Английский язык для студентов-бакалавров технических факультетов. English for the Undergraduates of Engineering. Учебное пособие

TEXT 1

Laser

In the “World of Wars” written before the turn of the last century H. Wells told a fantastic story how Martians almost invaded our Earth. Their weapon was a mysterious “ sword of heat”. Today Wells’ sword of heat has come to reality in laser. The name stands for light amplification by stimulation emission of radiation.

Laser, one of the most sophisticated inventions of man, produces an intensive beam of light of a very pure single colour. It represents the fulfillment of one of the oldest mankind’s dreams of technology to provide a light beam intensive enough to vaporize the hardest and most heatresistant materials. It can indeed make lead run like water, or, when focused, it can vaporize any substance on the earth. There is no material unamenable to laser treatment and laser will become one of the main technological tools quite soon.

The applications of laser in industry and science are so many and so varied as to suggest magic. Scientists in many countries are working at a very interesting problem: combining the two big technological discoveries of the second half of the 20th century – laser and thermonuclear reaction – to produce a practically limitless source of energy. Physicists of this country have developed large laser installations to conduct physical experiments in heating thermonuclear fuel with laser beams. There also exists an idea to use laser for solving the problem of controlled thermonuclear reaction. The laser beam must heat the fuel to the required temperature so quickly that the plasma does not have time to disintegrate. According to current estimates, the duration of the pulse has to be approximately a billionth of a second. The light capacity of this pulse would be dozens of times greater than the capacity of all the world’s power plants. To meet such demands in practice, scientists and engineers must work hard as it is clear that a lot of difficulties are to be encountered on route.

The laser’s most important potential may be its use in communications. The intensity of a laser can be rapidly changed to encode very complex signals. In principle, one laser beam, vibrating one billion times faster than ordinary radio waves, could carry the radio, television and mobile messages of the world simultaneously. In just a fraction of a second, for example, one laser beam could transmit the entire text of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Besides, there are projects to use laser for long distance communication and for transmission of energy to space stations, to the surface of the Moon or to planets in the Solar system. Projects have also been suggested to

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place lasers aboard Earth satellites nearer to the Sun in order to transform solar radiation into laser beams, with this transformed energy subsequently transformed to the Earth or to other space bodies. These projects have not yet been put into effect, because of the great technological difficulties to be overcome and, therefore, the great cost involved. But there is no doubt that in time these projects will be realized and the laser beam will begin operating in outer space as well.

Notes to the Text

as to suggest magic – можно принять за чудо; on route – на пути;

in time – со временем;

outer space – открытый космос

Exercises

2.1. Agree or disagree with the following statements. If you disagree, give your reasons.

1.Laser means “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”.

2.The laser has already begun operating in outer space.

3.Laser produces an intensive beam of light.

4.The laser beam melts the fuel so quickly that the plasma disintegrates.

5.In fact Martians invaded the Earth before the turn of the last century.

6.Laser and thermonuclear reaction produce an unlimited source of energy.

7.Russian scientists are carrying out projects to convert lunar radiation into laser beams.

2.2. Answer the questions to the text.

1.What does the word “laser” mean?

2.What weapon did Martians use to invade our planet according to Herbert Wells? When did he write this book?

3.What is the laser: a device or a phenomenon?

4.What is the principle of laser operation?

5.What substances can resist laser treatment?

6.What challenge are scientists working at to provide mankind with an unlimited source of energy?

7.Why has laser become one of the main technological tools in the world nowadays?

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8. What is the purpose of installing lasers aboard Earth satellites? Are these projects feasible?

2.3. Match up the words in the right and the left columns to make expressions. Make up your own sentences using them.

2.4. Complete each sentence with the appropriate word from Text 1. The first letter of each word is given.

1.W_________ of mass destruction are w________ that can kill a very large number of people.

2.Computer t____________ and l_____ b______ can be used to control the weather.

3.Matters of this type are u_________ to laser treatment.

4.The i__________ of a new computer system will take about a week.

5.Coal and wood are called solid f________ .

6.The rocket d___________ when it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

7.P______ p_______ is a large building that contains machines which produce power, especially electricity.

8.The astrophysicists discovered that this red giant star emits regular pulses of radio w________ .

9.Martians are visitors from o______ s________ .

10.There has been a lot of criticism of the way the proposals were put into e__________ .

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11. There is no d______ that scientists will manage to combine laser and thermonuclear reaction to produce an unlimited source of energy.

