The Mayor, the Virgin, and the Elephant Dung by Ian Cooper
Picture the following. You approach a transparent box which contains a reddish-black sculpture – the bust of a man, smiling enigmatically. You discover that the artist, Marc Quinn, drained pints of his own blood for months and, in a complex process, froze it and sculped it into a likeness of himself. The fragile resulting work, “Self”, would cease to exist were it to thaw. Furthermore, the blood cells which make it up are actually still alive. Now, do you find this repulsive, fascinating, or both? Does it make you ponder, what is art? Or do you feel that such questions are so dangerous that you should be protected even from asking them?
This is one of the works in a show which the mayor of New York is trying to shut down. Rudy Giuliani swears that he will cut off city funding for the Brooklyn Museum of Art if it follows through with the opening this Saturday of “Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection.” The mayor calls the entire show, “sick stuff,” and takes particular offense at one painting, “The Holy Virgin Mary,” adorned with clumps of elephant dung. He said, “You don’t have a right to government subsidy for desecrating somebody else’s religion.”
(The artist, Chris Ofili, is himself a Catholic, and the dung is a reference to his African roots. But never mind.) The museum is taking the city to court to win back its money and its first amendment rights.
The dung doesn’t smell, by the way. But the affair does reek of politics. Giuliani the undeclared Senate candidate and proud philistine is pandering to social conservatives in general and Catholics in particular. (I am surprised, incidentally, that Giuliani has not made the ingenious argument that the artists, being British, have no constitutional right to free expression in the U.S.) His foe Hillary Clinton, cravenly following other New York Democrats, agrees that the show is “deeply offensive” and that she herself would not go see it, but lamely maintains that shutting the museum is the “wrong response.” The implication is that any art which is sensational must necessarily be bad.
But just as what makes art “great” is a matter of subjective judgment, so it is with what makes art “shocking”. In London, where the show originated, the most controversial work was a gigantic portrait based on the famous mug shot of the child murderer, Myra Hindley; a vandal pelted it with eggs and ink, thinking it glorified her crimes. (It was painted not with brushes, but with casts made from the hands of children.) In that case, the work would be meaningless without the shock value of the image; the controversy, far from being irrelevant, is an integral part of the work.
On the other hand, the – unremarkable and easily missed – Virgin Mary painting was not at all scandalous in London. (Of course, what could a vandal throw at a work that already has dung on it?) Its scandalousness is a product of the political requirements of the willfully ignorant mayor, who seems to conflate all Catholic experience with that of white Catholic New Yorkers.
Some of the works in the show are not scandalous at all, but just really cool: a painting which covers an entire canvas with the single stroke of a gigantic paintbrush; a sculpture which is a breathtakingly realistic reproduction, in miniature, of the artist’s dead father; and a work made up of one hundred luminous resin sculptures which exactly represent the spaces beneath one hundred chairs. Others are intentionally shocking but utterly pointless: the spectacularly narcissistic, “Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995,” which is a tent embroidered with the names of the artist’s bedmates over the years; and sculptures of mutant children with multiple genitals growing out of their heads. (This latter work – surely the most objectively offensive in the show – has curiously not been mentioned by the mayor.)
I’m not an art critic, but part of what is great about “Sensation” is that you don’t have special expertise to appreciate it. It is the work of a group of artists, many of whom went to art school together, who managed to find new things to say and do when it seemed like everything possible had already been said and done. In the process, they have actually made art hip, brought it to a wider audience, and more generally contributed to the revival of “swinging London.” (Many of these artists are household names in Britain; how many American artists still alive, let alone under forty, can you say that about?) Some of it is wonderful, some is mediocre, and some is – as the Brits would say – crap. The fun is sorting out which is which. Unless, of course, Giulini gets his way and you will never have the discomfort of deciding for yourself.
C
Two farmhands went to a country dance. One of the hands, Joe, had a wooden eye and was very self-conscious about it. Joe told the other guy, Bill, that he was worried about someone saying something about his wooden eye. Bill told him not to worry because it was a good eye and most people couldn’t tell if from a real eye.
