Antoine Laurent Lavoisier

1. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794), the son of a wealthy Parisian lawyer, pursued the family tradition and received his licence to practice law in 1764. But within two years he was drawn back to his desire to learn more about science, an interest first experienced during his earlier education in maths, astronomy, chemistry, and botany.

2. By 1772 he'd disproven several of ancient Greek principles about earth, air, fire, and water, and developed a reputation for exact quantitative procedures and brilliant experiments. He expanded the list of known elements to thirty-three, although some were erroneous. From 1776 to 1782, Lavoisier conducted experiments in which he isolated oxygen in air and furthered Priestley's work on oxygen's role in combustion and respiration. In a 1783 paper titled On the Nature of Water and on Experiments that Appear to Prove that this Substance is not Properly Speaking an Element, but Can Be Decomposed and Recombined Lavoisier reported to the French Academy of Sciences that water was the product of combining hydrogen and oxygen. In a subsequent paper delivered to the Academy, Lavoisier presented a logical analysis about the substance that we now call oxygen. Through Lavoisier's sensitive balance instrument, keen insight, and inductive reasoning, he vanquished the Greek concept of earth, air, fire, and water, once and for all. For this and other work, he is now considered the father of modern chemistry.

3. Lavoisier had been active in political affairs for his entire adult life, and devoted much of his career to public service, including positions in the French government from 1768 to 1790 in the areas of economics, agriculture, education and social welfare. In the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789, despite his many contributions as a reformer and political liberal and despite his participation in the Revolution, he came under attack because of his status as a wealthy member of the French aristocracy, but primarily because of a position he had held in 1768 in the Ferme-Generale, the country's tax collecting agency. When the Reign of Terror commenced in 1793, resulting in the suppression of the French Academy of Sciences and other learned societies, Lavoisier was arrested. On May 8, 1794, after a one-day trial, the prospects of Lavoisier's further contributions to science and rational thought were prematurely held at the age of 50 at Place de la Concorde in Paris, as his great mind fell into the blood-soaked basket at the foot of the guillotine along with twenty-seven former members of the Ferme-Generale.

V. Ответьте на вопросы к тексту

1. What family was Lavoisier from?

2. What principles did Lavoisier disprove?

3. What did Lavoisier report in his paper titled On the Nature of Water and on Experiments that Appear to Prove that this Substance is not Properly Speaking an Element, but Can Be Decomposed and Recombined?

4. What do you know about Lavoisier’s political career?

5. What did Lavoisier discover?

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ВАРИАНТ II

I. Перепишите следующие предложения, подчеркните в каждом из них глагол-сказуемое и определите его видовременную форму и залог. Переведите предложения, обращая внимание на пассивные конструкции

1. When an airplane moves through the atmosphere, the air resists its movement.

2. The work was going on according to the schedule.

3. The radio signals were reflected from the surface of Venus and came back to the Earth.

4. The development of automated control systems will be accompanied by mechanization and automation of the key production processes.

II. Перепишите следующие предложения, подчеркните Participle I и Participle II и укажите, являются ли они определением, обстоятельством или частью глагола-сказуемого. Переведите предложения

1. The metric or decimal system is the international system of measures and weights based on the meter and the kilogramme.

2. It is true that the practice of alchemy was accompanied by much deceit but there were serious workers engaged in the search.

3. A platinum cylinder known as the kilogramme was declared to be the standard for 1000 grammes.

4. When studying elements Mendeleyev found that they could be divided into nine groups.

III. Перепишите следующие предложения, подчеркните в каждом из них модальный глагол или его эквиваленты. Переведите предложения

1. As Mme. Curie had examined every known chemical element and none of them had emitted such powerful rays as pitchblende she could only decide that this mineral must contain some new element.

2. In any event, who could dare say that this search for health and prosperity was unworthy in itself?

3. This metal is to be found in nature in a free state.

4. Mme. Curie had to use an old store-room at the University as her laboratory − she was refused a better room.

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