Упражнение

Проанализируйте и переведите следующие предложения:

А

1. If placed in an open air, iron rusts and deteriorates. 2. The three important properties affecting the flow of current in an electric circuit are voltage, resistance, and capacity. 3. Hydrogen is the lightest known gas, the density of air being about 14.5 times as great. 4. Kinetic energy of an object is the energy it possesses as a result of its speed. 5. Solids or gases dissolved in liquids are found to change the boiling point of the liquids. 6. We know the alternating current to be continually changing its direction. 7. Each organ has its own work to do. 8. Australia formerly regarded as an insignificant colony began attracting settlers after the gold-fields had been discovered in 1850. 9. Radiation sickness is an aftermath of the gamma-rays and neutrons people absorb at the time of atomic bomb explosion. 10. When speaking about electricity produced by friction, we should always remember the name of V.V.Petrov who made first experiments on the electrification of metals by friction.

B

1. When heated or subjected to strong electric changes the cathode emits large quantities of electrons. 2. The radioactive changes of matter occur of their own accord; we cannot stop or start them. 3. A body when wholly or partially immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by the fluid. 4. The number of cycles per second is the frequency of the alternating current, the most common a.c. frequency being 50 c.p.s. 5. The amount of current a cell produces depends on the resistance this current must pass through and on the electromotive force the cell possesses. 6. The guns to fire the victory salute were stationed everywhere in the city. 7. We know iron to be magnetized in the presence of a magnet. 8. Any body, which is capable of doing work, is said to have energy. 9. While experimenting with his scheme Popov discovered the scheme to respond readily to sudden changes of electrical conditions in the atmosphere. 10. In the wire with a high resistance the current it consumes is dissipated in the form of heat. 11. A beaker filled with cold water and held over a flame of burning hydrogen, will condense the steam to droplets of water.

C

1. Russia considers any policy, which envisage support of espionage and sabotage activities in other countries to be incompatible with normal international relations. 2. Having overcome the economic backwardness inherited from the Civil War, the Soviet Union has increased its output of means of production 83-fold, as compared to 1913. 3. Policy of strength has been effective only when used against the weak. 4. The peace proposal put forward by our delegation was turned down by the Anglo-American bloc. 5. In March 1955 the industrial production index in the USA began to fall, this fall becoming particularly perceptible in the second half of the year. 6. The four weeks our delegation spent in China were very crowded indeed.

1. Alpha, gamma, and beta rays are affected differently by a magnetic field, showing them to have different electrical charges. 2. The physical laboratory where Popov worked was considered to be the best in Russia at that time.3. May 7, 1895 is considered to be “the date of the invention of the radio by A.S.Popov. 4. Our scientists were faced with many complicated theoretical and practical problems when constructing the first atomic power station. 5. In the jet-motor the mixture of air-diffused fuel is ignited by the spark plug. 6. Voltage, resistance, and capacity are the three important properties to influence the flow of current in an electric circuit. 7. Christopher Columbus thought the land he discovered to be India. 8. The answer to the question of growing economic difficulties for the average Spaniard lies in the economic processes now taking place in the Spain. 9. Methods recently followed in shipbuilding industry have been replaced by a more effective system.

Practicum

A

LIQUID CRYSTAL ACOUSTICS. Penn State physicist Jay Patel seeks to understand the optical properties of liquid crystals which, consisting of rod shaped molecules with the ability to polarize light, are regularly employed in electronic displays; an applied voltage lines up the rods and shuts off or turns on transmitted light.

So it came as a big surprise when Patel discovered that liquid crystals also have acoustic properties. To be precise, an applied voltage imparts energy to the rod molecules, which in turn cause the cavity in which the liquid crystal resides to vibrate. The cavity resonates with an audible frequency that could be heard with the unaided ear. (An analogy: the strings of a violin aren’t what make sound; rather they transmit the energy of the bow to the body of the violin whose vibrations are source of the music we hear.) Unsure of the implications of liquid crystal sound (tiny speakers, delay lines for circuits?), Patel and his colleagues suspect that this discovery will lead to a fruitful new research area.

CLAY OSCILLONS. Nature often sorts energy into certain preferred forms such as the unique spectrum of colors emitted by heated atoms or the characteristic note sounded by an organ pipe.

This energy sorting can even turn up in a granular material. For example, a few years ago scientists discovered that collections of tiny metal balls, when shaken slightly up and down, vested some of their energy in the form of tiny waterspout heaps called “oscillons” Now physicists at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem have observed a similar effect in a colloid, a fluid material (e.g., milk) in which tiny particles (in this case small bits of clay) are suspended in a solvent. Granular media and suspensions are very different in nature – grains are discrete objects that collide directly with each other whereas the particles in colloids interact via the medium of the solvent fluid – so the appearance of oscillons in both materials might represent some universal manifestation of driven nonlinear systems. The researchers are not yet sure where localized oscillon states would turn up in the natural world. One possibility is earthquakes.

