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water.” His words provided a name for the objects he had seen. Kenneth Arnold was the first observer reported to have seen flying saucers.

Within a few weeks of the report of what Arnold had seen, reports of similar sightings came from various parts of the world – from Canada, Australia, England and Iran.

From the start, there was a great deal of guessing about what the flying saucers might be. An American newspaper reporter stated that the saucers were, in fact, a new secret type of aircraft, “a combination of helicopter and fast jet plane”. This proved to be incorrect. In 1947, a so called “cold war” was in progress between the United States and the Soviet Union and one famous newspaper writer suggested that the saucers were a new type of spy aircraft sent out from Russia. Another idea was that the flying saucers came from outer space, sent by beings from another world.

In time, the term “flying saucer” has given way to the more scientific one “unidentified flying object”, and for over two decades from 1947 a great deal of investigation was carried out into UFOs in the United States.

Sightings of UFOs were not new. Reports of such objects date back three thousand years. Some people include among these reports of fiery chariots, glowing lights and strange clouds which are mentioned in the Bible.

In the early days of the Roman Empire, a round object that looked like a globe or a shield was said to have been seen moving across the sky. On another occasion a fiery globe, brighter than the sun, was reported to have been seen, first falling towards the earth and then rising again.

Similar stories were told in the Middle Ages. Medieval writers described bright lights, balls, discs and strange shapes that were seen in the sky.

In 1742, a large brightly lighted object shaped like a cylinder was reported to have been seen over London.

On 1st August, 1871, an astronomer named Coggia saw a strange red object in the sky over Marseilles, France.

In January and February 1913, “unknown airships” were seen at various times over many different places in Britain.

In July 1938 a UFO flew over New York. It shone brilliantly and gave forth a sound described as “a great swish”, “a persistent hiss” and “a faraway roar”. It was lost to sight when it fell below the horizon, possibly falling into the sea. Experts declared that the object was a large meteorite but not everyone who saw it agreed.

In the years before World War Two there were frequent reports of aircraft crashing into the sea without leaving a trace and without any known aircraft being missing.

Over the years many photographs of objects said to be flying saucers have been produced by various people. Some of them have been shown to

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be fakes. The others have not been accepted as genuine pictures of UFOs beyond a reasonable doubt.

What are these UFOs? Are they sent from outer space? Do they contain beings from other worlds? Some people think so. Gabriel Green, president of the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America is one of them. He has said: “Inhabitants of other worlds are holding off their visitation to the troubled earth because they feel that they would either be worshipped as gods or feared as conquerors”.

Perhaps we will have to wait for an explanation of UFOs until we receive it from someone from another world.

Text 9

How Einstein Discovered the Law of Relativity

(adapted)

by Ch. Chaplin

I first met Einstein in 1926. The great scientist had been invited to California to lecture. I received a telephone call from Universal studios, saying that Professor Einstein would like to meet me. I was so thrilled I gladly accepted the invitation. So we met at the Universal studios for lunch, the Professor, his wife, his secretary and his Assistant Professor. Mrs Einstein spoke English very well, in fact better than the Professor. She was extremely proud of him and frankly enjoyed being the wife of the great physicist. She did not even try to hide the fact.

After lunch, while Einstein was being shown around the studio, Mrs Einstein took me aside and whispered: “Why don’t you invite the Professor to your house? I know he will be delighted to have a nice quiet chat with just ourselves.” It was to be a small affair, and I invited only two other friends. At dinner she told me the story of the morning when the theory of relativity first came to his mind.

“The Doctor came down in his dressing gown as usual for breakfast but he hardly touched a thing. I thought something was wrong, so I asked what was troubling him.

‘Darling!’ he said, ‘I have a wonderful idea.’ And after drinking his coffee, he went to the piano and started playing. Now and again he stopped, reached for his pencil, made a few notes, then repeated: ‘I’ve got a wonderful idea, a marvellous idea!’

I said: ‘What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you tell me what it is?’ He said, ‘I can’t tell you yet. I still have to work it out.’

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She told me he continued playing the piano and making notes for half an hour, then he went upstairs to his study, telling her that he did not want anyone to disturb him, and remained there for two weeks.

