Andrey Sakharov

1. Andrey Dmitrievich Sakharov, an outstanding scientist and public figure, was born on the 21^st of May, in the family of teachers. He graduated from Moscow University in 1942. In 1947 he defended his thesis for the degree of Candidate of Science. In 1953 he defended his Doctorate thesis and was elected a member of the Academy of sciences.

2. When he was a graduate student, Sakharov began to work on the Soviet nuclear weapons program and soon he suggested totally new idea for hydrogen bomb design. But he was getting more and more worried about the consequences of his work. He understood better than anybody else what nuclear weapons meant and he thought about his own responsibility and about the responsibility of the states which possessed such weapons.

3. In 1968 he wrote an article attacking Soviet political system. He wrote that people needed a democratic society, free of dogmatism.

4. Sakharov is often called the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, but he became more known as a champion of human rights and freedom. For his work the Nobel Committee awarded him the Peace Prize in 1975. The Committee called him to go to Norway to receive the award.

5. In 1966 he took part in his first human rights demonstration, a one-minute silent protest in Pushkin Square. A year later, he wrote a letter to the government defending imprisoned dissidents.

6. His international repute as a scientist kept him of jail, but in 1980 when he protested against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, he was deprived all his titles and orders and exiled to the city of Gorky. In 1986 Sakharov was invited to Moscow and given back all his titles and orders.

7. Andrey Sakharov died in 1989. He is remembered by everybody as an outstanding humanist, who could teach and inspire and who foresaw the changes that are taking place now.

Vocabulary

to defend one’s thesis – защищать диссертацию

degree of Candidate of Science – ученая степень кандидата наук

graduate student – студент-старшекурсник

hydrogen bomb – водородная бомба

champion – защитник

authorities – власти

intervention – насильственное вмешательство

to inspire – вдохновлять

Question

What conclusion did Sakharov come to while working on the bomb?

ВАРИАНТ 5

I. Перепишите следующие предложения; подчеркните в каждом из них глагол-сказуемое и определите его видовременную форму и залог. Переведите предложения на русский язык. В разделе (б) обратите внимание на перевод пассивных конструкций.

а) 1. Astronomers have measured the exact length of the day.

2. Astronomers find that the day is increasing by 0.002 seconds each century.

б) 1. The comical properties of the element are determined by the orbiting electrons.

2. As a rule one great discovery is generally followed by numerous others.

II. Перепишите следующие предложения; подчеркните Participle I и Participle II и установите функции каждого из них, т.е. укажите, является ли оно определением, обстоятельством или частью глагола-сказуемого. Переведите предложения на русский язык.

1. The cloud chamber (камера Вильсона) is one of the devices used to detect the presence of radioactivity.

2. Matter consists of one or a number of basic elements occurring in nature.

3. One can use several modern devices while detecting and measuring radioactivity.

4. When heated to a certain temperature, this alloy increases in volume.

III. Перепишите следующие предложения; подчеркните в каждом из них модальный глагол или его эквивалент. Переведите предложения на русский язык.

1. We can think of a heat as a special form of kinetic energy.

2. A computer should solve complicated problems many millions of times faster than a mathematician.

3. New types of plastics had to be obtained for space technology.

4. To measure the vast distance between different planets scientists have to use special instruments.

IV. Прочитайте и устно переведите на русский язык с 1-го по 4-ый абзацы текста. Перепишите и письменно переведите 2-ой и 3-ий абзацы. Письменно ответьте на вопрос после текста.

Lise Meitner (1878-1968)

1. In 1938, an Austrian physicist named Lise Meitner announced the splitting of the atom in the laboratory. That announcement confirmed once again the beginning of the Atomic Age. At that time Lise Meitner was one of the few persons in the world who had a thorough understanding of atomic energy and the uses which could be made of this great power.

2. Lise Meitner, the daughter of a lawyer, was born in Vienna on the 17^th of November 1878. She grew interested in science when she read of the Curies’ discovery of radium. The example of Marie Curie showed that a woman was able to achieve something in science. Lise Meitner became the first woman in the history of the University of Vienna who earned her doctorate in physics.

3. In 1906 she went to the University of Berlin to continue her studies by attending the theoretical lectures of Max Planck and by doing experimental work. Then she began her research in the new field of radioactivity. She focused her attention on the behavior of beta radiation from radioactive elements, experimenting with the primitive methods then available for measuring and analyzing radioactivity. Meitner’s work in the 1920s and the early 1930s emphasized the physical aspects of radioactivity.

4. In 1938 she left Germany for Sweden. Lise Meitner declined to work on the development of the atom bomb remaining in Sweden throughout the war. She was concerned with the properties of new radioactive isotopes, produced by cyclotron. Her career was illustrious and productive (she published more than 135 scientific papers), but throughout her life she remained a shy person, with a deep interest in music. Her devotion to science had been total. She never married. In 1960 she moved to Cambridge, England, where she died in 1968.