Great inventions

1. First of all it should be mentioned that television was invented in 1920s and it is considered one of the most important. It changed leisure habits for countless millions and was pioneered by Scottish-born electrical engineer John Logie Baird.

2. It had been realized for some time that light could be converted into electrical impulses, making it possible to transmit such impulses over a distance and then reconvert them into light.

3. After television, the car is probably the most widely used and most useful of all inventions. German engineer Karl Benz produced the first petrol-driven car in 1885 and the British motor industry started in 1896. Henry Ford was the first to use assembly line production for his Model T car in 1908. Like them or hate them, cars have given people freedom of travel.

4. Leonardo da Vinci had described the camera obscura photographic principle as early as 1515. But it was not until 1835 that Frenchman Louis Daguerre produced camera photography. The system was gradually refined over the years, to the joy of happy snappers and the despair of those who had to wade through friends’ endless holiday pictures.

5. In 1876 Edinburgh-born scientist Alexander Graham Bell patented his invention of the telephone. The following year, the great American inventor Thomas Edison produced the first working telephone. With telephones soon becoming rapidly available, the days of letter writing become numbered.

6. Another life-transforming invention was the computer. British mathematician Charles Babbage designed a form of computer in the middle 1830s, but it was not until more than a century later the theory was put into practice. Now, a whole generation has grown up with calculators, and computer games, the Internet and e-mail have transformed communication and information.

7. And at last we should mention the invention of planes that helped shrink the world and brought distant lands within easy reach of ordinary people. The invention of the petrol engine made flight feasible and the American Wright brothers made the first flight in 1903.

Vocabulary

to convert – превращать

to transmit – передавать

to refine – улучшать

to snap – щелкать

despair – отчаяние

Question

What are the inventions of the 19^th century?

ВАРИАНТ 3

I.Перепишите и письменно переведите на русский язык следующие предложения. Помните, что объектный и субъектный инфинитивные обороты соответствуют придаточным предложениям (см. образец выполнения 1).

1. The Sun and the stars are proved to be able to produce great quantities of energy by means of certain nuclear reactions.

2. For the experiment we need several electrical devices to be connected in series.

3. Lasers are known to have found application in medicine.

II. Перепишите и письменно переведите на русский язык следующие предложения. Обратите внимание на перевод зависимого и независимого причастных оборотов (см. образец выполнения 2).

1. Measurements of solar radiation reaching the Earth each day make it possible to calculate the surface temperature of the Sun.

2. Having built a new automobile plant, we increase the output of cars and buses.

3. Knowledge being the most valuable wealth of our times, the information theory became of great importance for the national economy.

III. Перепишите и письменно переведите на русский язык следующие предложения. Обратите внимание на перевод условных предложений (см. образец выполнения 3).

1. If the gathered data had been presented in time, the results of the experiments would have been different.

2. If you had answered six questions in the competition, you would have won the first prize.

3. It would be impossible to carry on a careful study of the process without the new device.

IV. Прочитайте и устно переведите на русский язык с 1-го по 7-ой абзацы текста. Перепишите и письменно переведите 1, 2, 4 и 6-ой абзацы. Письменно ответьте на вопрос после текста.