“Each day I sent him up his meals,” she said, “and in the evening he walked a little for exercise, then returned to his work again.”

“At last,” she said, “he appeared looking very pale and tired. In his hand he held two sheets of paper. ‘That’s it!’ he told me, putting the sheets of paper on the table. And that was his theory of relativity.”

Text 10

Alfred Nobel – a Man of Contrasts

Alfred Nobel, the great Swedish inventor and industrialist, was a man of many contrasts. He was a son of a bankrupt, but became a millionaire, a scientist who cared for literature, an industrialist who managed to remain an idealist. He made a fortune but lived a simple life, and although cheerful in company he was often sad when remained alone. A lover of mankind, never had a wife or family to love him: a patriotic son of his native land, he died alone in a foreign country. He invented a new explosive, dynamite, to improve the peacetime industries of mining, and road building, but saw it used as a weapon of war to kill and injure people. During his useful life he often felt he was useless. World famous for his works, he was never personally well known, for while avoided publicity. He never expected any reward for what he had done. He once said that he did not see that he had deserved any fame and that he had no taste for it. However, since his death, his name has brought fame and glory to others.

He was born in Stockholm on October 21, 1833 but moved to Russia with his parents in 1842, where his father, Immanuel, made a strong position for himself in the engineering industry. Immanuel Nobel invented the landmine1 and got plenty of money for it from government orders during the Crimean War, but then, quite suddenly went bankrupt. Most of the family went back to Sweden in 1859. Four years later Alfred returned there too, beginning his own study of explosives in his father’s laboratory. It so occurred that he had never been to school or University but had studied privately and by the time he was twenty was a skilful chemist and excellent linguist having mastered Swedish, Russian, German, and English. Like his father, Alfred Nobel was imaginative and inventive, but he had better luck in business and showed more financial sense. He was quick to see industrial openings for his scientific inventions and built up over 80 companies in 20 different countries. Indeed

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his greatness lay in his outstanding ability to combine the qualities of an original scientist with those of a forward looking industrialist.

But Nobel was never really concerned about making money or even making scientific discoveries.

Seldom happy, he was always searching for a meaning to life, and from his youth had taken a serious interest2 in literature and philosophy. Probably because he could not find ordinary human love – he never married – he began to care deeply about the whole mankind. He took every opportunity to help the poor: he used to say that he would rather take care of the stomachs of the living than the glory of the dead in the form of stone memorials. His greatest wish, however, was to see an end to wars, and thus peace between nations; and he spent much time and money working for the cause until his death in Italy in 1896. His famous will, in which he left money to provide prizes for outstanding work in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, Medicine, Literature and Peace, is a memorial to his interests and ideals. And so the man who often believed that he was useless and has done little to justify his life is remembered and respected long after his death. Nobel’s ideals which he expressed long before the threat of nuclear war have become the ideals of all progressive people of the world.

According to Nobel’s will the capital was to be safely invested to form a fund. The interest on this fund is to be distributed annually in the form of prizes to those who, during the previous year has done work of the greatest use to mankind. This interest is to be divided into five parts and distributed as follows: one part to the person who has made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who has made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who has made the most important discovery within the field of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who has produced the most outstanding work within the field of literature; and one part to the person who has done the most for brotherhood between nations, for the abolition or reduction of permanent armies and for the organization and encouragement of peace conferences.

In his will Nobel wrote that it was his wish that in choosing the prize winner no consideration should be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy should receive the prize, whether he be a Scandinavian or not. This will was written in Paris, on November 27, 1895.

Since Nobel’s death many outstanding scientists, writers and public figures from different countries have become Nobel Prize Winners.

Notes:

1 landmine – мина, фугас

2 interest – (зд.) проценты

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Text 11

Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday was born in London in 1791 of a poor family, and as a boy he did not learn much.

In 1804, when he was thirteen, he got some work in a book seller’s shop. He lived among books, and he began to read some of them. The boy could not read every book in the shop because he was busy and had not much time. So he began to choose the books which he liked best. He soon found out that his main interest was in science, and especially in electricity. As any true scientist Faraday wanted to make experiments, but he had too little money.

