Baриант 7

1. Переведите тексты на русский язык.

What Is Gravity, Really?

Gravity is our oldest and most familiar enemy, the force we feel in our bones, the force that will eventually bury us, pulling us down, but for all its intimacy, it is a mystery. What really is the law?

For most of us it is the one that Isaac Newton proclaimed in 1687 as the rule of the cosmos. It described how (but not why) two objects attract each other with a force proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them. But it has been rewritten and physicists expect it will be rewritten again.

Newton’s gravity was replaced by Einstein’s general theory. General relativity predicted the bending of light, the expansion of the universe and black holes. It has served as the foundation for modern cosmology but theorists have never presumed that it would be the last word on gravity.

For one thing, it is mathematically incompatible with the quantum laws that govern subatomic particles. In order to describe what happens at very small distances or very high energies, general relativity has to be merged with quantum theory, a project that has engrossed the present generation of physicists.

But recently some experts say it’s time to rewrite Einstein’s version of the law. The motivation comes from the predominance of what is sometimes called “the dark sector” in the universe.

Ordinary atoms make up only 5 per cent of the “stuff” of the cosmos. Some kind of mysterious dark matter, perhaps consisting of elementary particles left over from the Big Bang, makes up to 25 per cent, while the rest 70 % consists of something even more mysterious, known as “dark energy”.

Obviously a theory that leaves 95 % of the universe unexplained is less than a complete triumph.

Neither dark energy nor dark matter has been observed or detected directly. Each has been inferred from its gravitational effects on the tiny fraction of stuff we can see. As a result, some scientists suggest that what astronomers have found in the last 20 years is their own ignorance of gravity.

The simplest explanation for dark energy is something called the cosmological constant, first invented by Einstein, a cosmic repulsion caused by the energy residing in empty space. But attempts to calculate this energy have resulted in numbers 10 bigger than what astronomers have measured – so large that the universe would have blown apart before atoms of galaxies could have formed.

As a result of all this, physics literature has become peppered with suggestions of ways to change gravity. Three years ago during cosmology workshop at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, California, 20 of the 44 participants voted for some variation of “Einstein was wrong”.

Some of these proposals take their cue from the science-fiction-sounding string theory, the putative theory of everything, which holds out the possibility that our universe might be a 4-dimensional membrane (or “brane”) in an 11-dimensional space.

According to another theory the universe accelerates as a result of other branes tugging on our own. “One can get an accelerating universe without any dark energy,” Dr. Freese said.

Other theorists are going back and modifying general relativity directly, noting that when he wrote it down Einstein chose the simplest possible equations. But more complicated equations might be necessary. That was the approach taken by Dr. Turner and his colleagues. The result was a universe that would speed up as it got bigger and emptier. That might sound crazy, Dr. Turner said, but not any crazier than the idea 80 years ago that the universe would be expanding.

Something funny is going on when the universe gets to be 10 billion years old and none of our current ideas is declaring itself to be the right answer.

Do Paranormal Phenomena Exist?

Just mention ghosts, mind reading, bending of spoons through thought or other mysteries, and most scientists will say there are no such things.

About half of Americans believe in paranormal phenomena. For some reason, a lot of people want it to be so. But what to make of researchers at an institute set up by the Iowa-based Maharishi meditation movement who publish scientific papers?

The few scientists working on paranormal research often on their own dime feel they are following the rules of science excluded from the playing field.

“There’s really strong pressure not to allow these things to be talked about in a positive way,” said Dr. Brian D. Josephson, professor of physics at Cambridge University who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics for a fundamental discovery in superconductivity, and now heads the Mind-Matter Unification Project at Cambridge.

For example, studies indicating that prayer lengthens lives, even when patients don’t know that someone is praying for them, do not sway the skeptics. As Dr. Hines, a professor of psychology at Pace University in Pleasantville, N.Y., said, the prayer studies he had seen were poorly designed. A newer, larger study reported that prayer by strangers provided no benefits to patients undergoing heart surgery.

The data claiming to demonstrate paranormal events always stay at the very edge of perceptibility. As scientists learn more about a phenomenon, they can often refine their experiments to highlight the new effects. Despite years of work, that has not occurred with the paranormal research, though. Perhaps the biggest reason most scientists dismiss paranormal research is that no one has a good suggestion for how the mind could interact with the physical world.

2. Переведите следующие словосочетания на русский язык:

1. inversely proportional; 6. ignorance of gravity;

2. expansion of the universe; 7. the simplest explanation;

3. the dark sector; 8. energy residing in energy

space;

4 the Big Bang; 9. cosmology workshop;

5. tiny fraction; 10. science-fiction-sounding

3. Найдите в тексте эквиваленты следующих словосочетаний:

1. простейшие уравнения; 6. паранормальные

явления;

2. сильное давление; 7. предполагаемая теория;

3. основополагающее открытие; 8. ускоряющаяся

вселенная;

4. повлиять на скептиков; 9. предположения на

данный момент;

5. не приносить никакой пользы; 10. расширение вселенной

4. Найдите в тексте однокоренные слова, определите, к какой части речи они относятся, и переведите их на русский язык:

1. proportion; 6. simple;

2. found; 7. suggest;

3. atomic; 8. dimension;

4. mystery; 9. motivate;

5. direct; 10. written

5. Задайте к предложению все типы вопросов: общий, альтернативный, специальный (а) к подлежащему, б) к второстепенному члену предложения), разделительный:

General relativity predicted the bending of light, the expansion of the universe and black holes.

6. Найдите и выпишите из данных предложений случаи следующих грамматических явлений: группа времен Indefinite в действительном и страдательном залогах, модальные глаголы и их эквиваленты, степени сравнения прилагательных, притяжательный падеж и множественное число имени существительного:

1. Newton’s gravity was replaced by Einstein’s general theory.

2. Obviously a theory that leaves 95 % of the universe unexplained is less than a complete triumph.

3. When Einstein wrote down his general theory he chose the simplest possible equations.

4. A newer, larger study reported that prayer by strangers provided no benefits to patients undergoing heart surgery.

5. As scientists learn more about a phenomenon, they can often refine their requirements to highlight the new effects.