Answer the questions:

1. Where was Ivan Puliy born?

2. What was his family like?

3. What was his education?

4. Do you think he was a well educated person? Prove your answer with the facts.

5. Where did he travel?

6. Who did he meet in Strasbourg?

7. What is “Puliy’s lamp”?

8. Why did his name remain known only to a narrow circle of scientists? Give your ideas.

9. How do people of Ukraine remember him?

6. Ahatanhel Krymsky

In the person of Krymsky (1871-1942), Ukraine had an intellectual of the highest level who worked simply and effectively, without the ambition of building a monument to his own glory. Krymsky was born in Volodymyr-Volynskyi, and graduated from Lazarevskyi Institute in Eastern Languages and Moscow University after finishing Kyiv College. His erudition was colossal: in addition to Sanskrit, Ancient Greek and Latin and all the European languages, he spoke many Asian and African tongues as well. Specialists estimate that he knew about 60 languages. He also studied the history of literature, theatre and the cultures of many na­tions around the world. His scientific papers, such as "The History of Is­lam", "History of New Arabic Literature of the 19th and Early 20th Centu­ries", and various works on the history of Persian, Arabic and Turkish litera­ture, laid the groundwork for the field of Ukrainian Oriental Studies and granted him the prestige of an extraordinary scholar. His numerous literary translations and narratives of Eastern poetry made him famous as a talented, original poet.

In 1896-98 he went on a business trip to Syria and Lebanon. After ending his mission he came to Moscow where he taught Oriental lan­guages in Moscow University. In 1917 he decided to come back to Ukraine and started working at Kyiv University as Professor. In 1918 Krymsky together with V.Vernadsky, M.Vasylenko and others became the founders of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Krymsky had been its secretary and the most famous expert in the field of Oriental Studies for many years. As director of the Institute of the Ukrainian National Language, he gave similar attention to Ukrainian Studies. He wrote "A Ukrainian Grammar" and "Essays on the History of the Ukrainian Language and Texts from Ancient Ukrainian Culture of the 10th-18th Centuries". As a man with extremely independent convictions, Krymsky was persecuted by the So­viet regime. In 1941 he was arrested and put into Kustanaisk prison, where he died.

Answer the questions:

1. What is Ahatanhel Krymsky famous for?

2. How many languages could he speak?

3. Why can he be called an extraordinary scholar?

4. Who were the founders of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences?

5. What kind of Ukrainian studies did Krymsky give his attention to?

7. Edison and his phonograph

The boy's education was limited to some months in the pub­lic school. Though Thomas was not good at lessons, he was very interested in science. Thomas began experimenting when he was ten or eleven years of age. Several years later, Edison learned telegraphy and became a telegraph operator. He was soon one of the fastest operators in a large telegraph company in Boston. He wanted to improve the telegraph system and worked very hard at it. Soon he built a carbon transmitter that marked a real advance in the art of telephony and helped much in bringing the Bell telephone into practical use.

One of Edison's greatest inventions was the gramophone or the "phonograph or speaking machine" as he called it. For the first time in history a human voice had been captured. Edison's success was immediate in America, but in Europe his invention was met with suspicion. In Russia a government official protest­ed against the "mechanically speaking animal". When the phonograph was demonstrated in the French Academy of Scienc­es, one of the learned men shouted that it was a shame to de­ceive people, he couldn't believe that dead metal could produce a living human voice.

Another of Edison's inventions was the electric lamp. On October 21, 1879 Edison passed electricity through a carbon­ized cotton thread in a vacuum glass bulb. The lamp gave off a feeble, reddish glow, and it continued to burn for 40 hours.

There is scarcely a field of technical life in which Edison did not break fresh ground or at least stimulate discovery. He not only developed an improved dynamo to provide the power for electric lighting, but he also perfected other electric power equipment such as the generator, conductor, and underground power cables. The carbon filament and the system of elec­trical distribution which he devised were key developments in the modern electronics revolution.

Thomas Edison, the World's leading inventor, patented over 1000 inventions, which changed our way of life. Among all his fame Edison remained a modest man! His motto was: "I find what the world needs; then I go ahead and try to invent it." He was sure that genius was "two per cent inspiration and ninety eight per cent perspiration".