2.5. Give English equivalents to the following.

поверхность Луны, превращать солнечную радиацию в лучи лазера, осуществлять проекты, сложное изобретение, превращать в пар, распадаться, проводить физические опыты, удовлетворять спрос, разрабатывать лазерные установки, кодировать сложные сигналы, без сомнения, ядерное оружие, означать, жароустойчивые материалы, технологический инструмент, термоядерная реакция, нагревать термоядерное топливо до необходимой температуры, согласно текущим оценкам, электростанция, устанавливать лазерные устройства на борту спутников, преодолевать технологические трудности.

2.6. Match up the terms on the left with the definitions on the right.

2.7. a) Scan the text and complete the gaps with the words that are derived from the words on the right;

To understand why light from the laser is so ___________ concentrate

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for a long distance. Almost any substance can be forced to ”lase”

if you work hard enough with it. Gas lasers give off __________ continue beams of light. Tiny semi-conductor lasers may be especially _______ use

b) Pick out the main ideas from the passage.

2.8.Sum up the main ideas of Text 2

2.9.Look at the following words and try to predict what Text 2 will be

about.

laser cutting, welding and machining, tool market, producer, consumer, commerce, demand, laser source prices

2.10 a) Scan the passages and put them in the correct order; b) Were your guesses right? How will you entitle Text 2?

TEXT 2

In the future the main trend influencing the industry will be the laser source prices. The prices are dropping. There appear lasers of modular construction. The complexity of laser machines is rising. Multi-axes systems are in more use now. Recently a 7-axes CNC laser machining centre has been introduced. In addition to X, Y and Z axes, there are two rotary axes, A and C, and two more linear axes, U and V, to give a trepanning motion to the laser.

Which country is the biggest producer and consumer of lasers? Why, Japan, naturally: Japan produced 46 % of world’s lasers in 1989, while figures for Europe and the USA are 32 and 22 %. Japan is building 1,200 to 2,000 CO2 lasers per year of which some 95 % are over 500 W power and 80 % of them are used for cutting operations.

In the last decades there was an outstanding progress in the development of laser technology and its application in science, industry and commerce. Laser cutting, welding and machining are beginning to be big business. The market for laser systems represents around 2,5 % of the world machine tool market.

Europe is the second largest user and the third largest producer. In 1990 Europe’s market for lasers was $128 million, of which Germany consumed about $ 51 %, and Italy – 12 %. Germany met 90 % of its demands through

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domestic producers. Growth rate of the European market is estimated at ten to fifteen percent per year.

2.11. Replace the words in italics by their synonyms from Text 2

1.Japan manufactures laser machines most of all countries.

2.Germany satisfies its demands for laser devices thanks to its domestic production.

3.Laser source prices impact on the industry.

4.Growth level of the Russian oil-extracting market is reported to be increasing.

5.The sophistication of laser machines is increasing annually.

6.Your compass and clock are the most essential instruments in sailing.

7.Global trade in laser machine tools has increased dramatically.

2.12. Fill in the gaps with appropriate prepositions where necessary.

1.Laser technologies are used widely …. science, industry and commerce.

2.The market …. laser devices makes up more than three percent … the international tool market.

3.Germany satisfies its needs …. domestic production …. laser machines.

4.The new light bulbs consume …. less electricity.

5.The total cost of the cutting edge pipeline “North Stream” project was estimated …. more than 100 million euros.

2.13. Match the Russian word with its English equivalent.

применять – appliance, application, apply, applicant потребление – consume, consumer, consumption, consumerism мощность – powerful, nuclear-powered, power, powerless

производитель – product, productive, productivity, producer, produce, production

представитель– representation, representative, represent, representational

2.14. Prove the following using the information from Text 2 and other sources.

1.Industries benefit greatly from laser systems.

2.These days Japan has the largest market share of laser devices production.

3.The complexity of laser systems is becoming more and more sophisticated.

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2.15. Replace Russian words and word combinations by their English equivalents from the box.

off-the-shelf items, relay optics, propellant gas, payloads, absorb, specific impulse, hydrogen

Laser Propulsion

Another approach is to поглощать laser light in a plasma “flame” sustained by laser light focused in the centre of a flowing stream of газообразное топливо. Thrust levels as high as 10,000 N with a удельный импульс of 1,000 sec appear achievable using водород as the propellant gas. Laser power as low as 1 MW would be useful for low Earth orbit launching without оборачивающая оптика. 10 -100 MW lasers can launch small экспериментальное оборудование from the ground. With up to 100 launches a day, a 20 MW launcher weighing twenty kg could place several hundred tons in orbit per year. Low-gigawatt lasers could launch multi-ton spacecraft with the same ease that present multi-gigawatt chemical rockets do. Laser rockets will have much better payload fraction since the heavy power plant is left on the ground and the higher specific impulse results in lower propellant fraction. Although gigawatt lasers are not готовые изделия, there is no doubt they could be built if the need was strong enough.