Bill danced nearly every dance, as there was a lot of farm-girls there. Joe just didn’t dance at all. Finally, Bill went over to Joe and asked if he had danced with any of the girls. Joe told him that he had not because he was concerned about them saying something about his wooden eye. Bill told him again not to be concerned about it. Bill pointed to a girl sitting across the room and told Joe, “See that good-looking girl over there? She’s got a hair-lip and hasn’t danced but once or twice. I danced with her once and she’s an excellent dancer and real polite. Go over there and ask her to dance. She won’t say anything about your wooden eye.”
So Joe had a couple of more snorts of courage and went over to the hair-lipped girl and asked, “Do you want to dance?” To which she replied in a high pitched hair-lipped voice, “Would I, Would I!!!” To which Joe replied, “Hair-lip, Hair-lip!!!”
The Judge said to the defendant, “I thought I told you I never wanted to see you in here again.”
“Your Honor,” the criminal said, “that’s what I tried to tell the police, but they wouldn’t listen.”
My wife and I have the secret to making a marriage last. Two times a week, we go to a nice restaurant, a little wine, good food… She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.
TELL ME WHAT IT IS
Arnold Schwartzeneggar has a big one,
Michael J. Fox has a small one,
Madonna doesn’t have one,
The Pope has one but doesn’t use it,
Clinton uses his all the time,
Mickey Mouse has an unusual one,
Liberace didn’t use his with women,
Jerry Seinfeld is very proud of his,
We never saw Lucy use Desi’s What is it?
A last name
LOST CHPTERS IN GENESIS
Adam was walking around the Garden of Eden feeling
Very lonely,
So God asked him, “What is wrong with you?”
Adam said he didn’t have anyone to talk to.
God said that He was going to make Adam a companion
And that it would be a woman.
He said, “This person will gather food for you, cook for you, and
When you discover clothing she’ll wash it for you.
She will always agree with every decision you make.
She will bear your children and never ask you to get up
In the middle of the night to take care of them.
She will not nag you and will always be the first to admit
She was wrong when you’ve had a disagreement.
She will never have a headache and will freely give you
Love and passion whenever you need it.
Adam asked God, “What will a woman like this cost?”
God replied, “An arm and a leg.”
Then Adam asked, “What can I get for a rib?”
The rest is history…
GREETING CARD VERSES THAT DIDN’T QUITE MAKE IT
My tire was thumping…
Thought it was flat…
When I looked at the tire…
I noticed your cat… Sorry
You had your bladder removed
And you’re on the mends…
Here’s a bouquet of flowers
And a box of Depends
Heard your wife left you…
How upset you must be…
But don’t fret about it…
She moved in with me
You totaled your car…
And can’t remember why…
Could it have been…
That case of Bud Dry?
True stories from Technical Support
At 3:37 a.m. on a Sunday, when I received a frantic phone call from a new user of a Macintosh Plus. She had gotten he entire family out of the house and was calling from her neighbor’s. She had just received her first system error and interpreted the picture of the bomb on the screen as a warning that the computer was going to blow up.
Tech Support: “I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop.”
Customer: “Ok.”
Tech Support: “Did you get a pop-up menu?”
Customer: “No.”
Tech Support: “Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?”
Customer: “No.”
Tech Support: “Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?”
Customer: “Sure, you told me to write ‘click’ and I wrote ‘click.’”
(At this point I had to put the caller on hold to tell the rest of the tech support staff what had happened. I couldn’t, however, stop from giggling when I got back to the call.)
Tech Support: “Ok, did you type ‘click’ with the keyboard?”
Customer: “I have done something dumb, right?”
One woman called Dell’s toll-free line to ask how to install the batteries in her laptop. When told that the directions were on the first page of the manual the woman replied angrily, “I just paid $2,000 for this thing, and I’m not going to read the book.”
Customer: “I’m having trouble installing Microsoft Word.”
