Клочкова Практическое пособие для аспирантов 2011

4. Translate the following sentences.

a)

1.Ultimately everything of value will become an information technology: our biology, our thoughts and thinking processes, manufacturing and many other fields.

2.The ultimate i-kilogram computer – about the weight of a laptop today – which I envision late in this century, could provide 1042 cps, about 10 quadrillion (1016) times more powerful than all human brains put together today.

3.If you take any object whatsoever – a block of wood, a chunk of iron – and you cut it in half and then cut that half in half again, and keep cutting on and on, what is the most basic constituent you will ultimately come upon?

4.Ultimately, we'll use a significant portion of the matter and energy in our vicinity as a computing substrate.

5.Self-replication will ultimately be feasible in non-biological na- notechnology-based systems as well, which will introduce its own dangers.

6.Ultimately, we will merge with our technology.

b)

1.The researchers in charge of the mission did not share their findings beyond flashes of slides at conferences.

2.The universe is big in both space and time and, for much of humankind's history, was beyond the reach of our instruments and our minds.

3.Programming genuine artificial intelligence will require new science. This places it beyond firm projection.

Increasingly powerful atom smashers have as yet found no evidence of any additional fundamental forces beyond these four.

4.The observers may define the concept of human as being based on our limitations, but I prefer to define us as the species that seeks – and succeeds – in going beyond our limitations.

5.We will be able to go beyond the limits of biology, and replace your current "human body version 1.0" with a dramatically upgraded version 2.0, providing radical life extension.

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c)

1.We need accurate foresight, though; people clinging to comforting doubts about Al seem likely to suffer from radically flawed images of the future

2.Although Al researchers may gain useful insights about the organization of thought from the resulting advances in brain science, neural simulation can succeed without such insights.

3.The standard model utilizes twenty or so numbers that have been established through decades of fastidious research but as a theory it offers no insight whatsoever into why these key parameters take the values they do.

4.Still, few would deny that programming computers to equal human abilities will indeed require fresh insights into human psychology.

d)

1.It might be possible to see the distant future of the Earth using methods which do not involve relativity at all.

2.Another of the genes involved in smoking addictiveness is also known to play a role in controlling how people respond to stress.

3.NASA has decided now that its luna project should involve a permanent base after canvassing the opinions of more than 1,000 scientists from 14 countries and is open to the idea of making the outpost an international project.

4.One of the genes that appears to differ between smokers who give up and those who cannot is called cadherin 13, which produces a substance known to be involved in controlling how nerve cells in the brain stick together.

5.Another of the genes involved in smoking addictiveness is also known to play a role in controlling how people respond to stress.

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C

The ARV robots are less like soldiers and more like tanks. In fact, the Army’s intention is to use them as support for manned vehicle missions. The robots could take the most dangerous positions and provide support whenever the manned vehicles enter a combat situation. We’ll look at how robot soldiers might change the face of warfare forever.

Ideally, robot soldiers would be able to achieve the same military goals a human group could manage. They’ll have to be autonomous and able to identify targets, distinguish between friendly and enemy forces, engage the and interact with others in ways beyond simply firing a weapon.

2. Note the following.

а) Modal verbs can could, must, may, might, shall, should, will, would are followed by a verb without to.

б) Modal verbs don’t have infinitive or tense forms.

c)To form the negative form, not is put after the modal verb. No other auxiliary verb is needed.

d)To ask a question we put the modal verb before the subject.

e)Modal verbs can and must have equivalents that behave as common verbs.

Can − be able.

Must – have to.

3. Note that the Perfect Infinitive or the Continuous Infinitive can be used after modal verbs.

Ex.:

1.A technology-of-the-20th-century symposium held in 1895 might not have mentioned airplanes, radio, antibiotics, nuclear energy, electronics, computers or space exploration.

2.The conditions of modern life could be driving changes to genes for certain behavioral traits.

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USE OF MODAL VERBS

Can

1. Translate the sentences.

1. The winds blowing from the Atlantic can bring plenty of rain to the island.

2. Voice-recognition programs can identify words quite well.

3. Investment will not guarantee that all negative impacts can be overcome, but business as usual will guarantee disastrous consequences for the human race.

2. Answer the question.

What tense is the modal verb can used in?

Could

1. Read the sentences.

1. Although researchers have known for years about bismuth ferrite's piezoelectric properties, it could not be made to produce enough voltage to be considered as a replacement for lead.

2. No one could control the structure of bismuth so that it could perform as well as lead and lead-based compounds as a piezoelectric substance. .

3. In a special purpose machine the computational procedure could be part of the hardware.

2. Answer the questions.

1.What tense is the modal verb could used in?

2.Is there a real (or theoretical) possibility of performing the action in the above sentences?

3.Is the subjective attitude of the author expressed?

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3. Note the following.

The modal verbs can and could are only used in the Present Simple and the Past Simple respectively. In all other cases the equivalent of can (be able) is used with the same meaning of theoretical possibility.

Be able

1. Translate the sentences.

1.After learning how neurons work, engineers will be able to design and build analogous devices based on advanced nanoelectronics and nanomachines.