Faraday heard of talks on science which were being given by one of the greatest scientists of the time, Sir Humphry Davy. As he sat and listened to the great man he made notes. Faraday wanted to give his life to science, so he wrote a letter to Sir Humphry Davy and asked for his help.

Sir Humphry invited Faraday to come to see him, and gave him some research to do. Faraday was delighted. His work at first was only to wash and prepare all the things which Davy and his fellow scientists were to use in their experiments, but he spent a lot of time with scientists and could listen to what they said, and he could watch their work.

Sir Humphry sometimes travelled in Europe, where he went to meet the great scientists of other countries, and one day he decided to make another of these trips. He asked Faraday if he wanted to come with him.

Faraday, of course, was thrilled and accepted the invitation. He had never been more than a few miles from London in his life.

Faraday greatly enjoyed his time in Europe, but he was not really sorry at the end of the journey because he was now able to continue his own work and experiments in England.

He was wondering whether a magnet could be made to give an electric current. Faraday was absolutely certain that a current could be made, but he had very little time for experiments. His outside work took all his time. Не could stop his outside work, of course, but if he did so, he would lose most of the £1,200 a year which he got. He had to choose between science and money, and he choose science.

At first he was quite unable to make an electric current with his magnets. But one day a wonderful idea occured to him. Не moved the magnet near the wire. And then he got what he wanted: an electric current in the wire. Of course, he still had to develop the idea.

After several experiments of this kind he made a machine. It was the beginning of all the great machines that make electricity today. All modern

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turbines are made on the principles that were developed by Faradey. His discovery was the beginning of the electrical age, which changed the face of the earth.

(After “Who Did It First” by G. C. Thornley)

Text 12

The Discovery of the X'ray

Scientists working on a problem do not know and sometimes can’t even guess what the final result will be. Professor Rцntgen was a physicist at the University of Wьrzburg in Germany. Late on Friday, 8 November, 1895, he was doing an experiment in his laboratory when he noticed something extraordinary. He had covered an electric bulb with black cardboard, and when he switched on the current he saw little dancing lights on his table. Now the bulb was completely covered; how then could any ray penetrate? On the table there were some pieces of paper which had been covered with metal salts. It was on this paper that the lights were shining. Professor Rцntgen took a piece of this paper and held it at a distance from the lamp. Between it and the lamp he placed a number of objects, a book, a pack of cards, a piece of wood and a doorkey. The ray penetrated every one of them except the key. This mysterious ray could shine through everything except the metal. He called his wife into the laboratory and asked her to hold her hand between the lamp and the photographic plate. She was very surprised by this request, but she obediently held up her hand for a quarter of an hour, and when the plate was developed there was a picture of the bones of her hand and of the ring on one finger. The ray could pass through the flesh and not through the bone or the ring.

At a scientific meeting where he described what happened Professor Rцntgen called this new ray “the Unknown”, the X ray. Doctors quickly saw how this could be used, and soon there were X ray machines in all the big hospitals.

At first the doctors did not understand how powerful the rays were and many of them were injured, losing a finger or an arm through the exposure to X rays when they were using the machines. The most obvious use for this discovery was to make it possible for doctors and surgeons to see exactly how a bone was fractured.

Other uses came later. It was found that these rays could be used to destroy cancer cells, just as they destroyed the healthy cells of the doctors who first used the machine. Methods were found later by which ulcers in the stomach

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could be located, the lungs could be X rayed to show if there was any tuberculosis present. “Mass X ray” units are sent round to factories and detect early signs of trouble in the lungs.

Unfortunately for Professor Rцntgen, whose discovery did so much for medical science, envious colleagues spread the story that he had stolen his discovery from a laboratory assistant who worked for him. He died, poor and forgotten, in 1923.

(After “Britain in the Modern World, The Twentieth Century” by E. N. Nash and A. M. Newth)

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Appendix 1

English Tenses (Active) Времена английского глагола

Indefinite

Continuous

Perfect

Perfect Continuous

... verb

be + 'ing

have + III форма

have been + 'ing

am

h a v e

asked

h a v e

been asking

ask(s)

is

a s k i n g

h a s

h a s

are

Present

– Регулярное

– Длительное дей

– Действие закончи

– Длительное действие,

повторяющееся

ствие (процесс), про

лось к определенному

которое началось в про

действие.

