Vocabulary notes

Task I. Translate the following sentences.

1. invade – захопити, вторгнутися. Napoleon made an unsuccessful attempt to invade Egypt.

2. mysterious – таємничий. It was a mysterious box with a magic needle.

3. to stand for – означати, символізувати. “Mg” stands for magnesium.

4. amplification – підсилення. The beam of electrons passes through two stages of magnification by magnetic “lenses” (two coils of wire).

5. emission – випромінювання. All types of emission are most effective in vacuum.

6. pure – чистий, однорідний. 1) The air by the sea is pure and healthy. 2) Her wedding dress was of pure white colour.

7. represent – представляти. The facts are not as he represented them.

8. fulfillment – виконання, здійснення. After many years, his plans have come to fulfillment.

9. heat-resistant – теплостійкий. There are a lot of heat-resistant metals, tungsten being one of them.

10. substance – речовина. A new substance is usually much worked at in the laboratories until its properties are well studied.

11. treatment – обробка. After being undergone heat treatment metals change their properties.

12. application – застосування. The application of new scientific discoveries to industrial production methods usually makes job easier to do.

13. tool – інструмент, засіб. The various types of cutting tools differ in shapes and in the angles to which the surfaces of the tools are ground.

14. installation - установка. The assembly-room was equipped with air-conditioning installation.

15. according to – відповідно до. They were paid according to the amount of work they did.

16. estimate – оцінка. The critics’ estimate is that he has a great future.

17. duration – тривалість. Their marriage was of short duration.

18. approximately – приблизно. My coat is approximately your size.

19. capacity – потужність. The factory is working at full capacity.

20. message – повідомлення. Did he leave a message for me?

21. entire – цілий. She spent the entire day in her office.

22. surface – поверхня. The road surface was slippery.

23. solar – сонячний. The solar cell is another way of producing power from the Sun.

24. in order to – для того щоб. We used the computer in order to save time.

25. transform – змінювати, перетворювати. 1) You’d never recognize their flat – it’s quite transformed! 2) A steam turbine may be defined as a form of heat engine in which the energy of the steam is transformed into kinetic energy.

26. subsequently – згодом, потім. We made plans for a visit but subsequently difficulties with a car prevented it.

27. to overcome – переборювати, подолати. The obstacle was too great to overcome.

28. involve – включати. I don’t want to involve you in any unpleasantness.

29. doubt – сумнів. If you are in any doubt about what to do, ask me.

Task II. Read and translate the text.

Text 13A

Laser

In the “War of Worlds” written before the turn of the 19^th century H.Wells told a fantastic story of how Martians almost invaded our Earth. Their weapon was a mysterious “sword of heat”. Today Wells’ sword of heat has come to reality in the laser. The name stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.

Laser, one of the most sophisticated inventions of man, produces an intensive beam of light of a very pure single colour. It represents the fulfillment of one of the mankind’s oldest dreams technology to provide¹ a light beam intensive enough to vaporize the hardest and most heat-resistant materials. It can indeed make lead run like water, or, when focused, it can vaporize any substance on the earth. There is no material unamenable² to laser treatment and laser will become one of the main technological tools quite soon.

The applications of laser in industry and science are so many and so varied as to suggest magic³. Scientists in many countries are working at a very interesting problem: combining the two big technological discoveries of the second half of the 20^th century — laser and thermonuclear reaction — to produce a practically limitless source of energy. Physicists of this country have developed large laser installations to conduct physical experiments in heating thermonuclear fuel with laser beams. There also exists an idea to use laser for solving the problem of controlled thermonuclear reaction. The laser beam must heat the fuel to the required temperature so quickly that the plasma does not have time to disintegrate. According to current estimates, the duration of the pulse has to be approximately a billionth of a second. The light capacity of this pulse would be dozens of times greater than the capacity of all the world’s power plants. To meet such demands in practice, scientists and engineers must work hard as it is clear that a lot of difficulties are to be encountered on route⁴.

The laser’s most important potential may be its use in communications. The intensity of a laser can be rapidly changed to encode very complex signals. In principle, one laser beam, vibrating a billion times faster than ordinary radio waves, could carry the radio, TV and telephone messages of the world simultaneously. In just fraction of a second, for example, one laser beam could transmit the entire text of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Besides, there are projects to use lasers for long distance com_munication and for transmission of energy to space stations, to the surface of the Moon or to planets in the Solar system. Projects have also been suggested to place lasers aboard Earth satellites nearer to the Sun in order to transform the solar radiation into laser beams, with this transformed energy subsequently transmitted to the Earth or to other space bodies. These projects have not yet been put into effect⁵, because of the great technological difficulties to be over_come and, therefore, the great cost involved. But there is no doubt that in time⁶ these projects will be realized and the laser beam will begin operating in outer space as well.