Гвоздева Тхе Цосмос 2011

Note

1. We use a modal verb + perfect infinitive for an action in the past.

Study the sentence.

1.You might need a paleontologist to look for life that does nor exist there today but might have left fossil remains.

2.The equipment might not have withstood the temperature.

IV. Should is not as strong as must.

Study the sentences.

1.We must find out what happens at these energies.

2.The theory predicted that the average density of galaxies should be constant both in space and time.

V. We use to + Vo to talk about the purpose of doing something. (= why someone does something.)

Study the sentences.

1.Our present variants of a complete unified theory contain a num-

ber of quantities, like the size of the electric charge on a particle. The values of these quantities cannot be predicted by our theories. Instead, they have to be chosen to agree with observations.

VI. We use used to V to say that something regularly happened in the past, but no longer happens.

Study the sentences.

1 My father was engaged in research in tropical diseases and he used to take me around his laboratory.

2.My father used to warn me against people who had right background and connections. But I think physics is a bit different from medicine. It doesn’t matter what school you went to or to whom you are related. It matters what you do.

3.I was always interested in how things operated and used to take them apart to see how they worked. But I was not so good at putting them back together again. My practical abilities never matched up to my theoretical enquiries.

Give Russian correspondence:

beyond (outside), a study (a research), to learn (to get to know), so (therefore), say (for example), like (similar to), even though, an effect (an influence), another (one more), close (near), Of, because of, any,

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other than (besides), either …. or, the only (single), specific (particular), no + N

Tyson is a leading American astrophysicist.

In this interview, he shares his thoughts on the latest findings in origins science and explains why he is not convinced there’s intelligent life beyond Earth.

Study the interview.

Nova: What makes the study of origins of the universe so hot right now?

Tyson: Well, the exploration of the universe has become multidisciplinary. It was unthinkable not long ago that an astrophysicist, a chemist, a geologist, a biologist or a paleontologist would be at the same conference. Now we have accumulated so much data that we have learned that one discipline can’t answer questions of origins.

And scientists in different disciplines don’t speak the same language. They publish in different journals. It’s like the United Nations: you come together, but no one speaks the same language, so you need some translators. But in the end, what happens is that new fields of astrobiology and astrogeology and astroparticle physics arise, and they begin to develop their own language that represents the intersection of the two, say, between astrobiology and biology.

Nova: What are some of the most exciting recent discoveries in origins science?

Tyson: I would say one, we have fixed the age of the universe. Two, we have proved the existence of dark matter and dark energy. Even though we don’t yet know what they are comprised of, we can measure the effects they have on the origin and the evolution of the universe. Another finding is the discovery that the moons of the solar system may be more interesting than the planets themselves.

Nova: How so?

Tyson: We used to think that if our moon is dry and barren, why should we believe anybody else’s moon is interesting? But if you look at

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the moons of Jupiter, for example, you find that one of them, Europa, is covered with ice, and below the ice there is an ocean of water that is maintained in the liquid state by energy pumped into it from its orbit around Jupiter. Where there is water on Earth, you find life as we know it. So if you find water on a planet, you want to look closer to see if there is life of any kind there, even if it’s bacterial.

Of Saturn 31 moons, Titan is especially interesting because of its richness in organic compounds. It has an atmosphere. And it might have oceans, not of water but of liquid methane. Imagine what kind of interesting chemistry we might find and what forms any possible life might take under such circumstances.

Nova: What great origins-related discoveries would you hope for in the coming decades?

Tyson: The discovery of life somewhere other than on Earth. That is a first goal in our exploration of the cosmos. And what’s fascinating is the question of whether that life has DNA. It’s a fascinating question, because either DNA is the only foundation for the coding of life, or life started with DNA in only one place in the solar system and then spread through panspermia. Panspermia allows life to be brought from one planet into space by some meteor contact. Another possibility is that the life has a code that has nothing to do with DNA.

Nova: Do you believe there’s intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and, if so, will we ever detect it?

Tyson: I’m not convinced yet. I think that intelligence is a narrow branch of the tree of life, this life of primates, who we call humans. No other animal, by our definition, can be considered intelligent. So intelligence can’t be very important for survival, because there are so many animals that don’t have what we call intelligence, and they are surviving just fine.

