1. The text deals with the following topics. Put them into the logical order giving numbers from 1 to 6:

• Classifying data.

• Expressing findings mathematically.

• Using logic.

• Forming a hypothesis.

• Conducting experiments.

• Observing nature.

2. Look through the text. Guess the meaning of the words in italics from the context. Use a dictionary to check the meaning.

How scientists work

Scientific research is a creative process that can involve a variety of techniques. Important advances may result from patient hard work or sudden leaps of imagination. Even chance can play a role in the scientific process. Scientists use a number of methods in making discoveries and in developing theories. These methods include: 1) observing nature; 2) classifying data; 3) using logic; 4) conducting experiments; 5) forming a hypothesis (proposed explanation); 6) expressing findings mathematically. Most scientific research involves some or all of these steps.

Observing nature is one of the oldest scientific methods. For example, in the 1830's, Charles Darwin carefully observed plants and animals in many parts of the world serving as a naturalist with the British scientific expedition. Study of the specimens collected on the voyage helped him develop his theory that modern species had evolved from a few earlier ones.

Classifying data can reveal the relationships among observed facts. In the mid-1800's, Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, classified the elements into families or groups in a chart called the periodic table. On the table, elements with similar properties appeared at regular intervals. Gaps in the table indicated elements that were nor yet known. Scientists soon proved the importance of Mendeleev's systematic classification when they discovered the existence and chemical properties of new elements that filled the gaps.

Using logic enables scientists to draw conclusions from existing information. In the late 1800's, a German physicist named Wilhelm Wien studied the relationship between temperature and the energy radiated from the solids and liquids. After studying many specific examples, he noted that multiplying the temperature of a heated solid or liquid by the wavelength of greatest intensity radiated at that temperature always produced the same number.

Conducting experiments is a major tool in developing and testing scientific theories. The Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo was one of the first scientists to recognize that systematic experimentation could help reveal the laws of nature. In the late 1500's, Galileo began performing carefully designed experiments to study the basic properties of matter in motion. By rolling balls of different weights down inclined planes, he discovered that all objects fall to the ground with the same acceleration, unless air resistance or some other force slows them down.

Forming a hypothesis requires talent, skill, and creativity. Scientists base their proposed explanations on existing information. They try to form hypotheses that help explain, order or unify related facts. They can use experimentation and other means to test their hypotheses. The discovery of the planet Neptune in the mid-1800's resulted from the formation of a hypothesis. Astronomers noticed that Uranus, which they thought was the most distant planet, was not always in the position predicted for it by the laws of gravitation and motion. Some astronomers hypothesized that the force of gravity from an unknown planet might cause the variations in the orbit of Uranus. By calculating where such a planet could be, they eventually discovered Neptune.

Expressing findings mathematically can express how the world works. Galileo and Newton and Einstein expressed the results of their work using mathematics.

3. Here are the answers to some questions. Work out the questions:

1. Observing nature.

2. In many parts of the world.

3. Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist.

4. In the late 1800's.

5. That systematic experimentation could help reveal the laws of nature.

6. Yes, it is. Because it requires talent, skill and creativity.

4. Find key sentences and speak on the content of the text.

TEXT 3 C

1. List inventions in order of importance for the mankind in your opinion. Explain your choice:

• the computer

• the wheel

• the electricity

• the space rocket

• the television

• the atomic bomb

• the antibiotics

• the telephone

• the plane

2. Do you know who invented the following things? Skim the text and prove your suggestions by the facts from the text:

1) penicillin

2) theory of relativity

3) magnetism

4) electromagnetic waves

5) nuclear chain reaction

6) microbiology

7) theory of evolution

8) psychoanalysis

The history of science

From the earliest times, people have been curious about the world around them. Thousands of years before civilization began, people learn to count and tried to explain the rising and setting of the sun and the phases of the moon. They studied the habits of the animals they hunted, learned that some plants could be used as drugs, and acquired other knowledge about nature. These achievements marked the beginnings of science. They were among the first attempts to understand and control nature. In general, mathematics and medicine were the first sciences to develop, followed by the physical sciences and social sciences.

The most ancient science was developed in Egyptian and Babylonian cultures as early as 3000 B.C. The Chinese and Indian civilizations developed a little later, in 300 B.C. But the Greeks left the greatest scientific heritage of all the ancient peoples. Aristotle (300 B.C.), the greatest Greek philosopher, studied many areas of science. He also developed deductive logic as a means of reaching conclusions. Greek mathematicians Pythagoras and Euclid (300 B.C.) had perfected geometry as a single logical system. Archimedes (200 B.C.) was not only mathematician but also a great inventor.

By the 100's A.D., the city of Rome had conquered much of the known world, including the Greek civilization. They were excellent architects, engineers and builders but they contributed little to theoretical science. They accepted the scientific knowledge of Greeks.

The Middle Ages was a 1,000-year period in European history that began in the 400's A.D. For hundreds of years after this period began, little scientific investigation took place in Europe. Most scholars were more interested in theology, the study of God, than in the study of nature.

The rebirth of science in Europe began in 1543 with the publication of two books that broke scientific tradition. One book was by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”, and the second by Andreas Vesalius, an anatomist, named “On the Structure of the Human Body”.

