M. LOMONOSOV AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE

The great Russian scientist, outstanding poet and enlightener, Lomonosov, was born in the village of Denisovka (now Lomonosovo), far off in the North, on November 19, 1711. The boy was very young when he easily mastered reading and writing. He spent all his free time in reading books and studying but that did not satisfy him. The young boy longed for knowledge, he longed to master science. That longing was so great that at the age of 19 or so, he left his father's home and started on foot for Moscow in spite of the long distance and the cold winter.

However, entering the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy in Moscow was not an easy thing to do, because his father was a peasant and a fisherman. Strange as it may seem at present, the Academy was closed to peasants at that time.

He experienced great want and countless hardships during his student years both in Moscow and later on in Germany where he had been sent to complete his education. Studying at the Academy, he got only 3 copecks a day, that scholar­ship being his only means of living.

Nevertheless, the simple peasant boy from the far North soon became famous as a scientist and a poet. At the age of 35 he was already an experienced professor and an academi­cian.

Lomonosov was complete master of natural sciences as well as of history, philosophy and engineering. In addition to the Russian language, he had a good knowledge of foreign languages, namely German, French, Greek and, last but not least, Latin which was the international language of science at that time.

It is quite impossible to name a scientific problem he did not turn his attention to. However, theory alone left him dissatisfied. He knew by experience that it was useless and unreliable if it did not find practical application and could not, therefore, serve the good of his people and his country. He always tried to find a practical application for the phenom­ena studied.

Lomonosov possessed an unusual capacity for work. His scientific activity lasted but 25 years but in these 25 years he carried out an extraordinary amount of useful, educational work in various fields of scientific and cultural life. He car­ried on scientific research in natural sciences and made nu­merous reports on the results of his achievements. He lectured to students and translated the works of various foreign scien­tists into Russian for he wanted to educate "our own Newtons." For this very purpose he founded Moscow Uni­versity and wrote his odes as well as numerous books on the Russian language and literature, on physics and so on.

For many years the great scientist carried on systematic laboratory-experimental work both, in physics and chemistry, for, according to him, without observation and experiment there could be no progress in science. In this connection, one might ask: "Do you know that Lomonosov organized the first chemical laboratory in our country and built the first glass-making factory in Russia?”

Lomonosov studied physical properties of bodies on the basis of the molecular and atomic theory: He developed the kinetic theory of gases, the molecular kinetic theory of heat and first discovered the law of the con­servation of matter and motion. He also found that light, heat and electricity are different forms of motion. .As a re­sult, many of his discoveries became invaluable contributions to world science.

From the very first and to the last days of his life he strug­gled alone for Russian science and the enlightenment of the Russian people.

Exercises

1. Learn the following active words and use them in the sentences of your own:

amount (n) количество

capacity (n) способность

complete (a) полный

enter (v) поступать

experience (n, v) опыт, испытывать

field (n) поле, область, сфера

hardship (n) трудность

long (for) (v) стремиться к

master (v) овладевать, усваивать

means (n) средство

result in (v) приводить к

2. Translate the following word chains into Russian, define what part of speech the words are.

Retell the text.

12. (a) Fill in the blanks with prepositions, if necessary; (b) retell the text:

Jack London

The great American writer Jack London was born ... the town of San Frincisco in 1876. The young boy longed ... knowledge, but Jack's father could not send him ... school, as the family was very poor. London began working when he was quite young. He sold different newspapers ... the streets. ... the age ... fourteen he began to work ... a factory. Then he worked as a fisherman. He had to work many hours ... a day. Nevertheless he experienced a great want and count­less hardships ... that time. In spite of his hard work he was very fond ... reading and read very much. He studied …school and later on ... the university. He took great interest both ... history and ... philosophy. ... 1896 London started ... Alaska for the yellow metal. He did not live ...the North. ... a long time. Soon he came back ... San Francisco, and became famous as a writer. He greatly contributed ... the de­velopment ... progressive American literature. ... present his name is known all over the world.

LESSON TEN

THE GREAT PHYSISISTS

There are two types of electricity, namely, electricity at rest or in a static condition and electricity in motion, that is, the electric current. Both of them are made up of electric charges, static charges being at rest, while electric current flows and does work. Thus they differ in their ability to serve mankind as well as in their behavior.

Let us first turn our attention to static electricity. For a long time it was the only electrical phenomenon to be ob­served by man. As previously mentioned in Lesson 7 at least 2,500 years ago or so, the Greeks knew how to get electricity by rubbing substances. However, for practical purposes static electricity was not much more useful than lightning. Indeed, the electricity to be obtained by rubbing objects cannot be used to light lamps, to boil water, to run electric trains, and so on. It is usually very high in voltage, difficult to control; besides it discharges in no time.

As early as 1753, Franklin made an important contribution to the science of electricity. He was the first to prove that unlike charges are produced due to rubbing dissimilar objects. To show that the charges are unlike and opposite he decided to call the charge on the rubber—negative and that on the glass—positive.

In this connection one might remember our Russian Асademician Petroff. He was the first to carry on experiments and observations on the electrification of metals by rubbing them one against another. As a result he was the first scien­tist in the world who solved that problem.

So far, almost nothing was said about the electric current. Who does not know that the first man to produce it was Volta. His discovery developed out of Galvani's experiments with the frog. Various writers retell that story in quite different ways. In fact, Galvani observed that the legs of a dead frog jumped as a result of an electric charge. He tried his exper­iment several times and every time he obtained the same result. He thought that electricity was generated within the leg itself.

Alessandro Volta (1745-1827)

This thought was not so very strange because he could not help remembering the electric fish which possessed the prop­erty of giving more or less, strong shocks.

As previously mentioned, the discovery of the electric current was made possible owing to Volta after whom the unit of electric pressure, the volt, was named.

Volta was born at Como, in Italy, in February 18, 1745.For some years, he was a teacher of physics in his home town. Later on he became professor of natural sciences at the Uni­versity of Pavia. After his famous discovery he travelled in many countries, among them France, Germany and England. He was also invited to Paris to lecture on the newly discovered chemical source of continuous current. In 1819 he returned to Como where he spent the rest of his life. Volta died at the age of 82.

Volta took great interest in Galvani's researches. He began to carry on similar experiments and soon found out that the electric source was not within the frog's leg itself, but was, the result of the contact of both dissimilar metals used during his observations. However, to carry on experiments of such a kind was not an easy thing to do. He spent the next few years trying to invent a source of a steady, continuous cur­rent. To increase the effect obtained with one pair of metals, Volta increased- the number of these pairs. Thus the voltaic pile consisted of a layer of copper and a layer of zinc placed one above another with a layer of flannel moistened in salt water between them. In this way the voltaic pile looked like a thick sandwich containing copper, zinc, flannel moistened in salt water, copper, zinc, flannel, and so on. A wire was connected to the first disc of copper and to the last disc of zinc.

The year 1800 is a good date to be remembered: for the first time in the world's history a steady, continuous current was generated.

Exercises

1. Learn the following active words and use them in the sentences of your own:

behavior (n) поведение

condition (n) состояние, условие

Continuous (a) постоянный

flow (v) течь, протекать

layer (n) слой

(at) rest в состоянии покоя

Source (n) источник

Steady (a) ровный, равномерный

Wire (n) провод

2. Look through the text and find the English equivalents to the following words and word combinations. Use them in your own situations.

А также, в этой связи, как уже было упомянуто ранее, в результате, действительно, проявить большой интерес к, оба они, таким образом, еще в…, по крайней мере.

3. Write out antonyms to the following words:

Similar, like, negative, alive, unknown, difficult