Аврамова Интродуцтион то Нуцлеар Енглиш 2011

2.What was the power level of the first NPP? What was it designed for?

3.When and where was the first man-made reactor built? What was the purpose of this project?

4.Why was the Obninsk reactor so important and how did it affect the situation worldwide?

5.How many nuclear power reactors are there in the world today? How much electricity do they produce?

6.Does the Obninsk NPP still produce electricity?

7.What was its planned lifetime? How long did it operate?

8.What is special about the Obninsk NPP, aside from the fact that it is the world’s first NPP?

UNIT II

Reading 2-A What is Physics?

All science is either physics or stamp collecting.

(Ernest Rutherford)

Physics is all around us. It is in the electric light you turn on in the morning; the car you drive to work; your wristwatch, cell phone, CD player, radio, and TV set. It makes the stars shine every night and the sun shine every day.

Physics is the scientific study of matter and energy and how they interact with each other. Physics explains ordinary matter as combinations of a dozen fundamental particles (quarks and leptons), interacting through four fundamental forces. It describes the many forms of ener- gy–such as kinetic energy, electrical energy, and mass–and the way energy can change from one form to another.

A physicist is not some geek in a long white coat, working on some weird experiment. Physicists look and act like you or me. They work for research laboratories, universities, private companies, and government agencies. They teach, do research, and develop new technologies. They do experiments on mountaintops, in mines, and in earth orbit. Physicists are good at solving problems. How does a mirror reflect light? What holds an atom together? How fast does a rocket have to go to escape from earth? How can a world-

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wide team share data in real time? (Solving this last problem led physicists to invent the World Wide Web.)

As an experimental science, physics uses the scientific method to formulate and test hypotheses that are based on observation of the natural world. The goal of physics is to use the results of these experiments to formulate scientific laws. These physical laws are usually expressed in the language of mathematics, and can be used to predict other phenomena.

There are many fields of physics, for example: mechanics, electricity, heat, sound (acoustics), light (optics), nuclear physics, elementary particle physics and more. Physics is the foundation of all the physical sciences – such as chemistry, materials science, and geology – and is important for many other fields of human activity: biology, medicine, computing, ice hockey, television … the list goes on and on.

There are still profound questions in physics today: what are the mysterious dark matter and energy that make up most of the universe? Are there more than three dimensions of space? The more we learn about physics, the more it will help us every day, and the better we will understand our place in the universe.

Exercise 1. Match the terms on the left with their definitions on the right.

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Exercise 2. Complete the sentences with the words from the text.

1.The scientific study of matter and energy and how they interact with each other is …

2.The study of the behavior of electric charges and the fields they create in the surrounding space is known as…

3.The branch of physics that studies the atomic nucleus and its interactions with other nuclei is…

4.The branch of physics that studies the fundamental particles of matter and radiation, and the interactions between them is called …

5.The branch of physics concerned with the motion of bodies in a frame of reference is known as …

6.The study of the structure and properties of materials is known as …

Exercise 3. Use the words from the text to fill in the gaps.

1.Physics is a scientific study of ______ and _______ and how they interact with each other.

2.Physics explains matter as combinations of ______ _______ interacting through four ______ forces.

3.It describes different ______ of energy, and how energy can

______ from one form into another.

4.Physicists work for _______ laboratories, universities,

________companies, _______ agencies. Physicists teach, do

______, and develop ______ ______.

5.Physics uses the _______ method to ______ and ______ hypotheses based on observation of the natural world.

6.The goal of physics is to formulate ______ laws and ______ other phenomena.

7.There are many _____ of physics, for example: mechanics, electricity, heat, sound, light, and more.

8.Physics is the ______ of all the physical sciences – such as chemistry, geology, etc.

9.Physics helps us understand our place in the ______.

10.There are still ______ problems in physics today, for example: what are ______ matter and energy? How many _______ are there in space?

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Exercise 5. Make sure you know the following words and word combinations.

Материя, энергия, взаимодействовать друг с другом, фундаментальные частицы/силы, кинетическая энергия, электрическая энергия, масса, физика – физик – физические законы, научные лаборатории, проводить исследования, отражать свет, обмениваться данными, наука – научный метод, формулировать и проверять гипотезы, предсказывать явления, выражать на математическом языке, механика, электричество, тепло, свет, звук, физика элементарных частиц.

Exercise 6. Read the text and answer the questions below.

1.What is physics?

2.How does it explain ordinary matter and energy?

3.Where do physicists work? What do they do? What problems can they solve?

4.How does physics work? What is the goal of physics? Why are the physical laws so important?

5.What fields of physics are there?

6.What is the role of physics in science?

7.What are some of the unsolved problems of physics?

Reading 2-B

Alfred Nobel Rests in Peace

Read the text quickly and answer the questions.

1)How did Alfred Nobel make his money?

2)Why did he decide to start the Nobel Prizes?

People like Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, Mikhail Gorbachev and Mother Teresa have become famous all around the world. A________ They are all winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. But none of them would have received their prize and the recog-

nition it brings if it had not been for one Swedish man, Alfred Nobel.

When Alfred joined the Nobel family company, it had been developing

explosives for many years. Alfred’s father, Immanuel, had started the family fortune by working for the Russian army to produce landmines and sea mines, which are bombs that are put under the ground or in the sea, and

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explode when people move over them. But the family made even more money by manufacturing nitroglycerine, which was an effective, but very dangerous explosive. One day Alfred arrived home to find that his 20-year- old brother Emil had been killed in a nitroglycerine explosion.

B _________ The result was dynamite, which became an immediate success all over the world.