2.16. Answer the questions.

1. Does your country produce any laser systems? If so, what is the domestic market share of laser machines?

2. Does Russia export any laser equipment? If so, which countries import Russia’s laser production?

3. What makes Russian laser machines production competitive?

2.17. a) Look at the title of Text 4 and say what you know about these things;

b) Read the text and insert sentences a – d.

a.To read CD-ROM disks, you need an optical drive (CD-ROM player).

b.Yet CD-ROM technology has one disadvantage.

c.Such combined devices are good for backup purposes and storage of large amounts of information such as a dictionary or encyclopedia.

d.Optical disks can store information at much higher densities than magnetic disks

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TEXT 4

Optical Disks and Drives

_________________________________________________. Thus, they are ideal for multimedia applications where images, animation and sound occupy a lot of disk space. Besides, they are not affected by magnetic fields. This means that they are secure and stable, e.g. they can be transported through airport magnetic detectors without damaging the data. However, optical disks are slower than hard disks. While there are hard drives with an average access time of 8 milliseconds(ms), most CD-ROM drives have an access time of 150 to 200 ms.

There are various types of optical drives which have become a reality. CD-ROM use optical technology. The data is retrieved using a laser beam.

___________________ A typical CD-Rom disk can hold 650 MB (megabytes) of sound, text, photographs, music, multimedia materials and applications. In addition, most CD-Rom drives can be used to play audio CDs. Do you remember that CD stands for compact disk?

_____________________________. The data on a CD-ROM cannot be changed or “written” to, i. e. it is impossible to add your own material to what is on the disk. It is like a music CD. It is not designed for you to write on, it is designed to hold a lot of information that the user doesn’t need to change.

Magneto-optical (MO) drives use both a laser and an electromagnet to record information. Consequently, MO disks are rewritable, that is they can be written to, erased, and then written again. They are available in two formats. Their capacity may be more than two GB (gigabytes) or 230 to 640 MB. _____________________________________________________

2.18. Find words in Text 4 which mean the following.

1.The part inside a computer that stores the information it needs to

work.

2.An area that the power of a magnet affects.

3.Information in a form that a computer can use.

4.A thin flat round piece of plastic that stores information such as music or written words that can be read using a laser.

5.The amount of information that can be stored on a computer disk.

6.To save information in an electronic form, for example in a computer’s memory.

7.Video, sound, and other methods of communication in computers.

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2.19. а) Match up the words in the right and the left columns to make expressions;

б) Find in Text 4 sentences with these expressions and translate them into Russian.

2.20. Highlight the following points.

a.advantages and disadvantages of optical disks

b.types of optical drives

c.the only drawback of CD-ROM technology

d.technical features of magneto-optical drives

2.21. a) Read the 1st passage of the text and answer the questions;

1.What does fiber-optic technology focus on?

2.Which matter is widely used in fiber optics nowadays?

3.What applications does fiber optics have?

b)Scan the 2nd passage and complete the gaps with the words that are derived from the words on the right.

c)In the 3rd passage put the verbs in brackets into the Past Simple

Tense.

Fiber-optic Technology

1. Fiber-optic technology refers to thin fibers that transmit light through internal refraction. The field of fiber-optics studies the practical applications of this technology. Though first invented in the 1840s, 21st century applications include telecommunications and high-speed data transfer over the Internet. Though silica is still the most cost-efficient material when making fiber-optic technology, new materials bring certain advantages. Besides transporting information, the technology has other practical applications including transmitting electricity.

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1. A single optical fiber is the basis for all fiber-optic technology. Each fiber has multiple layers, with the inner core the most relevant to the fiber's purpose. Light reflects within the core from start to finish, this internal

2. French scientists in the 1840s first _________ (to demonstrate) the basis of fiber-optic technology. An American scientist in the early 1950s

____________ (to invent) the first modern optical fiber. Various contributions by scientists from around the world _________ (to prove) the

2.22. a) Sum up all the information about laser you have learned in this module;

b)What topical information about laser appealed to you most?

c)What other issues related to laser would you like to touch upon in this module?

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