The Development of Optics in the Middle-Ages

I. Lead-in: Watch the extract for the first time and say:

What was new in Alhazen's approach to light?

What was new in Bacon's Research?

II. Vocabulary Work

Find the synonym:

1. in order to get money

2. work

3. in prison

4. a narrow beam of light

5. to give off/ let smth out

6. to connect / collect

7. to improve/ upgrade the idea

1. a large number of people

2. something related to God

3. not straight

4. changed so that it becomes strange and hard to recognize

5. a tiny drop

6. close to

7. it suddenly came to his mind

III. Speaking

Find the answers to the following questions:

Extract I

• How did Alhazan earn his living?

• What did the khalif want him to do?

• How did Alhazan's interest in light begin?

• How did he manage to change the nature of human vision?

• What did his idea of light consist in?

• What does the basic geometry of the Law of Reflection consist in?

Extract II

• How did the Christian Church use light?

• Why was there a strange connection between light and divinity?

• What was Roger Bacon by his occupation?

• Whose ideas did he use?

• What was the range of activities he was occupied with? What did he study?

• Why was it dangerous to do what bacon was doing? What happened as a result?

• What are the most important aspects of his legacy?

IV. Summarize the episode. Electricity and Light in Victorian Times

I. Watch the extract from the film “What is Light?” for the first time and say:

1. What were the scientific problems that concerned the Victorian society in the late XIX-th century?

2. Who helped to explain the connection between light, electricity and magnetism? What was his biggest achievement?

3. What contribution did J. Swan and Sir W. Armstrong make?

4. Why was Edison considered to be the modern hero?

Fill in the gaps.

• The telegraph cable under the Atlantic _________.

• This is the kind of light that is absolutely invisible except __________.

• It was thi form of light that was mysteriously _______photographic paper.

• _____, when it is heated up, can glow very brightly.

• Swan tried _________ the whole range of substances including paper.

• He produced the first _____ ____ for an electric bulb.

• Crackside was the show-case for __________(current) modern technology.

• In 1878 Edison set about building the world's first _______.

Answer the questions.

• What were the 2 traditions that Maxwell attempted to use?

• What did Faraday demonstrate in 1831?

• What did the 4 Maxwell's equations show?

• What advantage does electricity have over gas lighting?

• Why was J. Swan so interested in electric lighting? What did he do to make the bulb viable?

• What kind of flaw did Armstrong's idea to encourage others to buy electric bulbs had?

• What did Edison have to invent?

• What was the main problem about Edison's project?

• Why do you think the people were buying Edison's bulbs?

Summarize the facts about the discoveries and inventions at the turn of the century.

Discussion. Using the information from the film, think about the traits of character which can help to promote one's invention.