Use unit 2 of appendix 11 for written practice exercises

1) Visit the website of the Polytechnical Universityhttp://www.spbstu-eng.ru/ and compose a short presentation about students’ international activities. Use appendix 4 to evaluate your groupmate’s presentation.

2) Find synonyms to the following words from the text: research, industrialization, revenue, entrepreneur, to contribute. When looking for the synonyms compare at least two Internet resources which might be helpful to you, e.g. Wordsmyth & Webster dictionary or any others usually called thesauruses. Which of the sources turns out to be most efficient?

Unit 3. The History of science and engineering

Warm-up

1. What do you know about history of your branch of science? How has it developed? What do you know about its roots?

2. Can you name the most outstanding achievement in your sphere of science?

3. What is the current situation in your branch of science?

4. What do would you like to change in your sphere of science to make it more advanced and modern?

5. What do you know about interdisciplinary research of your branch of science?

6. What ways of commemorating great men of science do you know? Give your examples.

7. Which SI units are named after great scientists of the past?

Two short texts below discuss two features which are typical of the history of science. Which are they? Can you give other examples from the history of science and engineering which illustrate the features? Are there similar examples in your branch of science?

The Art of the Soluble

...Science is, in Peter Medawar's words, the art of the soluble. A good scientist knows that the trick is to choose a problem that is ripe for solution, both because the technology is there and because the concepts are in place.

This explains the abundance of examples of simultaneous discoveries in the history of science: Adams and Leverrier found Neptune at the same time and accused each other of plagiarism, contributing mightily to a mood of Anglo-French dislike. Newton and Leibnitz; Darwin and Wallace; Gallo and Montagnier: the list is long.

Scientists speak of the ‘inevitability’ of discoveries in sharp contrast to other historical events. The structure of DNA would not have remained mysterious for long if Francis Crick and James Watson had not existed. James Watt was not indispensable to progress, though the steam engine was. There is irony here.

Check your comprehension

~ If you plagiarize someone or something, you _ _ _ _ them.

~ Are inevitable events avoidable?

~ Would progress have been made without Crick, Faraday, Watson, and Watt?

The Shock of the Not Quite New

It is a commonplace that technologies move only slowly from first invention to widespread use. What is striking in the history of technological innovation, however, is that the dispersion of a new technology is not just slow but extraordinarily uncertain even after its first commercial applications have been realised.

This runs against the conventional wisdom, which holds that the uncertainties are much reduced after the first commercial use. The evidence to refute that view comes not just from any old technologies, but from many of the most important innovations of this century.

Check your comprehension

~ If something is a commonplace, is it unusual?

~ Is the conventional wisdom a minority view?

~ If an opinion is refuted, is it disproved?

Consider the laser, a comparatively young technology with more development in store. Beyond uses in measurement, navigation and chemical research, applications have expanded to include the reproduction of music (to make the laser a household product); surgery; printing; the cutting of cloth and other materials; and, its most significant use to date, telecommunications.

Together with fibre optics, the laser has revolutionised the telephone business, yet lawyers at Bell Labs were initially unwilling even to apply for a patent for their invention, believing it had no relevance to the telephone industry.

If that story sounds familiar, there is a reason: such a pattern of innovation is not exceptional, nor even quite common, but typical. The steam engine was invented in the eighteenth century as a way of pumping water out of mines; it remained nothing more than a pump for many years. Then it became a source of power for industry, then a source of power for transport, then a way to generate electricity. The first inventors never dreamed of such a breadth of application (or of electricity, for that matter). ...

Check your comprehension

~Has the laser reached the end of its development?

~If something follows a pattern, have similar events already happened?

~These inventors never dreamed the applications would be so wi de _ _ _ _ _ _ .