Unit 6.

Exercise 1. Read the text and answer the questions.

Scientific innovation: its impact on technology

Mr. A.	The impact of scientific activity on technology is often discussed today. But one thing is not clear. What is meant here: the impact of today’s scientific activity on today’s technology or the impact of today’s scientific developments on technology thirty years from now?
Mr. B.	I think there is usually an interval of twenty years or so between the discovery of a new scientific principle and its impact on industry. In the case of the transistor, for example, it took about that long. Some things move a bit faster but it must be admitted that many are even slower. For example, our computers are based on fundamental discoveries in physics that may be traced back thirty, forty, even fifty years. That will come out of contemporary science, out of the research that is being done today – we just do not know.
Mr. A.	Do you think the isolated inventor is still the usual source of innovation, or has the group inventor been put to the fore now?
Mr. B.	It seems that the lone inventor in most fields has been replaced by the group. But more often than we realize the original brilliant idea is still the product of one man’s genius. He may, however, live in a group environment and have the advantage of the scientific and technical competence and intellectual contacts that come from working with a large group of people.
Mr. A.	You are probably right. But as soon as a new idea is put forward, it requires many people’s efforts before it can be trans­formed into a product. And at this stage innovation becomes a group and not an individual activity, involving both a sophisticated body of information and a sophisticated technology.

1) What kind of inventors are discussed in the text? 2) What words are equivalent to the “isolated inventor”? 3) Is the author sure that the lone inventor his been replaced by the group? Give your reason. 4) That is the potential role of the lone inventor?

Unit 7.

Exercise 1. Read the text and be ready for a comprehension check up.

Scientific attitude

What is the nature of the scientific attitude, the attitude of the man or woman who studies and applies physics, biology, chemist 17 or any other science? What are their special methods of thinking and acting? What qualities do we usually expect then to possess?

To begin with, we expect a successful scientist то be full of curiosity – he wants to find out how and why the universe works. He usually directs his attention towards problems which have no satisfactory explanation, and his curiosity makes him look for the underlying relationships even if the data to be analyzed are not apparently interrelated. He is a good observer, accurate, patient and objective. Furthermore, he is not only critical of the work of others, but also of his own, since he knows man to be the least reliable of scientific instruments.

And to conclude, he is to be highly imaginative since he often looks for data which, are not only complex, but also incomplete.

Exercise 2. Check up for comprehension.

1) What qualities do we expect to fled in a successful scientist? 2) Why do we say that a successful scientist is full of curiosity? 3) Why is it difficult to see the underlying relationships? 4) Why is he critical of his own work? 5) Why is it necessary for him to be highly imaginative? 6) Give a Russian equivalent of the title and of “the data analyzed” and “the data to be analyzed”.