Tech Support: “Tell me what you’ve done.”
Customer: “I typed ‘A:SETUP’.”
Tech Support: “Ma’am, remove the disk and tell me what it says.”
Customer: “It says ‘[PC manufacturer] Restore and Recovery disk.”
Tech Support: “Insert the MS Word setup disk.”
Customer: “What?”
Tech Support: “Did you buy MS word?”
Customer: “No…”
Tech Support: “Ok, in the bottom left hand side of the screen, can you see the ‘OK’ button displayed?”
Customer: “Wow. How can you see my screen from there?”
Customer: “Uhh… I need help unpacking my new PC.”
Tech Support: “What exactly is the problem?”
Customer: “I can’t open the box.”
Tech Support: “Well, I ‘d remove the tape holding the box closed and go from there.”
Customer: “Uhhhh… ok, thanks….”
- Customer: “I’m having a problem installing your software. When I type ‘INSTALL’, all it says is ‘Bad command or file name’.”
- Tech Support: “Ok, check the directory of the A: drive-go to A:/ and type ‘dir’.”
- Customer: reads off a list of file names, including ‘INSTALL.EXE’.
- Tech Support: “All right, the correct file is there. Type ‘INSTALL’ again.”
- Customer: “Ok.” (pause) “Still says ‘Bad command or file name’.”
- Tech Support: “Hmmm. The file’s there in the correct place – it can’t help but do something. Are you sure you’re typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the Enter key?”
- Customer: “Yes, let me try it again.” (pause) “Nope, still ‘Bad command or file name’.”
- Tech Support: (now really confused) “Are you sure you’re typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the key that says ‘Enter’?”
- Customer: “Well, yeah. Although my ‘N’ key is stuck, so I’m using the ‘M’ key…does that matter?
At our company we have asset numbers on the front of everything. They give the location, name, and everything else just by scanning the computer’s asset barcode or using the number beneath the bars.
- Customer: “Hello. I can’t get on the network.”
- Tech Support: “Ok. Just read me your asset number so we can open an outage.”
- Customer: “What is that?”
- Tech Support: “That little barcode on the front of your computer.”
- Customer: “Ok. Big bar, little bar, big bar, big bar…”
_________________________________________________
- Customer: “I got this problem. Your people sent me this install disk, and now my A: drive won’t work.”
- Tech Support: “Your A drive won’t work?”
- Customer: “That’s what I said. You sent me a bad disk, it got stuck in my drive, now it won’t work at all.”
- Tech Support: “Did it not install properly? What kind of error messages did you get?”
- Customer: “I didn’t get any error message. The disk got stuck in the drive and wouldn’t come out. So I got these pliers and tried to get it out. That didn’t work either.”
- Tech Support: “You did what sir?”
- Customer: “I got these pliers, and tried to get the disk out, but it woudn’t budge. I just ended up cracking the plastic stuff a bit.”
- Tech Support: “I don’t understand sir, did you push the eject button?”
- Customer: “No, so then I got a stick of butter and melted it and used a turkey baster and put the butter in the drive, around the disk, and that got it loose. Then I sued the pliers and it came out fine. I can’t believe you would send me a disk that was broke and defective.”
- Tech Support: “Let me get this clear. You put melted butter in you’re A: drive and used pliers to pull the disk out?” At this point, I put the call on the speakerphone and motioned at the other techs to listen in.
- Tech Support: “Just so I am absolutely clear on this, can you repeat what you just said?”
- Customer: “I said I put butter in my A: drive to get your dumb disk out, then I had to use pliers to pull it out.”
- Tech Support: “Did you push that little button that was sticking out when the disk was in the drive, you know, the thing called the disk eject button?”
Silence.
- Tech Support: “Sir?”
- Customer: “Yes.”
- Tech Support: “Sir, did you push the eject button?”
