English for students of physics. Часть 1 (110

5.What is interference? In what conditions is it called constructive? When does destructive interference occur?

6.How are the terms “condensation”, “rarefaction”, “frequency”, “beats”, “amplitude”, “interference” connected?

7.What happens when two sound waves with different frequencies overlap? How do musicians know if their instruments are out of tune?

8.Explain the properties of sound for: A. A student in medicine: B. A radio journalist; C. A sound recording company assistant; D. A biologist studying the flight of a bat.

Unit IX. Infrasound at the Ghost-Busters' Service

I Put the paragraphs in the right order:

A. Infrasound is very surprising by itself. For many years seamen were pondering over the mystery of "flying Dutchmen", ships that wandered around the seas without crews on board. The ships were in good repair, but there were no people on board at all. Where have they gone? Well-known vessel Mary Celeste was the last of such ships; that was a wonderful schooner noticed by some other vessel in the ocean. When the vessel approached Mary Celeste and its seamen entered the schooner, they were astonished to find hot dinner and entries recently made by the captain in the ship journal. There were absolutely no people on board of Mary Celeste. They disappeared but no traces could be found. B. "Some invisible hand" might have been suggested as a probable explanation of the phenomenon by ordinary people but not by a scientist. That is why Vick Tandy suddenly arrived at a conclusion that the moving of the blade was resonance oscillations caused with sound waves. This is just exactly the same when we hear tea services clink in a buffet when music is thundering in the room. But in fact, it was actually very quiet in the laboratory. To be sure, Vick Tandy

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measured the sound in the laboratory with special apparatuses. He was surprised to see that the sound in the room was unimaginable; the sound waves were very low, although the scientist couldn't hear them. That was infrasound. It took the scientist a lot of time to find out the source of the infrasound; it was emitted by a recently set ventilator in the air conditioner. As soon as the air conditioner was switched off, the blade stopped vibrating. C. Soon Vick Tandy managed to discover the factors quite accidentally. Vick's hobby, fencing helped him with it. Some time after the scientist saw the "ghost" he brought his rapier to the laboratory to set it right before a forthcoming fencing tournament. Suddenly Vick felt the blade gripped in a vice started vibrating more and more as if some invisible hand touched it.

D.Computer specialist Vick Tandy from Coventry University always considered all legends about ghosts a nonsense and never took them seriously. Once he traditionally spent his evening working in a laboratory when he suddenly broke into a cold sweat. Vick felt somebody was watching him with sinister eyes. Then the sinister something assumed a gray material form, crossed the room and approached the scientist. In the vague outline Vick could discern legs, arms and fog where the figure must have a head; there was a dark spot in the center of the fog which might be a mouth. In an instance, the vision disappeared in the air without leaving a trace.

E.The mystery was unsolved for decades, until it became clear that infrasound was the explanation of the phenomenon. As it turned out, infrasound of seven hertz emitted by ocean waves under some definite conditions was the reason of it. But infrasound of seven hertz is terrible for people: they may go mad and throw themselves overboard to save their lives.

F.As soon as Vick Tandy recovered after the first fear and shock he started doing as a scientist: he started looking for the cause of the unusual phenomenon. Hallucinations might have been the easiest way to explain the phenomenon. On the other hand, Vick didn't use drugs, was moderate in drinking alcohol and

coffee. As for weird forces, the scientist strongly disregarded them. So, Vick

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Tandy decided to look for ordinary physical factors that might explain the phenomenon.

II Fill in the gaps in the extract below: natural, phenomena, frequency, air drag, question, resonating, measured, low.

Vick Tandy supposed that his night vision might be connected with infrasound as well. When he A._____ the infrasound in the laboratory, the showing was 18.98 hertz, just exactly the B. ______ under which a human eyeball starts C. _____. So, to all appearances sound waves made Vick Tandy's eyeballs resonate and produced an optical illusion: he saw a figure that didn't exist in fact. Further investigation of the phenomenon revealed that sound waves of this D._____ frequency may appear rather frequently under E.____ conditions. Infrasound arises when strong gusts of wind clash with chimneys or towers. These heavy basses penetrate even through very thick walls. Such sound waves start rumbling in tunnel-shaped corridors.