Vocabulary Notes

1.to arise − to begin to exist

2.an intersection − a place where lines cross

3.a barren land − land which has soil of such poor quality that plants can’t grow on it

4.to maintain − to keep up

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5.under the circumstances − under the conditions

6.to spread (spread − spread) − to extend

7.to have nothing to do − to be different from

8.to be convinced − to be sure

POST-READING TASK (to be done in writing) I. Answer the questions.

1.What experts should address the problem of the origin of the universe?

2.Why did new fields arise?

3.What new fields arose?

4.What are the recent findings in origins science?

5.What moons do scientists find interesting?

6.What is the first goal in the exploration of the cosmos?

7.What is panspermia?

8.Is intelligence important for survival?

9.What is the James Webb Space Telescope designed for?

II. Describe Europa and Titan.

III. How would you define ‘intelligence’?

IV. Give words close in meaning.

CLASS EXERCISES

Exercise 1 (in pairs)

Complete the sentences.

1.It was unthinkable not long ago that ….

2.We have learned that …

3.I would say one,

4 Two,

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5.Even though we don’t yet know what dark matter and dark energy are comprised of, …

6.Another finding is the discovery that ….

7.If you look at the moons of Jupiter, you find that one of them, Europa, ……

8.If you find water on a planet, you want to look closer to see ….

9.And what is fascinating is the question of …..

10.Another possibility is that the life has a code that …….

Exercise 2

Translate the sentences using the expressions.

1.Каковы последние открытия в науке о происхождении вселенной?

2.Я не уверен, что разумная жизнь существует за пределами земли.

3.Мы накопили огромное количество данных.

4.Учёные, работающие в разных областях, говорят на разных языках.

5.Появляются новые области науки и создаются новые языки.

6.Мы определили возраст вселенной.

7.Мы доказали существование тёмной материи и темной энер-

гии.

8.Тёмная энергия оказывает воздействие на образование и эволюцию вселенной.

9.Из чего состоит темная материя?

10.Титан богат органическими соединениями.

11.Там где есть вода, есть жизнь.

12.Основной целью исследования космоса является обнаружение жизни на других планетах.

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UNIT 3

SOME WORDS ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

PRE-READING TASK Study some grammar points.

I. We use whether when talking about two alternatives. (Russian − V + ли)

Study the sentence.

Neutron stars, however, were observed in 1967, when Bell and Hewish at Cambridge discovered objects called pulsars that were emitting regular pulses of radio waves. At first, they wondered whether they had made contact with an alien civilization. Indeed, I remember that the seminar room in which they announced their discovery was decorated with figures of ‘little green men’.

II. Ving − a verbal noun

We use by + Ving to say how something happens.

Study the sentences.

1.For a time I could communicate only by raising my eyebrows when someone pointed to letters on a card.

2.I wrote scientific papers by dictating to a secretary.

III. N + to Vo; N + to be V3

An infinitive after a noun characterizes it and expresses an action which must be done or could be done in the future.

Study the sentences.

1.«There are books to be read and thrown away; there are books to be read and put on the shelf; and there are some few to be read and digested» (Seneca)

2.These are the data to be verified.

3.When we look for life on Mars, we need an astrophysicist to characterize the environment, the chemist to understand the chemistry of the soils, the geologist to understand the rock formations, the biologist and even a paleontologist to look for life that does not exist there today, but might have existed before.

IV. Modal verbs show the attitude of the speaker towards the idea he expresses.

May, might, can, could = possible; can’t, couldn’t =hardly possi-

ble

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Might is more unsure than may.

Could is more unsure than can

Study the sentences.

1.There might be a connection between black holes and thermodynamics.

2.Imaginary time may sound like something out of science fiction, but it a well-defined mathematical concept.

3.There can be baby universes that contain only a few particles.

4.There could be many different universes with different densities.

Note:

We use a modal verb + have V3 to say that it was possible or highly

probable in the past. Russian - возможно было; can’t, couldn’t -

вряд ли было

Study the sentences.

1.Heavy elements could have been formed by nuclear synthesis of the early generation of nearby stars.

2.The initial configuration may have been chosen by God, or it may have been determined by the laws of science.

We use a modal verb + the perfect continuous infinitive to say how long the situation has been happening.

Study the sentence.

The universe can have been going only for a finite time.