- Customer: “No, but your people are going to fix my computer, or I am going to sue you for breaking my computer”
- Tech Support: “Let me get this straight. You are going to sue our company because you put the disk in the A: drive, didn’t follow the instructions we sent you, didn’t actually seek professional advice, didn’t consult your user’s manual on how to use your computer properly, instead proceeding to pour butter into the drive and physically rip the disk out?”
- Customer: “Ummmm.”
- Tech Support: “Do you really think you stand a chance, since we do record every call and have it on tape?”
- Customer: “But you’re supposed to help!”
- Tech Support: “I am sorry sir, but there is nothing we can do for you. Have a nice day.”
______________________________________________
Think to go Hmmmm… about
It’s a dog eat dog world out there. And they’re short on napkins.
Never trust a stockbroker who’s married to a travel agent.
On the other hand, you have different fingers.
Married people don’t live longer than single people.
It just seems longer.
Disneyland: A people trap operated by a mouse.
Common Sense Isn’t.
Sooner or later, EVERYONE stops smoking.
Light travels faster than sound.
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
The best way to save face is to keep the lower part shut.
ИЗМЕНЕНИЕ ЗНАЧЕНИЯ СЛОВ
Следующие слова имеют важные для перевода особенности: не изменяя своей формы, они могут выполнять функции прилагательного и наречия.
Принимая же суффикс наречия –ly, они приобретают новый смысл.
Hard
a) прилагательное трудный, тяжелый, твердый:
The operation was very hard, but successful. – Операция была очень трудной, но успешной.
б) наречие с трудом, усиленно, тяжело:
They worked hard and achieved good results. – Они усиленно работали и добились хороших результатов.
в) наречие hardly едва, едва ли, с трудом:
They can hardly do it without our help. – Они едва ли могли сделать это без нашей помощи.
Near
a) прилагательное близкий:
I should like to have a near translation of Byron’s poems. – Мне бы хотелось иметь точный (близкий) перевод поэм Байрона.
б) наречие близко:
We came quite near to the solution of the problem. – Мы подошли очень близко к решению этой проблемы.
в) наречие nearly почти, приблизительно, близко:
The masses of a proton and a neutron are nearly equal. – Массы протона и нейтрона почти равны.
High
a) прилагательное высокий:
Multi-storyed buildings are very high. – Многоэтажные дома очень высоки.
б) наречие высоко:
Jet planes fly high up in the sky. – Реактивные самолеты летают высоко в небе.
в) наречие highlyвесьма, очень:
It is a highly interesting book. – Это весьма интересная книга.
Late
a) прилагательное поздний:
His late arrival caused much inconvenience. – Его позднее прибытие вызвало большие затруднения.
б) наречие поздно:
The catalyst was added too late. – Катализатор был добавлен слишком поздно.
в) наречие lately недавно, за последнее время:
A balloon has lately been reported above this point. – Над этим пунктом недавно был замечен воздушный шар.
Short
a) прилагательное короткий:
The distance to this point is very short. – Расстояние до этого пункта очень невелико.
б) наречие резко, круто, внезапно:
The motor car stopped short. – Автомобиль внезапно остановился.
в) наречие shortly вскоре:
The ship will shortly arrive. – Корабль вскоре придет.
Два следующих прилагательных – large и ready в функции наречия с суффиксом –ly меняют свое основное значение.
Large
a) прилагательное большой, обширный:
The entrance halls of the Petersburg Metro are large and beautiful. – Вестибюли Петербургского метро просторны и красивы.
б) наречие largely главным образом, в значительной степени:
In electrical engineering rubber is used largely as the insulating material. – В радиотехнике резина применяется главным образом как изоляционный материал.
Ready
a) прилагательное готовый:
He is always ready to help his friends. – Он всегда готов помочь своим друзьям.
б) наречие readily легко, без труда:
Charcoal readily absorbs many gases. – Древесный уголь легко абсорбирует многие газы.