Oscillon-like states may explain the localized and highly variable damage (or intense ground acceleration), which, in many cases, occurs in poorly, consolidated sediments (in analogy to the clay sediments used in the experiments) at relatively large distances from an earthquake’s epicenter.

VISUALIZING ELECTRONIC ORBITALS. The image of an atom is really the image of its outermost electrons or, to be more precise still, the image of the averaged likelihood that the electrons will be at various places. For any but the innermost electrons, the shape of this likelihood surface (or orbital) will be non-spherical in shape. Physicists at Arizona State have now actually imaged these orbitals for the first time and shown that they look just the drawings used in quantum textbooks for decades. Using a combination of x-ray diffraction and electron microscopy the ASU scientists produced a 3D map of the orbitals of copper atoms and their bonds with neighboring atoms in a cuprite (Cu2O) compound. The images of Cu-O and Cu-Cu bonds might provide insight into the workings of high temperature superconductors, in which the whereabouts of electrons and holes (the voids left by vacated electrons) are crucial.

B

Panama Finally Gets Its 360, 240 Acres and a Mule

By Ian Cooper

Post-colonial housekeeping is an awkward business, especially for a country that pretends to never have been a colonial power.

It is no wonder, than, that the President, Vice President and Secretary of State had other matters – very important, no doubt – to attend to on Tuesday rather than show up to hand over the Panama Canal. Only Jimmy Carter was in attendance. A Panamanian official was quoted by the New York Times as saying, “Madeleine Albright is the Bruce Springsteen of foreign affairs. It looks like we’re ending up with Barry Manilow.”

One theory goes that Al Gore stayed away – losing an opportunity to look presidential and say a few snappy phrases in Spanish – because he is worried about a “Who Lost Panama?” backlash in next year’s election. This seems pretty unlikely, even though there are a few dinosaurs in the Senate still grumbling about it, twenty years after the treaty was signed. (Imagine the big issue in the next British election: “Who lost Suez?”) My own theory: the unequal relationship which persisted so long between the two countries is sort of – well, embarrassing.

Of course, there is nothing embarrassing about the canal itself, which is one of the greatest feats of engineering in human history. What is awkward is that it is a reminder of a period, exemplified most of all by the figure of Teddy Roosevelt, when the United States – which owes its very existence to a struggle against colonialism – was itself a colonial power.

Americans often forget that their country was once involved in the dirty business of imperialism. Of course, “imperialism” is one of those words that gets thrown around indiscriminately. So I should make clear that we’re not just talking about fuzzier forms of it, like “cultural imperialism” (making foreigners watch “Independence Day” against their will) or “economic imperialism” (sending the IMF to whip Third World economies into submission) or even “internal” imperialism (the subjugation, in the 19^th century, of the North American continent). No, we’re talking about old-fashioned, Kiplingesque, lets-go-out-and-take-over-a-foreign-country imperialism.

(Incidentally, imperialism would have been more tolerable – or honest, at least – if it were called “theft.” The colonizers could have said to the brown-skinned peoples, “Sorry, but your spears are no match for our guns. Now give us your natural resources and work for us free, or else.” Instead, there was an unctuous ideology of paternalism, according to which it was all for the natives’ own good – the so-called “White man’s burden.” This was the foreign-affairs equivalent of, “The Negroes were perfectly happy under slavery.”)

Imperialism was, of course, a mostly European game, but America gleefully joined in just after its own internal frontier was closed at the end of last century. It all started when a mini-empire more or less fell into America’s lap after victory in the Spanish-American war, in 1898. Along with Hawaii, America acquired (and in some cases, still holds) a bunch of far-flung islands which made handy stepping stones across the Pacific. And so, the very first year of the twentieth century featured – of all things – American soldiers putting down a rebellion in the jungles of the Philippines.

Panama achieved a state of “independence” from Columbia after some helpful gunboat diplomacy from America. The condition was that the country cedes the Canal Zone, effectively splitting it in two. It has never been truly independent. Even after reclaiming the Canal, they are keeping the Yankee dollar.

America is still living with the consequences of this period of its history. Witness the present controversy over military exercises in Puerto Rico. Or the fact that some of the designer clothes you buy, stamped “Made in U.S.A.,” are in fact made in sweat-shop conditions, by a foreign workforce, on the Pacific island of Saipan.

