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attempted to create its own cyborg in 1961 in Operation Acoustic Kitty, in which a cat was cut open and fitted with an array of wires and a listening device that utilized its tail as an antenna. The project was disbanded as a failure in 1967 when the cat on its first mission (to eavesdrop on the Soviet compound in Washington, D.C.) was killed by a moving taxi sending more than five years of intensive training and $15 million down the drain.