УПРАЖНЕНИЕ
Переведите следующие предложения:
А
1. To liberate oxygen from a compound is a very hard task. 2. When steam is superheated, hardly a trace of decomposition occurs. 3. Water contains nearly 90 per cent of oxygen. 4. Benzine is a highly inflammable liquid. 5. Radio signals are sent in short bursts. 6. The interest in ammonia centers largely in the use of liquefied ammonia for refrigeration. 7. Mercuric oxide readily decomposes at high temperature. 8. A new large plant has lately been constructed near Kiev. 9. By the 15th of January the Leningrad Metro was ready to receive the first passengers. 10. New coal deposits have been found near Moscow. 11. Everest is the highest mountain of Himalayas. 12. The plane flew so high that we nearly lost sight of it. 13. The late arrival of the ship was due to the bad weather. 14. He came too late to take part in the experiment. 15. The engine stopped short. 16. The expedition is shortly leaving for the North Pole.
B
1. The Curies had worked very hard before they could obtain a trace of radium. 2. A hard steel bar can be easily magnetized. 3. This substance is hardly soluble in water. 4. The warship fired, but it was a near miss. 5. The region of influence of magnetic forces near a magnet is called a magnetic field. 6. The volume of a solid or a liquid body is nearly independent of external pressure. 7. A high mast is required to support the television antenna. 8. The flag was fixed high on the building. 9. Ether is a highly volatile liquid. 10. I listened to the latest news. 11. Several expeditions were sent to help Sedov, but it was too late; he had already died. 12. A number of new isotopes have lately been discovered by our scientists. 13. Short waves are widely used in radio-communication. 14. The ship got fire and stopped short. 15. One of the main parts of the cyclotron is a large, powerful magnet. 16. We use short radio waves largely for long-distance communication. 17. The velocity of the sound can be readily measured.
C
CONFERENCE ON METEORITES
An All-Union conference devoted to problems of meteorites has been lately held in Moscow.
So far meteorites are the only bodies of celestial origin that can be readily subjected to immediate laboratory study. Comprehensive meteorite study is highly important for the solution of the problem of the origin of planets, including the earth.
What was the origin of the meteorites? What was their development in time? We seem to be near to the solution of such problems, but the final answer to these questions can hardly be given at present. It is therefore natural that the discussion was centered largely on the origin of meteorites and their role in solar system.
One of the scientists delivered a short report on the origin of chondrules, curious rounded bodies making the bulk of large stone meteorites. He advanced a new hypothesis on the origin of chondrules; they could hardly originate as a result of the disruption of celestial bodies, but are rather themselves the “dust” mass that makes up the protoplanetary cloud, which gives birth to asteroids.
A geochemist from Leningrad presented highly interesting data on meteorites. His research work was based largely on investigating rocks with the help of radioactive isotopes, a method lately developed in Russia.
A member of the Commission on Interplanetary communication told the Conference about precise calculations of the effect of meteorite collision against the hard surface of other planets when traveling at a high speed of several miles per second.
New, highly effective instruments will shortly be ready for use in the man-made earth satellite. They will detect the contact of hard meteoric dust flying near the atmospheric layer and penetrating to our planet from the cosmic space.