2.With this knowledge, engineers will be able to build fast, capable Al systems, even without understanding the brain and without clever programming.

3.We must be able to predict how climate change will impact regions in the next 10 to 20 years.

4.We may be able to control and manipulate some of our gestures but not all of them.

5.Astronomers have been able to conduct numerous experiments over the years to support Hubble’s notion that the Universe is expanding.

6.Though the programming path to Al seems open, our knowledge does not justify the sort of solid confidence that thoughtful engineers had (decades before Sputnik) in being able to reach the Moon with rockets.

Can vs. be able

1. Read the sentences paying special attention to the parts in bold.

1.With the advent of quantum mechanics we were able to explore the rules that govern particle interactions on the atomic scale and smaller.

2.If the compiler is not able to derive the correct scheduling constraints for a set of interface methods, we show how the user is able to

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override the compiler through user annotations that carry proof obligations.

3. Postdoctoral associate Gustavo Wiederhecker and his colleagues achieved static displacement—that is, they were able to bend and hold their structure in place rather than causing it to move back and forth.

2. Answer the questions.

1. Is the modal verb be able in the above sentences the equivalent of can ?

2. Does it refer to general possibility or to a single achievement?

3. Consider two variants of translating the modal verb be able in this context:

«может/могли» (in general) or «смогли», «в состоянии», «спо-

собны» (in the particular case).

Which variant should be better used?

3. Translate the sentences in 1.

Must

1. Read and translate the sentences.

1. In a general purpose machine the instructions must be as changeable as the numbers they acted upon.

2. This fact must be interpreted in a slightly different way. 3. Caution must be used when interpreting these results.

4. We must be able to predict how climate change will impact regions in the next 10 to 20 years.

2. Answer the question.

What is the only tense in which modal verb must is used?

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Have to

1. Translate the sentences.

1. In fact, lead in electronics is so pervasive that the document had to include a list of exemptions to the metal's ban, most notably in piezoelectronic devices.

2. To meet this demand for ubiquitous memory, electronics makers have had to pack in more and more data, even as they shrink the sizes of their gadgets.

3. Four-dimensional space-time would have to emerge from the theory, rather then put into it.

2. Answer the questions.

1.Is the modal verb have to the equivalent of must in the above sentences?

2.In what tenses can the modal verb have to be used?

Must vs. have to

1. Read the sentences.

1. Whenever somebody wants to build a new robot, they usually have to start from square one.

2. In the scientific community, where results have to be reviewed and duplicated, bias must be avoided at all costs.

3. Data are not going to replace voice as the fundamental emergency communication, because in environments where you have to use your eyes and hands for other things, you have to be able to talk.

2. Answer the questions.

1.Is the modal verb have to the equivalent if must in the sentences above?

2.Does it have the meaning of obligation that does not depend on

us?

3.Translate the sentences above.

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1.Solar collectors do not have to be placed on the roof of the building for which they are intended to be used.

2.Just as you don’t have to reinvent the light bulb to make use of it, you needn’t recreate the works of the great thinkers to enjoy them and profit with them.

Must, could, might, may

1. Read the sentences paying special attention to the parts in bold.

1.We may never find any direct evidence of the existence of other universes, and we certainly will never get to visit one.

2.Build a better mousetrap, and the world may beat a path to your door – if it doesn’t build a better mouse instead.

3.In a sense, artificial intelligence will be the ultimate tool because it will help us build all possible tools. Advanced AI systems could maneuver people out of existence, or they could help us build a new and better world.

4.Aggressors could use AI systems for conquest, or foresighted defenders could use them to stabilize peace. They could even help us control Al itself. The hand that rocks the AI cradle may well rule the world.

5.If life can arise, it would again happen much like it does in our world. Physicists in such a universe might be puzzled by the fact that the up and strange quarks would have almost identical masses. They might even imagine that this amazing coincidence has an anthropic explanation, based on the need for organic chemistry

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2. Answer the questions. above

1.Is the information in the above sentences completely realistic?

2.Does it express personal, subjective attitude of the author?

3.Do the predicates in bold refer to the present or to the past?

4. Should we translate the verb could as «могли» or as «возможно», «могли бы»?

3. Translate the sentences above.

Must , may, might + the Perfect Infinitive

1. Read the sentences.

1.In the old days of classical physics, you might have wanted to predict what a billiard ball would do when it ran into another billiard ball or the side of the table.

2.A decade ago, holographic systems promised to revolutionize data storage. The early hype may have evaporated, but the technology quietly progressed, and working devices are now on the market.

3.It executed an instruction in 1.2 milliseconds, which must have seemed phenomenal at the time.

4.In Europe the mobile phone market may have stagnated but across the world it has leapt from obscurity towards ubiquity.

5.We cannot predict particular advances in science and technology. At the end of the nineteenth century, who could have anticipated such discoveries as the theory of relativity or plate tectonics; who could have anticipated quantum mechanics, the implications of Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, and the work in particle physics carried out by Leon Lederman and others at CERN.

6.These arguments suggest that during inflation the cosmological constant and other parameters could have taken a virtually limitless range of different values.

2. Answer the question.

Do the predicates in bold refer to present or pas situations?

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