For the most part, however, it is completely forgotten. I bet that half the schoolchildren that visit Mount Rushmore look up and say, “There’s Lincoln. There’s Washington. There’s Jefferson. So who’s the guy with the glasses?”

C

Thought for the Day:

To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little.

To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.

_________________________

Mr. Swiller was known far and wide as a hard-nosed boss who watched his employees like a hawk. He was making one of his regular tours of the factory when he spotted a young man leaning against a pile of boxes just outside the foreman’s office.

Since George, the foreman, wasn’t around, Swiller stood off to the side and watched to see just how long the young man would stand around doing nothing.

The young man yawned, scratched his head, looked at his watch, and sat on the floor. He took out a nail file and began cleaning his nails. Then he stretched, yawned again, and leaned back on the pile of boxes.

Swiller stepped from his hiding place and walked up to the young man. “You!” he boomed. “How much do you make a week?”

The young man looked up indifferently. “Two hundred and fifty dollars,” he said.

Swiller swooped into the cashier’s office, took $250 from the cash box, and returned. “Take it,” he said, “and get out! Don’t let me see you around here again!”

The young man took the cash, put it in his pocket, and left.

Swiller snorted at his lack of remorse, embarrassment, or any other feeling. Then he went looking for George. When he found him, Swiller was red with anger. “That idler in front of your office,” Swiller said. “I just gave him a week’s pay and fired him.

What’s the matter with you, letting him stand around as though he had nothing to do?”

“You mean the kid in the red shirt?” George asked.

“Yes! The kid in the red shirt!”

“He was waiting for the twenty dollars we owe him for lunch,”

George said. “He works for the coffee shop around the corner.”

___________________________

During their silver anniversary, a wife reminded her husband, “Do you remember when you proposed to me, I was so overwhelmed that I didn’t talk for an hour?”

The hubby replied, “Yes, honey, that was the happiest hour of my life.”

___________________________

Against the advice of his stockbroker, Willings bought ten thousand shares of Miraculous Mining at a dollar a share.

The price doubled to two dollars.

Willings called his broker and said, “Buy ten thousand more shares.” The price soared to four dollars.

Willings called again and ordered another twenty thousand shares. The price shot up to six dollars.

Wililngs called once again. “Time to take my profit,” he said.

“Sell it all.”

“Sell?” his broker said. “To who?”

_____________________________

I was just visiting some friends who have a real working farm. I was watching this one rooster chasing after this hen, when the friend’s wife came out to feed them. The rooster stopped chasing the hen at once and ran over to began eating. I stood there thinking to myself, “Damn! I hope I never get that hungry.”

_____________________________

An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interest in his paintings on display at that time.

“I have good news and bad news,” the owner replied. “The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your work and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. When I told him it would, he bought all 15 of your paintings.”

“That’s wonderful,” the artist exclaimed. “What’s the bad news?”

“The guy was your doctor.”

_____________________________

A journalist assigned to the Jerusalem bureau takes an apartment overlooking the Wailing Wall. Every day when she looks out, she sees an old Jewish man praying vigorously. So the journalist goes down and introduces herself to the old man.

She asks: “You come every day to the wall. How long have you done that and what are you praying for?”

The old man replies, “I have come here to pray every day for 25 years. In the morning I pray for world peace and then for the brotherhood of man. I go home have a cup of tea and I come back and pray for the eradication of illness and disease from the earth.”

The journalist is amazed. “How does it make you feel to come here every day for 25 years and pray for these things?” she asks.

The old man looks at her sadly. “Like I’m talking to a wall.”

________________________________

Minutes before the cremation, the undertaker quietly sat down next to the grieving widow. “How old was your husband?” he asked.

“He was ninety-eight,” she answered softly. “Two years older than I am.”

“Really?” the undertaker said. “Hardly worth going home, wouldn’t you say?”

________________________________

The Michaels family owned a small farm in Canada, just yards away from the North Dakota border. Their land had been the subject of a minor dispute between the United States and Canada for generations. Mrs. Michaels, who had just celebrated her ninetieth birthday, lived on the farm with her son and three grandchildren.

One day, her son came into her room holding a letter. “I just got some news, Mom,” he said. “The government has come to an agreement with the people in Washington. They’ve decided that our land is really part of the United States. We have the right to approve or disapprove of the agreement. What do you think?”

“What do I think?” his mother said. “Jump at it! Call them right now and tell them we accept! I don’t think I could stand another one of those Canadian winters!”

________________________________

Two confirmed bachelors sat talking. Their conversation drifted from politics to cooking. “I got a cookbook once,” said the first, “but I could never do anything with it.” “Too much fancy cooking in it, eh?” asked the second.

“You said it. Every one of the receipts began the same way – ‘Take a clean dish and…’”