This is the reason why people often come across ghosts in long serpentine corridors of ancient castles looking like tunnels. Strong winds are quite typical of Great Britain.

Vick Tandy published the results of his research in the magazine of the Society of Physical Researches. The Society was formed in 1822 to unite British parapsychologists and naturalists; the Society is working to find reasonable explanations to paranormal phenomena. This is quite understandable that professional "ghost busters" got enthusiastic with Tandy's idea. Leading parapsychologists of Great Britain think this idea will help give explanations to many of mysterious D.______.

However, other scientists call the idea into E._____. Physicists studying effect of infrasound upon the human body say that volunteers participating in their experiments complain of weariness, high pressure in the eyes and in the

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ears, but never mention hallucinations or ghosts. At that, physicists say that drivers also have no optical illusions when cars overcome the F.____ at a really high speed and the level of infrasound waves is very high (Retrieved from: http://www.oocities.com/hauntpursuit/infrasound1.html).

III Vocabulary practice. Fill in the words from exercise II into the gaps below. Change the word forms if necessary.

-The satellite _______ atmospheric gases responsible for ozone

destruction.

-A baseball in flight is subject to ________, which impedes the its motion through the air.

-The vibrations of the gong ______ through the temple.

-Most ______ _______, such as rain, are relatively harmless so far as humans are concerned.

-For periodic waves, _______ has an inverse relationship to the concept of wavelength; simply, frequency is inversely proportional to wavelength λ.

IV Answer the questions:

1.How does infrasound affect the human body? Can you give any

examples?

2.How did the scientist come to his conclusion? What helped him to

make it?

3.According to the article, what is the explanation to the paranormal phenomena? Do you agree with it?

4.In what circumstances can infrasound occur?

V Speaking. You are Vic Tandy giving a report for the Society of Physical Researches. Your speech should be clear and convincing.

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Appendix I. Tasks for Video Lessons

Lead-in:

-What is a black hole? Why is it called so?

-Why do black holes arouse so much interest among cosmologists?

Supermassive Black Holes. Part I

I. Watch the episode. Make sure you can explain the following:

1.What the aim of cosmology is;

2.What a supermassive black hole is;

3.Why supermassive black holes are supposed to be so destructive;

4.What “singularity” means;

5.The difference between active and inactive galaxies;

6.What the term “quasar” means;

7.What kind of device a spectroscope is.

II. Watch the episode for the second time. Fill in the gaps:

-When the ________ was young there were no stars or planets, just the

________ _______ of ________ gas.

-We just don’t know how galaxies _______ out of the ________ hot gases that filled the Universe.

-A supermassive black hole is, quite simply, _______ gone mad, an object of such ______ _______, its ______ _______ is insatiable.

-These galaxies have a brilliant ________ _______ with vast _____ of

_________ spurting out of the centre.

-A giant black hole would have a _______ ______ so _________it would haul the galaxies around it at almost the _____of _____.

-The gas _______ against ________, essentially, and gets______

______, and ______ ______ gas shines _______.

-So, what you are looking for is the ________ of its ______.

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III. Answer the questions:

1.What is the reason why a quasar shines so brightly?

2.Why can’t one actually see a black hole?

3.Why did the scientists doubt the existence of black holes for decades?

4.What exactly has been found to prove their existence?

5.Why the results obtained with the help of the spectroscope proved to be so shocking?

6.What are the 2 states of a black hole?

7.What kind of information was obtained with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope?

8.In what way is the Keck Telescope in Hawaii more efficient than Hubble? What data have been collected with its help?

