1. Give the summary of the text.

2. Find the equivalents of the following Russian words and phrases in the text.

Долг, непогашенные долги, зарегистрированный, миллиард, министр финансов, попасть (в ситуацию), ипотека, кредит, озабоченность, предпринять, разобраться (напр., с проблемой), отдельные лица, реклама кредитов, процент, процентная ставка, наличные.

3. Match the words with their equivalents.

1. things 2. release 3. figure 4. close 5. head for 6. roughly 7. be bound 8. deal with 9. curb 10. short

a. number b. near c. stop d. be going to (= must) e. situation f. having little money g. approximately h. publish i. reach j. try to solve a problem

4. Translate from English into Russian. Use the words and expressions from ex. 2, 3.

1) Interest rates on mortgage are higher this year.

2) How are you going to tackle this problem if you are short?

3) Their outstanding debt is roughly 3 billion dollars.

4) I’m concerned in your situation. How did you get into it?

5) We are bound to deal with the wrong figures released in this report.

6) What are you going to undertake to curb shadow minister’s interference into you credit policy?

7) the amount of cash of certain individuals here heads for $10,000.

8) As I understand things are getting better this month, right?

5. Translate from Russian into English. Use the words and expressions from ex. 2, 3 or their forms.

1) В связи с опубликованными цифрами возникает вопрос: что вы собираетесь предпринять, чтобы разобраться с высокими процентными ставками на ипотеку?

2) Ваш долг приближается к 200 т.р. Как вы оказались в такой ситуации?

3) Мы собираемся прекратить рекламирование кредитов.

4) Мы понимаем вашу озабоченность непогашенными долгами отдельных лиц, но в этом году мы собираемся снизить процентные ставки.

5) У меня наличными примерно 10 000 евро.

6) Не хватает денег? Возьми кредит.

7) Я вижу, что ситуация не улучшается.

6. Make a literary translation of the text.

Commentary

boom and bust economy – economy characterized with rapid growth and subsequent crisis and recession.

Семинар 9.

NANOTECHNOLOGY

The next few paragraphs provide a brief introduction to the core concepts of molecular nanotechnology.

Manufactured products are made from atoms. The properties of those products depend on how those atoms are arranged. If we rearrange the atoms in coal we can make diamond. If we rearrange the atoms in sand (and add a few other trace elements) we can make computer chips. If we rearrange the atoms in dirt, water and air we can make potatoes.

Today’s manufacturing methods are very crude at the molecular level. Casting, grinding, milling and even lithography move atoms in great thundering statistical* herds. It's like trying to make things out of LEGO blocks with boxing gloves on your hands. Yes, you can push the LEGO blocks into great heaps and pile them up, but you can't really snap them together the way you'd like.

In the future, nanotechnology will let us take off the boxing gloves. We'll be able to snap together the fundamental building blocks of nature easily, inexpensively and in most of the ways permitted by the laws of physics. This will be essential if we are to continue the revolution in computer hardware beyond about the next decade, and will also let us fabricate an entire new generation of products that are cleaner, stronger, lighter, and more precise.

It's worth pointing out that the word "nanotechnology" has become very popular and is used to describe many types of research where the characteristic dimensions are less than about 1,000 nanometers*. For example, continued improvements in lithography have resulted in line widths that are less than one micron*: this work is often called "nanotechnology." Sub-micron lithography is clearly very valuable (ask anyone who uses a computer!) but it is equally clear that conventional lithography will not let us build semiconductor devices in which individual dopant* atoms are located at specific lattice sites.

The need for positional assembly implies an interest in molecular robotics, e.g., robotic devices that are molecular both in their size and precision. These molecular scale positional devices are likely to resemble very small versions of their everyday macroscopic counterparts. Positional assembly is frequently used in normal macroscopic manufacturing today, and provides tremendous advantages. Imagine trying to build a bicycle with both hands tied behind your back! The idea of manipulating and positioning individual atoms and molecules is still new and takes some getting used to. However, as Feynman said in a classic talk in 1959: "The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom." We need to apply at the molecular scale the concept that has demonstrated its effectiveness at the macroscopic scale: making parts go where we want by putting them where we want!

One robotic arm assembling molecular parts is going to take a long time to assemble anything large — so we need lots of robotic arms. In this process vast numbers of small parts are assembled by vast numbers of small robotic arms into larger parts, those larger parts are assembled by larger robotic arms into still larger parts, and so forth. If the size of the parts doubles at each iteration, we can go from one nanometer parts (a few atoms in size) to one meter parts (almost as big as a person) in only 30 steps.

NANOTECHNOLOGY