Wonders of the modern world

I don't believe that today's wonders are similar in kind to the wonders of the Ancient World. They were all buildings, such as the Pyramids in Egypt, or other architectural structures. Over the past 100 years, we have seen amazing technological and scientific achievements. These are surely our modern wonders.

It is everywhere. More than half a billion people use it, and the number of people who are online increases by 100 million every year. In 1994 there were only a few hundred web pages. Today there are billions.

It has revolutionized the way we live and work. But we are still in the early days. Soon there will be more and more interactivity between the user and the website, and we will be able to give instructions using speech.

In 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped out of his space capsule onto the surface of the moon and made his famous statement: 'That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind'. Since then, there have been space probes to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and even to the sun. One day, a space observatory will study how the first stars and galaxies began.

So far, it seems that we are alone in the universe. There are no signs yet that there is intelligent life outside our own solar system. But who knows what the future holds?

Surely nothing has done more for the comfort and happiness of the human race than the advances in health care! How many millions of people have benefited from the humble aspirin? How many lives has penicillin saved? Average life expectancy worldwide has risen dramatically over the past 100 years, from about 47 years in 1900 to about 77 years today.

We are a world on the move. Airlines carry more than 1.5 billion people to their destinations every year. It is estimated that, at any one time these days, there are as many people travelling in aeroplanes as the total number of people who travelled abroad in the whole of the nineteenth century (but I have no idea how they worked this out!).

It is true that they are now commercialized, and there is greed and drug abuse. However, it is a competition in which almost every country in the world takes part. Every four years, for a brief moment, we see the world come together in peace and friendship. We feel hope again for the future of mankind.

In 1724, Jonathan Swift wrote, ‘Whoever makes two blades of grass or two ears of corn grow where only one grew before serves mankind better than the whole race of politicians’. In Europe our farmers have done this. In 1709, whole villages in France died of hunger. Now in Europe, we can’t eat all the food we produce. If only politicians could find a way to share it with those arts of the world where there is famine.

We are still here!

The last wonder of the modern world is simply that we are still here. We have had nucklear weapons for over 50 years that could destroy the world, but we haven’t used them to do it. This is surely the greatest wonder of all.

Текст № 2

MIKHAIL LOMONOSOV

“Lomonosov was a great man.

He founded our first university.

To be more exact, he himself

was our first university”.

A. S. Pushkin

The great scientist and poet, M. Lomonosov, began his working life when he was still a boy The son of a fisherman, he often went with his father to the White Sea and to the Arctic Ocean and learned much about nature and about the life of his country. He did not go to school, but he learned to read at an early age and soon knew by heart¹ the few books that he had.

At the age of 19 he left his home and went on foot² to Moscow, where he entered the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy. There was no other higher school in Moscow at that time. His first years of study were difficult, but he worked hard³ and made great progress. He continued his studies in Petersburg and later on in foreign countries.

When Lomonosov came back, he taught chemistry and other subjects at the Academy of Sciences. He founded the first chemical laboratory in Russia, and made in it over 4,000 (four thousand) experiments on the production of stained glass He formulated the main principles of one of the basic laws of physics ‑ the law of conservation of matter and motion. He also made a number of⁴ experiments with atmospheric electricity and gave much time to⁵ the study of the natural resources of the earth and ocean.

Lomonosov wrote poetry that had a great effect on the development of the Russian literary language He also wrote the first Russian grammar He translated a course in physics from German into Russian and introduced into the Russia scientific language such terms as thermometer, formula atmosphere and some others.

He devoted his whole life to the development of Russia science, and all that he did, he did for his people and for his country.

Notes

1. to know by heart ‑ знать на память

2. to go on foot ‑ идти пешком

3. to work hard ‑ упорно работать

4. a number of ‑ ряд

5. to give much time to ‑ уделять много времени

Текст № 3

Date: 2016-07-18; view: 822; Нарушение авторских прав