3. Work with a partner and answer these questions:

   1. Does anything Stephen Hawking says surprise you?

   2. Do any of his predictions scare you?

   3. What would you like to know about the future? Ask your partner what they think might think might happen.

4. Look at these extracts from the text. Use prepositions to complete the sentences.

1. I’ve come here… on the turn ------the millennium to ask him what he thinks the future has in store ------ the human race. (lines 1-5)

2. …there isn’t going to be enough room for us all on Earth ------ the year 2600. (lines 7-8)

3. …there will be no limit ------ the complexity of biological or electronic systems… (lines 30-31)

4. ------ far the most complex systems we have are our own bodies. (lines 33-34)

5. Genetic engineering on plants and animals will be allowed ------ economic reasons… (lines 42-43)

6. We need to become more complex if biological systems are to keep ahead ------ electronic ones. (lines 46-47)

7. …genetic engineering will come up ------ the problem that the chemical messages responsible for our mental activity are relatively slow-moving – so further increases in the complexity of the brain will be ------ the expense ------ speed. (lines 72-75)

8. I think we have a good chance ------ avoiding nuclear war…(lines 89-90)

5. Check your answers with the text.

6. Use the expressions in italics and the prepositions from 4 to complete these sentences.

   1. Younger people who are coming into my company are far more computer-literate than me and it takes a lot of time and energy ----- them in the promotion stakes.

   2. There have been few significant changes in my lifestyle since ------ the century.

   3. ------ urgent problem facing our cities is the use of private cars.

   4. People born in the 21^st century will ------ living to be a hundred.

   5. Once I’ve mastered English there’ll be ------ the job opportunities that open up for me!

   6. I’ve got exams coming up soon and I know pretty well what the near future ------ me – lots of studying!

   7. ------ 2020 more than half of the population will be over 60.

   8. Investment in computer technology has been ------ thousands of local jobs.

   9. I’ve been job-hunting for quite a long time now and I often ------ the “no experience, no job” trap which is so hard to get out of it.

   10. I’m studying English ------. I’m sure it’ll help me get a better job.

7. Compare your answers with a partner. Are any of the sentences true for you or your country?

UNIT 5

THE 21^ST CENTURY

1 Complete the article using the following phrases.

Were supposed to crash

Were to last

Were on the verge of colonizing

Would be

Were going to be carrying

Would be swallowing

Were going to be delivering.

In hindsight, it’s easy to scoff at past predictions. Not that many years ago, scientists and futurologists predicted that by the beginning of the 21^st century we (1) ------ pills for breakfast before strapping on personal jetpacks to fly to work and that we would be living in floating cities and holidaying in cities under the sea.

Even NASA, the American space agency, was laughably wide of the mark. In 1980, it said that we (2) ------ the moon and that by now more than 1000 people would be permanently living and working there.

Other forecasts, such as the idea that by the year 2000, robots (3) ------ letters to anywhere in the world within one day, seem ridiculously naïve in the age of e-mail and the Internet.

The only recurrent theme that emerges from decades of studies looking into the future is that we are much better at creating a future than predicting it.

It was said in the seventies, that by the new millennium computers (4) ------ as intelligent as the human brain and small enough to carry in your pocket, hypersonic aircraft (5) ------ us from London to Sydney in two hours and devices for controlling hurricanes would be used as weapons against enemies. Trains would be replaced by continuous high-speed horizontal escalators, adhesive tape would be strong enough for all structural household repairs and shoes, one pundit proclaimed, (6) ------ a lifetime.

And let us not forget of course that the world’s computers (7) ------- in the first few seconds of the new millennium, throwing the world into confusion and mayhem – a bit like the minds of those charged with predicting our future perhaps.