Practicum
A
SUPERSYMMETRY IN ATOMIC NUCLEI. A new experiment provides solid evidence that fermions (objects with half-integral spin) are both governed by the same nuclear physics laws. (The operative term for this egalitarianism, supersymmetry, should not be confused with a similar word used in particle physics to denote the equivalence of fundamental bosons and fermions such as photons and quarks, and of all the physical forces, at energies approaching 10 19 GeV.) The nuclear shell model, dating from 1948, attempts to describe the nucleons (protons and neutrons) in an atomic nucleus as sorting themselves into shells much as electrons do in the atom as a whole. A further innovation in nuclear theory, the interacting boson model (c 1917), holds that nucleons can even pair up within their shells, protons with protons and neutrons with neutrons. Individual nucleons are fermions but nucleon pairs are effectively bosons and as such are immune from Pauli’s exclusion principle. This allows the pairs to fall into a sort of ground state, leaving only the outermost nucleons to determine the nature of the nucleus’s energy level diagram (again analogous to an element’s chemistry being determined mostly by its outermost “valence” electrons). In atomic energy diagrams the levels are separated by, at most, electron volts; in nuclear diagrams the levels are typically separated by 100 keV or so. Studying these diagrams involves shooting beams (often of protons or deuterons) into a sample, in which nuclei can be promoted into a variety of excited states, and then detecting the telltale particles and high-energy photons (gammas) that come out. Nuclei that have an even number of protons and an even number of neutrons possess perhaps a dozen excited energy levels below energy of 2 MeV, and are relatively easy to probe experimentally. Pt-194 is an example. When the target nucleus has an odd number of either protons (e.g., Au-195) or neutrons (e.g., Pt-195), the number of low-energy excited states might be 20, making it harder to predict an energy diagram. Extending the interacting boson model further to nuclei with an odd number of both protons and neutrons (a nucleus which would consist, in effect, of many bosons and at least two unpaired fermions) entails another level of difficulty.
Harder still is experimentally mapping the energy level diagram for such a nucleus since it would have one hundred or more low-lying excited states. Nevertheless, an intrepid Swiss-German collaboration has now done exactly this for Au-196, a nucleus with 79 protons and 117 neutrons. Using high-resolution detectors they were able to sort through the complex energy-level terrain of Au-196, as well as those for the other three nuclei mentioned above, with results very close to theoretical predictions, demonstrating thereby that a single set of equations could indeed account for nuclei with all the different combinations of even or odd number of neutrons and protons. This is evidence for supersymmetry in nuclei: nuclear forces seem to treat fermions and bosons equivalently, at least for these four nuclei. According to Richard Casten of Yale, who is not a team member, this new research represents an important step forward in applying the interacting boson model.
FACULTY POSITIONS FOR WOMEN are increasing slowly in number at US university physics departments. A new AIP report (1997-1998 Academic Workforce Report) shows that in the recent half decade (from 1994 to 1998) the percentage of full professors who are women stayed the same (3%) but the percentage of women associate professors increased from 8 to 10% and assistant professors increased from 12 to 17%. Where do these new slots come from? Partly from a very modest increase (2%) in the overall size of the faculty and partly through retirement, which for several years has held steady at a rate of 2% (43% of these came as a result of retirement incentives).
B
Mr. Manners’ Guide to Foreign Policy
We’ve all experienced the following excruciating scenario. You’re having dinner with a couple whose relationship is rocky. But instead of pretending to get along, the two of them are constantly snipping, making mean-spirited digs at one another. She makes fun of his haircut, and invites you to share in the joke; he complains that her paella is too salty, and looks to you for support. They want you to take sides, but you just feel a sour disdain for them both. They’ve broken the cardinal rule of entertaining: don’t air your dirty laundry in polite company.
Coincidentally, that is also the cardinal rule of international diplomacy. Whatever domestic squabbles there may be, a nation should speak with one voice in foreign affairs. Politics stops at the water’s edge, as the saying goes.
This rule was broken flagrantly last week when the Republican majority in the United States Senate voted to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which President Clinton had ardently wanted to pass. The treaty would have imposed a worldwide ban upon nuclear tests, to be verified by a global network of sensors and inspections. This was the first major international accord to be rejected by the Senate since the Treaty of Versailles in 1920.
In the American media, the Test Ban Treaty was portrayed as something about which reasonable people could disagree. In the rest of the world, however, there is no disagreement: all reasonable people think the Senate’s decision was, frankly, insane. (Likewise, the unreasonable people around the world were relieved that they could continue testing nuclear bombs.) The rejection is mystifying because the treaty would have guaranteed America’s global nuclear dominance – something the Republicans surely favour. So what happened?
The blame may be placed not just on personalities, but on institutions. It is partly the result of America’s peculiar constitutional system of separated powers, which entrusts the Executive branch with foreign policy, but then gives the Legislative branch the responsibility for ratifying treaties, approving ambassadors, declaring war, and dispensing money.