Alfred Nobel always wanted dynamite to be used for peaceful means. And when it was used to blast a path for the Panama Canal in 1914 he

couldn’t have been happier. Unfortunately, in the same year, the First

World War started, and, when it ended four years later, dynamite had been used to take away the lives of thousands of young men. C ________ To see his invention being used in this way made him very sad.

Sometime later Alfred’s older brother Ludwig died. One newspaper accidentally printed Alfred’s obituary instead of his brother’s. The obituary described Alfred as a man who had become rich by inventing a weapon of mass destruction. When Alfred read this review of his life, he was very unhappy and decided to do something about it. He decided that he would use the great fortune that he had made to reward people who had been working to promote good in society. D __________ The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the person who had done the most, or the best work to promote friendship between countries, to abolish armies and to hold and promote peace conferences.

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In 1997 the Nobel Prize went to an American called Jody Williams for her efforts to get landmines banned. E _______ Perhaps now, Alfred Nobel will rest more easily in his grave.

Exercise 1. Read the text again and add the sentences. Listen and check.

1.Alfred became determined to invent a safer explosive.

2.The five awards he created were for physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and, most significantly, peace.

3.Ironically, of course, the Nobel family fortunes had been built on mines.

4.Alfred had always hated war and considered it to be «the horror of horrors and the greatest of all crimes».

5.And what do they have in common?

Exercise 2. Read the text again and put these events in order.

1.Alfred started working with his father.

2.Alfred read about his own «death» in a newspaper.

3.Alfred’s brother Emil died in an accident.

4.Dynamite killed many people during the First World War.

5.Alfred created the Nobel Prizes.

6.Alfred invented dynamite.

7.The Nobel company made mines.

8.Dynamite was used to build the Panama Canal.

Do you know?

1.What famous Russian physicist got the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975?

2.Who received the first Nobel Prize in physics? What was it

awarded for?

3. What Russian physicists received the Nobel Prizes? If you don’t remember, look at the table below.

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Time for Fun

You Might Be a Physicist if...

-the water in your kettle is boiling at 373 Kelvin.

-you know that the speed of light is 299,792.5 km/sec.

-you've already calculated how much you earn per second.

-you know the size of the electron, but don't know your own shirt size.

-when you break a vase you blame the second law of thermodynamics.

-you avoid stirring your coffee because you don't want to increase the entropy of the universe.

-you carry on a one-hour debate over the expected results of an experiment that actually takes five minutes to run.

UNIT III

Reading 3-A

The History of Physics

Genius is one percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration.

(Thomas Elva Edison)

The history of physics begins with Galileo. Before Galileo it was thought, that there were different laws for celestial and terrestrial bodies, and for living and dead matter. There was no science to explain the changes in the movements of bodies.

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Galileo, and later Descartes, introduced the fundamental concepts of physics. They showed that the laws of motion are the same for dead and living matter. Galileo introduced two principles which made mathematical physics possible: the law of inertia and the parallelogram law.

Later Newton made a great contribution to the development of physics in his famous book, Principia («Начала»). He developed infinitesimal calculus (анализ бесконечно малых величин). He applied the basic ideas of dynamics, the equations of motion, the ideas of momentum, inertia, mass and acceleration to large bodies like the Earth and the Moon to explain the structure and motion of the Universe.

Until the end of the 19th century Newton's principles were considered to be absolutely true for all cases. The first revolutionary novelty was Planck's introduction of the quantum constant h to explain the structure and behaviour of atoms in 1900. Another departure from Newton's principles followed in 1905 when Einstein published his special theory of relativity. These important discoveries gave rise to many new branches of physics – particle physics, nuclear physics, neutron physics, quantum physics and many others.

Now we can see a great convergence of sciences. Physics is now penetrating all the other parts of science. This is now evident in the names of new hybrid subjects, such as physical chemistry, chemical physics, biophysics, computational physics, and so on.

Exercise 1. Read the text again and put these events in order.

1.Einstein published his special theory of relativity.

2.Galileo introduced the law of inertia and the parallelogram law.

3.Planck introduced the quantum constant h to explain the structure of atoms.

4.Newton introduced three laws of motion in his book Principia.

Exercise 2. Look at the table and decide what contributions to science each of these physicists made.

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Exercise 3. Read the following quotations. What branches of physics are they connected with? Who do they belong to (Archimedes, Albert Einstein, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton)?

-“You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”

-“Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth.”

-“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That‟s relativity.”

-“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”

-“And yet it still moves!”

-“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”

Reading 3-B

Albert Einstein, a Nobel Prize Winner in Physics

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Read the text below. Fill in the spaces with the form of the words in capital letters.

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, GermaBEGIN

1ny. His interest in science ___________ when he was only five years old.

3in the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. In 1909, at the age of thirty, Einstein ___________ his job at the Patent Office and began his lifelong career in the academic world.

4His genius was recognized, and in 1921 he ___________ the RECEIVE

Nobel Prize in Physics.

6He ____________ a professor at Princeton University where BECOME he remained until his death in 1955.

Shortly before his death he wrote and signed the RussellWARN

Einstein Manifesto, which __________ the people of the

7world about the danger of a nuclear catastrophe. Albert Einstein is remembered as one of the greatest scientists in the world. His theories have changed science forever.

UNIT IV

Reading 4-A What is an Atom?

When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions.

In order to understand nuclear energy, it is important to first understand the atom.

What do you suppose would happen if you took a lump of salt and began to break it up into smaller and smaller pieces? Sooner or later you

would get pieces so small that you wouldn’t be able to see them. The

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