текающее в данный

моменту в настоящем.

шлом и все еще проте

usually/generally

момент.

– Результат.

кает в данный момент.

always/never

now, at present,

already/yet

for a month/a long time

often/seldom

at the moment

ever/never

since 5 o’clock

sometimes

– Будущее заплани

lately/recently

how long/since when..?

– Факт.

рованное действие.

this week/today

– Будущее дей

by now

ствие (по распи

санию, графику).

asked

was

a s k i n g

had asked

had been asking

took

were

– Действие в

– Длительное дей

– Действие закончи

– Длительное прошед

прошлом.

ствие (процесс), со

лось к определенному

шее действие, которое

Past

yesterday

вершавшееся в мо

моменту в прошлом.

началось до определен

last week

мент или период в

by 5 o’clock yesterday

ного момента в про

3 days ago

прошлом.

before he came

шлом и еще продолжа

at 5 yesterday

by the end of the last year

лось в тот момент.

from 5 to 6 yesterday

– При согласовании

He had been working for

for 3 days last week

времен.

2 hours, when my brother

all day long/the whole

came.

day

when we came

will ask

will be asking

will have asked

will have been asking

– Действие в

– Длительное дей

– Действие закончит

– Длительное будущее

будущем

ствие (процесс) кото

ся к определенному

действие, которое нач

Future

tomorrow

рое будет совершать

моменту в будущем.

нется ранее момента в

next week

ся в определенный

by 5 o’clock tomorrow

будущем и будет еще

in 3 days

момент или период в

when he comes

совершаться в этот мо

in 2017

будущем.

by next summer

мент.

at 5 tomorrow

When you come I’ll have

from 5 to 6 tomorrow

been working for 2 hours.

for 3 days next week

all day long tomorrow

when he comes

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Appendix 2

Regular Verbs: Spelling Rules

Правильные глаголы:

правила правописания

			3 е лицо			Исклю
	Базовая форма		ед. число	Формы с 'ing	Формы с 'ed	чения
			Present			(см. след.
			Simple			стр.)
			+ s	+ ing	+ ed
		join	joins	joining	joined
	Оканчивается на		+ es
	'sh	finish	finishes	finishing	finished
	'ch	reach	reaches	reaching	reached
	'ss	pass	passes	passing	passed
	' x	mix	mixes	mixing	mixed
	'z	buzz	buzzes	buzzing	buzzed
	'o	echo	echoes	echoing	echoed
	Оканчивается			e опускается перед
				ing или ed
	на 'e					1
		dance	dances	dancing	danced
	Оканчивается			ie ï y
	на 'ie			перед ing
		tie	ties	tying	tied
	Оканчивается на		y ï ies		y ï ied
	согласную + y
		cry	cries	crying	cried
	Односложный			удвоение последней согласной
	глагол, оканчи			перед ing или ed
	вающийся на					2
	одну гласную +
	согласная
		dip	dips	dipping	dipped
	Двусложный
	глагол, оканчи
	вающийся на					3
	одну гласную
	+ l
		travel	travels	travelling	travelled

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Следующие
глаголы: equip,
handicap, hiccup,
kidnap, program,
refer, worship
equip	equips	equipping	equipped

Исключения:

1.age, agree, disagree, dye, free, knee, singe, referee, tiptoe

2.кроме w, x, у: rowing, boxing, playing.

3.В AmE допускается: traveling, traveled.

					Appendix 3
		Irregular Verbs
		Неправильные глаголы
Infinitive		Past Indefinite		Past Participle	Translation
awake		awoke		awoke	будить; просыпаться
		awaked		awaked
be		was		been	быть
		were
bear		bore		borne	носить, выносить
beat		beat		beaten	бить
become		became		become	становиться
begin		began		begun	начинать, ся
bite		bit		bitten	кусать
blow		blew		blown	дуть
break		broke		broken	ломать
bring		brought		brought	приносить
build		built		built	строить
burn		burnt		burnt	гореть, жечь
buy		bought		bought	покупать
catch		caught		caught	ловить, схватывать
choose		chose		chosen	выбирать
come		came		come	приходить
cost		cost		cost	стоить
cut		cut		cut	резать
do		did		done	делать

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