Even in the best circumstances, this separation makes them a strange couple to socialize with: he (the President) loves to entertain, and will wine and dine the guests into the wee hours with rambling anecdotes and off-color jokes, whereas she (the Congress) hates company, and keeps a miserly watch on every drop of liquor the guests consume. (The sexes could, of course, be reversed.) Still, the system works tolerably well most of the time.
But the delicate balance is upset when two clashing personalities are thrown together in the shotgun marriage of divided government. Sometimes – as it the case now – the couple will just genuinely detest each other. And so their guests sit in stunned silence as she witheringly criticizes his every culinary decision, from the China pattern to the Turkey recipe. He sits, shrunken and pathetic, giving his visitors an exasperated look that says, “You see what I have to put up with every day?” Making matters worse, everyone at the table is painfully aware that, only a few months ago, she came to the brink of throwing him out altogether.
The guests, meanwhile, are put in the impossible position of either doing nothing while the evening is ruined or clumsily taking sides in a domestic argument. (The leaders of France, Germany, and Britain gingerly did the latter, taking the remarkable step of writing a joint Op-Ed piece to lobby the Senate in favor of the treaty. It didn’t help.) The President gets sympathy from foreign opinion even while the country he is supposed to be leading notoriously shirks basic duties, like paying its UN dues.
The system finally breaks down when the couple’s mutual loathing reaches the point where one will thwart the other’s wishes even if it means embarrassing them both. (The Founding Fathers, in all their wisdom, could not have foreseen a creature as spiteful as Jesse Helms.) So it is with the Test Ban Treaty, killed by the Senate even though it was so clearly in America’s interests. In other words, she has taken his prized bottle of Chateau Lafite ’53 and abruptly dumped it down the sink. It hurts them both. But it hurts him more.
American foreign policy is at its worst when the world is made to witness an unseemly display like it saw last week. It was more than a bad decision. It was distasteful.
C
GRANDPA AND GRANDMA
Grandpa and Grandma were sitting in their porch rockers watching the beautiful sunset and reminiscing about “the good old days”, when Grandma turned to Grandpa and said, “Honey, do you remember when we first started dating and you used to just casually reach over and take my hand?” Grandpa looked over at her, smiled and obligingly took her aged hand in his.
With a wry little smile, Grandma pressed a little farther, “Honey, do you remember how after we were engaged, you’d sometimes lean over and suddenly kiss me on the cheek?” Grandpa leaned slowly toward Grandma and gave her a lingering kiss on her wrinkled cheek.
Growing bolder still, Grandma said, “Honey, do you remember how, after we were first married, you’d kind of nibble on my ear?” Grandpa slowly got up from his rocker and headed into the house. Alarmed, Grandma said, “Honey, where are you going?” Grandpa replied, “To get my teeth!”
A LIGHTER LOOK AT MARRIAGE
Getting married is very much like going to a continental restaurant with friends.
You order what you want, then when you see what the other fellow has, you wish you had ordered that.
At the cocktail party, one woman said to another, “Aren’t you wearing your wedding ring on the wrong finger?”
The other replied, “Yes I am, I married the wrong man.”
A little boy asked his father, “Daddy, how much does it cost to get married?”
And the father replied, “I don’t know, son, I’m still paying for it.”
When a newly married man looks happy, we know why.
But when a ten-year married man looks happy – we wonder why.
Married life is very frustrating. In the first year of marriage, the man speaks and the woman listens.
In the second year, the woman speaks and the man listens.
In the third year, they both speak and the neighbors listen.
After a quarrel, a wife said to her husband, “You know, I was a fool when I married you.”
And the husband replied, “Yes, dear, but I was in love and didn’t notice it.”
A man inserted an ‘ad’ in the classifieds: “Wife wanted.” Next day he received a hundred letters.
They all said the same thing: “You can have mine.”
When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can be sure of one thing: either the car is new or the wife.