9.What was the basic question cosmologists were trying to answer?

IV. Speaking. Role-play an interview with an expert in galaxies and black holes. Ask the cosmologist about the properties of black holes, the forces that govern them, the related notions and the information provided by the current research.

V. Summarize the episode in 5 – 7 sentences. Make sure you produce only relevant information.

Supermassive Black Holes. Part II

I. Watch the second part of the film and decide whether the statements are true or false:

1.The black hole size and the galaxy size seem to be related.

2.There is no connection between the size of a black hole and the speed of stars at the edge of the galaxy.

3.Galaxies and their black holes could be linked from birth.

4.A black hole is only a destructive influence on its surroundings.

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5.Black holes can participate in star formation.

6.A black hole will never start feeding again.

7.The Andromeda is moving away from the Milky Way.

8.The black holes of the two galaxies will probably merge together.

II. Watch the second part again and fill in the gaps:

- When you are studying the object you know almost nothing about the

first thing you do is to find ________________.

-Every single black hole was exactly ___________ to the size of its

______.

-The first _______ came when a new instrument was added to the Hubble Space Telescope.

-There should be no ________ between the ________ and the

___________ at the edge of the galaxy.

-A ___________ started to emerge.

-The ________ were clearly related: the _____ the black hole, the ____

the speed of the stars at the edge of the galaxy.

-Supermassive black holes might even ______________ of the galaxies themselves.

-The black hole would immediately ____________ on the gas around it creating a brilliant ______.

-This would cause the gas around the black hole and its newly formed quazar to _______.

III. Explain the following: to be related to, the breakthrough, to accelerate, two competing researchers, to turn the world of cosmology on its head, fundamental, unaffected by smth, to emerge, to feed on the gas, to trigger the birth of the galaxy, a constituent, to underestimate, an emission, an impending collision, to merge together, a supernova.

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IV. Answer the questions:

1.What was the first regular pattern found by the scientists?

2.How are the size of the black hole and the galaxy size connected?

3.What is “sigma” (Σ)?

4.What is the connection between the size of the black hole and the speed of the stars at the edge of the galaxy?

5.How are black holes linked to the galaxies? What positive impact on their surroundings do they have?

6.Why do black holes stop feeding? How does it happen?

7.How far is the black hole in our galaxy?

8.In what circumstances can a black hole start feeding again?

9.What will happen to the Solar System in 3 billion years?

10.Does the information in the film differ somehow from the facts traditionally provided in students’ books, encyclopaedias and so on?

V. Speaking. A. You are making a science TV programme for teenagers.

- Tell them the history of the latest discoveries in cosmology connected with the existence of black holes in the Universe.

- Tell your listeners about the future that awaits the Solar System and the Earth in billions of years. You can use your background knowledge to give several scenarios of what might happen to our planet.

B. You are making a report about the role of black holes in galaxy formation. Tell your colleagues about the regular patterns observed by scientists, their speculations about how black holes might have been created in the distant past and what might happen to us in the future.

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Appendix II. Useful Vocabulary for Discussions and Debates

Group Discussion

1. Ordering points

Firstly,

To start with,

Secondly

Next

Then

Thirdly

Lastly

Finally

2. Giving examples

For example,

For instance,

And as proof of that,

Remember

You only have to think of X

3. Emphasising

Furthermore,

What's more,

This supports my argument that

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It follows, therefore, that

4. Putting it in other words

In other words,

That is to say,

To put it another way,

The point I'm making is

What I'm suggesting is ...,

Let me put it another way

5. Interrupting

If I could just come in here.

Sorry to interrupt, but ...

I'd just like to say that ...

6. Getting clarification

I didn't understand what you said about ...

I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you said about ...

I'm sorry, could you repeat what you said about ...

What does X mean?

I'm not sure what you mean.

I don't see what you mean.

Could we come back to that?

Sorry, but I'm not quite clear on X

I'd like to ask you about

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