The scientific revolution took place during the late 1500's and early 1600's because scientists realized the importance of experimentation and mathematics to scientific advances. The great scientists Galileo (an astronomer), Isaac Newton (a physisist and astronomer), Wilhelm Lebniz (a philosopher), Robert Boyle (a chemist) and others worked at that period.

The Age of Reason, also called the Enlightenment (Просвіта), was a philosophical movement that greatly affected the development of science during the late 1600's and the 1700's. The leaders of the movement insisted that the use of reason was the best way to determine truth. The philosophers of the Age of Reason developed many rules of scientific study that are still used.

In 1800's scientific advances were great. Darwin's theory of evolution became one of the most intensely debated scientific issues of the late 1800's. The theory aroused especially fiery opposition among religious leaders who thought that it conflicted with the Biblical account of the Creation. Another important idea in biological sciences was the theory that all living things are made up of cells (proposed by two German scientists, Mattias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann). D. Mendeleev systematizes the study of chemistry, James Joule advanced the law of the conservation of energy, James Maxwell worked out the mathematical equations for the laws of electricity and magnetism, Heinrich Hertz produces elecromagnetic waves and his work led to the development of radio, radar and TV. Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, discovered the basic statistical laws of heredity that laid the foundation for the science of genetics. Louis Pasteur started modern microbiology. Sigmund Freud established the field of psychoanalysis.

3. What do these dates in the text refer to?

3000 B.C., 300 B.C., 400 A.D., 1543, 1800's.

4. What discoveries and inventions are likely to appear in the near future? Continue the list of inventions in the text with 3-5 ideas of your own.

HOME-READING

TEXT 3 D

1. Before you read, fill in the table:

What do you know…

About the scientist	About his inventions
1. 2. 3. 4.

2. Compose questions about Einstein’s life which you want to be answered.

3. Read the text. Check the meaning of these words:

Release, to warn, needle, to confirm, to accomplish, property, vital, to decline.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Albert Einstein was one of the greatest scientists of all time. He is best known for his theory of relativity, which he first advanced when he was 26. He also made many other contributions to science. Einstein's relativity theory revolutionized scientific thought with new conceptions of time, space, mass, motion and gravitation. He treated matter and energy as interchangeable, not distinct. In so doing, he laid the basis for controlling the release of energy from the atom.

Thus, Einstein was one of the fathers of the nuclear age. On August, 2, 1939, Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, explaining that it might be possible to build an atomic bomb. Einstein urged the President to provide Governmental help for the study of the release of nuclear energy. Einstein also warned the President that Nazi Germany might already be trying to build an atomic bomb. His letter set the United States on the long, difficult and costly path that finally led to the production of an atomic bomb in 1945.

Einstein was born on March, 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany. When he was five, his father showed him a pocket compass. The little boy was deeply impressed by the mysterious behavior of the compass needle, which kept pointing in the same direction no matter which way the compass was turned. He later said that “something deeply hidden had to be behind things.”

After public school in Munich and in Aarau, Switzerland, Einstein studied mathematics and physics at the Swiss Polytechnic institute in Zurich. He graduated in 1900. Einstein became a Swiss citizen in 1905. During this time, in one of his papers, Einstein suggested that light could be thought of as a stream of tiny particles. This idea forms an important part of the quantum theory. Using this theory, Einstein explained the photoelectric effect. His paper established the theoretical basis for the photoelectric cell, or “electric eye”. This device made possible sound motion pictures, television and many other inventions. Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics for this paper on quanta.

In a second paper, titled “The electrodynamics of moving bodies”, Einstein presented the special theory of relativity. He demonstrated there the relativity of time, a previously unimaginable idea. The general theory was published in 1915.

The third major paper of 1905 concerned Brownian motion, an irregular motion of microscopic particles suspended in a liquid or gas. It confirmed the atomic theory of matter.

Einstein accomplished all these before he held any academic position. But in 1909, he became professor of theoretical physics at the university of Zurich. In 1911 and 1912, he occupied the same position at German University in Prague. Einstein was elected to the Prussian Academy of sciences in Berlin in 1913. When he accepted the professorship of physics at the University of Berlin in 1914, he once more assumed German citizenship. The same year, he became director of the Keiser Wilhelm Physical Institute in Berlin.

In 1933, while Einstein was visiting England and the United States, the Nazi government of Germany took his property and deprived him of his positions and citizenship. Even before this misfortune occurred, however, Einstein had been invited to become a member of the staff of the newly created Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. Einstein settled down in Princeton. He lived there until his death. In 1940, Einstein became an American citizen. He died on April 18, 1955.

Although he lived a quiet personal life, Einstein maintained a vital interest in human affairs. He was fond of classical music and played the violin. He had a deep compassion for people who were politically or economically oppressed. He supported Zionism, and was offered the presidency of the state Israel in 1952. But he declined this honor, insisting that he was not fitted for such a position.

Einstein was married twice. He had two sons and a daughter by his first wife. He gained two stepdaughters in his second marriage.

Although he was not associated with any orthodox religion, Einstein's nature was deeply religious. He never believed that the universe was one of chance or chaos. The universe to him was one of absolute law and order. He once said, “God may be sophisticated, but he is not malicious.”