We use a modal verb + the continuous infinitive to say that the action is developing as a process.

Study the sentence.

No-one in the early twentieth century suggested that the universe might be evolving with time.

V. When we imagine a situation we use would (could, might) + Vo for the present; would (could) have V3 for the past

would Russian − бы could Russian − мог бы

Study the sentences.

1.The fact that nothing can travel faster than light means that the round trip to the nearest star would take at least eight years.

2.The observation of a black hole explosion would provide very important information on elementary particle physics, information that might not be available any other way.

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VI. S + seems + to V (for the present) = Russian − По-видимому;

Создаётся впечатление

S + appears + to V = Russian − оказывается S + seems + to have V3 (for the past)

S + appears + to have V3 (for the past)

Study the sentences.

1.Dark matter seems to be different from normal matter, the kind that makes up stars and planets.

2.Inflation seems to have occurred in the early universe: an increase in size by a factor of at least million million million million million times in a tiny fraction of a second.

3.There appears to be only a finite number of such theories.

4.The intense gravitational field near the black hole causes the creation of pairs of particles and antiparticles, one of which falls into the black hole and the other of which escapes to infinity. The particle that escapes appears to have been emitted by the black hole.

Give Russian correspondence:

to go on (to continue), fairly (rather), thus (so, therefore, hence), otherwise (in a different case), to progress (to advance), in fact (in reality), above (ant. below), repeatedly (many times), essentially (basically), the rest of (the others), far longer (much longer), like (similarly), by now (up to the present time), the same (alike)

THE DEBATE

FYI

A debate is a discussion about a subject on which people have different views.

Study the passage. Translate the paragraph marked with asterisks in writing.

The debate about whether and how the universe began has been going on throughout recorded history. Basically there were two schools of thought. The Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions held that the universe was created in the fairly recent past. (In the seventeenth century Bishop Ussher calculated a date of 4004 BC for the creation of the

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universe, a figure he arrived at by adding up the ages of people in the Old Testament.)

*One fact to support the idea of a recent origin was the realization of the fact that the human race is obviously evolving in culture and technology. We remember who first made this discovery or developed this technique. Thus, the argument runs, we cannot have been around all that long; otherwise, we would have progressed more than we have. In fact, the biblical date for the creation is not far off the date of the end of the last ice age, which is when modern humans seem first to have appeared*.

On the other hand, there were people such as the Greek philosopher Aristotle who didn’t like the idea that the universe had a beginning. They believed that the universe had existed and would exist for ever. They had an answer to the argument about human progress described above: periodic floods or other natural disasters had repeatedly set the human race right back to the beginning.

Both schools of thought held that the universe was essentially unchanging with time. In the nineteenth century, however, evidence began to accumulate that the earth and the rest of the universe were in fact changing with time. Geologists realized that the formation of the rocks and the fossils in them would have taken hundreds or thousands of millions of years. This was far longer than the age of the earth as calculated by the creationists.

Further evidence was provided by the so-called second law of thermodynamics, formulated by the German physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. It states that the total amount of disorder in the universe (which is measured by a quantity called entropy) always increases with time. This, like the argument about human progress, suggests that the universe can have been going on only for a finite time. Otherwise, it would by now have degenerated into a state of complete disorder, in which everything would be at the same temperature.

Stephan Hawking

Vocabulary Notes

1.to hold (here) – to consider – to believe – to think

2.a realization – an understanding

3.an argument (here) – reasoning

4.obviously – most probably

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5.a disaster – a catastrophe

6.to accumulate – to build up

7.to state – to declare

8.to suggest (here) – to indicate

POST - READING TASK (to be done in writing)

I. Answer the questions.

1.What is the basic difference between the two schools in their views on the origin of the universe?

2.How did Bishop Ussher arrive at a date of 4004?

3.What does this date mean according to him?

4.What fact supports the idea of a recent origin of the universe?

5.What is the Biblical date for the creation?

6.How did Aristotle interpret the idea of a recent origin of the universe?

7.What view did both schools share?

8.What evidence began to accumulate in the seventeenth century?

9.What was the evidence provided by?

10.What does the second law of thermodynamics state?

11.What is disorder measured by?

II. The two pieces of evidence provided by the passage seem contradictory. Make your own conclusion.

III. Write which point of view on the origin of the universe you

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