Материал: Гвоздева Тхе Цосмос 2011

UNIT 3

SOME WORDS ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

PRE-READING TASK Study some grammar points.

I. We use whether when talking about two alternatives. (Russian − V + ли)

Study the sentence.

Neutron stars, however, were observed in 1967, when Bell and Hewish at Cambridge discovered objects called pulsars that were emitting regular pulses of radio waves. At first, they wondered whether they had made contact with an alien civilization. Indeed, I remember that the seminar room in which they announced their discovery was decorated with figures of ‘little green men’.

II. Ving − a verbal noun

We use by + Ving to say how something happens.

Study the sentences.

1.For a time I could communicate only by raising my eyebrows when someone pointed to letters on a card.

2.I wrote scientific papers by dictating to a secretary.

III. N + to Vo; N + to be V3

An infinitive after a noun characterizes it and expresses an action which must be done or could be done in the future.

Study the sentences.

1.«There are books to be read and thrown away; there are books to be read and put on the shelf; and there are some few to be read and digested» (Seneca)

2.These are the data to be verified.

3.When we look for life on Mars, we need an astrophysicist to characterize the environment, the chemist to understand the chemistry of the soils, the geologist to understand the rock formations, the biologist and even a paleontologist to look for life that does not exist there today, but might have existed before.

IV. Modal verbs show the attitude of the speaker towards the idea he expresses.

May, might, can, could = possible; can’t, couldn’t =hardly possi-

ble

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Might is more unsure than may.

Could is more unsure than can

Study the sentences.

1.There might be a connection between black holes and thermodynamics.

2.Imaginary time may sound like something out of science fiction, but it a well-defined mathematical concept.

3.There can be baby universes that contain only a few particles.

4.There could be many different universes with different densities.

Note:

We use a modal verb + have V3 to say that it was possible or highly

probable in the past. Russian - возможно было; can’t, couldn’t -

вряд ли было

Study the sentences.

1.Heavy elements could have been formed by nuclear synthesis of the early generation of nearby stars.

2.The initial configuration may have been chosen by God, or it may have been determined by the laws of science.

We use a modal verb + the perfect continuous infinitive to say how long the situation has been happening.

Study the sentence.

The universe can have been going only for a finite time.

We use a modal verb + the continuous infinitive to say that the action is developing as a process.

Study the sentence.

No-one in the early twentieth century suggested that the universe might be evolving with time.

V. When we imagine a situation we use would (could, might) + Vo for the present; would (could) have V3 for the past

would Russian − бы could Russian − мог бы

Study the sentences.

1.The fact that nothing can travel faster than light means that the round trip to the nearest star would take at least eight years.

2.The observation of a black hole explosion would provide very important information on elementary particle physics, information that might not be available any other way.

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VI. S + seems + to V (for the present) = Russian − По-видимому;

Создаётся впечатление

S + appears + to V = Russian − оказывается S + seems + to have V3 (for the past)

S + appears + to have V3 (for the past)

Study the sentences.

1.Dark matter seems to be different from normal matter, the kind that makes up stars and planets.

2.Inflation seems to have occurred in the early universe: an increase in size by a factor of at least million million million million million times in a tiny fraction of a second.

3.There appears to be only a finite number of such theories.

4.The intense gravitational field near the black hole causes the creation of pairs of particles and antiparticles, one of which falls into the black hole and the other of which escapes to infinity. The particle that escapes appears to have been emitted by the black hole.

Give Russian correspondence:

to go on (to continue), fairly (rather), thus (so, therefore, hence), otherwise (in a different case), to progress (to advance), in fact (in reality), above (ant. below), repeatedly (many times), essentially (basically), the rest of (the others), far longer (much longer), like (similarly), by now (up to the present time), the same (alike)

THE DEBATE

FYI

A debate is a discussion about a subject on which people have different views.

Study the passage. Translate the paragraph marked with asterisks in writing.

The debate about whether and how the universe began has been going on throughout recorded history. Basically there were two schools of thought. The Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions held that the universe was created in the fairly recent past. (In the seventeenth century Bishop Ussher calculated a date of 4004 BC for the creation of the

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universe, a figure he arrived at by adding up the ages of people in the Old Testament.)

*One fact to support the idea of a recent origin was the realization of the fact that the human race is obviously evolving in culture and technology. We remember who first made this discovery or developed this technique. Thus, the argument runs, we cannot have been around all that long; otherwise, we would have progressed more than we have. In fact, the biblical date for the creation is not far off the date of the end of the last ice age, which is when modern humans seem first to have appeared*.

On the other hand, there were people such as the Greek philosopher Aristotle who didn’t like the idea that the universe had a beginning. They believed that the universe had existed and would exist for ever. They had an answer to the argument about human progress described above: periodic floods or other natural disasters had repeatedly set the human race right back to the beginning.

Both schools of thought held that the universe was essentially unchanging with time. In the nineteenth century, however, evidence began to accumulate that the earth and the rest of the universe were in fact changing with time. Geologists realized that the formation of the rocks and the fossils in them would have taken hundreds or thousands of millions of years. This was far longer than the age of the earth as calculated by the creationists.

Further evidence was provided by the so-called second law of thermodynamics, formulated by the German physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. It states that the total amount of disorder in the universe (which is measured by a quantity called entropy) always increases with time. This, like the argument about human progress, suggests that the universe can have been going on only for a finite time. Otherwise, it would by now have degenerated into a state of complete disorder, in which everything would be at the same temperature.

Stephan Hawking

Vocabulary Notes

1.to hold (here) – to consider – to believe – to think

2.a realization – an understanding

3.an argument (here) – reasoning

4.obviously – most probably

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5.a disaster – a catastrophe

6.to accumulate – to build up

7.to state – to declare

8.to suggest (here) – to indicate

POST - READING TASK (to be done in writing)

I. Answer the questions.

1.What is the basic difference between the two schools in their views on the origin of the universe?

2.How did Bishop Ussher arrive at a date of 4004?

3.What does this date mean according to him?

4.What fact supports the idea of a recent origin of the universe?

5.What is the Biblical date for the creation?

6.How did Aristotle interpret the idea of a recent origin of the universe?

7.What view did both schools share?

8.What evidence began to accumulate in the seventeenth century?

9.What was the evidence provided by?

10.What does the second law of thermodynamics state?

11.What is disorder measured by?

II. The two pieces of evidence provided by the passage seem contradictory. Make your own conclusion.

III. Write which point of view on the origin of the universe you

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