The most effective way to remember you wife’s birthday is to forget it once.
When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.
Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
Early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.
I intend to live forever – so far, so good.
If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
Mental backup in progress – Do Not Disturb!
Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of.
Support bacteria – they’re the only culture some people have.
Televangelists: The Pro Wrestlers of religion.
When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
Many people quit looking for work when they find a job.
When I’m not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don’t have film.
I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.
Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
ПРЕДЛОЖНЫЕ ОБОРОТЫ
Широкое распространение в научно-техническом языке имеют следующие предложные обороты:
According to – согласно с,
In accordance with – в соответствии с, по:
According to official figures there are several million unemployed in Russia. – По официальным данным в России несколько миллионов безработных.
In accordance with its peaceful policy the Bulgaria always advocates peaceful means for settling international disputes. – В соответствии со своей мирной политикой, Болгария всегда стоит за использование мирных средств для урегулирования международных спорных вопросов.
As to, as for – что касается:
As to power development in the USSR, it was conducted on planned lines. – Что касается развития энергетики в СССР, то она осуществлялась в плановом порядке.
Because of – из-за, вследствие:
Because of hard ice conditions expedition had to winter in the Artic. – Из-за тяжелых ледовых условий экспедиция была вынуждена зазимовать в Арктике.
By means of – посредством, при помощи:
By means of free market we hoped to increase productivity of our factories and works. – При помощи свободного рынка мы надеялись повысить производительность наших фабрик и заводов.
Due to – благодаря, из-за, вследствие:
We can communicate over long distances due to invention of the radio. – Мы можем осуществлять связь на больших расстояниях, благодаря изобретению радио.
Owing to – по причине, вследствие, из-за:
Owing to the bad weather the ship was two days behind the schedule. – Вследствие плохой погоды корабль опоздал на два дня.
In case (of) – в случае:
In case of need we shall all go to defend our country. – В случае необходимости мы все встанем на защиту нашей страны.
In spite of, due to – несмотря на:
In spite of all efforts at improvement, the efficiency of heat engine remains low. – Несмотря на попытки усовершенствования, эффективность теплового двигателя остается низкой.
Despite all difficulties scientists succeeded in harnessing atomic energy. – Несмотря на все трудности, ученым удалось овладеть атомной энергией.
Instead of – вместо:
Instead of carrying out international agreements certain nations are violating them. – Вместо выполнения международных соглашений, некоторые страны нарушают их.
Thanks to – благодаря:
Thanks to invention of the SATCOM ships can be tracked everywhere in the ocean. – Благодаря изобретению спутниковой связи, нахождение кораблей можно отслеживать в любом месте океана.
УРАЖНЕНИЯ
I. Переведите следующие предложения:
А
1. The principle of Socialism reads: “From each according to his ability, to each according to the work performed.” 2. Thanks to the swift cultural progress of the Soviet Republics all of them have their own native intelligentsia. 8. During the blockade the Leningrad shipyards were producing new types of ships in spite of extremely hard conditions in the besieged city. 4. Due to skilful organization of the work we could break all previous coalgetting records. 5. Numerous factories, power stations, and irrigation systems have been built in China and in People’s Democracies in accordance with plans drawn up by Soviet scientists and engineers. 6. As to Serbia, we insist on the withdrawal of the occupation forces from this country. 7. Because of its aggressive character the Atlantic Pact is condemned by all peace-loving nations. 8. Despite the fact that the Antarctic region is still the least-explored part of our planet, it is now possible to sketch a more detailed picture of the natural conditions in this remote area thanks to the explorations of our Antarctic expedition.
B
1. Thanks to the efforts of the countries of the socialist camp and to the activity of all partisans of peace, the menace of immediate war has been averted. 2. Our economy doesn’t develop in accordance with plans. 3. As for the Government, it has done, is doing and will do all in its power to enable the peoples to live in peace. 4. Despite their numerical strength the forces of intervention were unable to crush the freedom-loving Vietnam people. 5. In spite of brutal nazi repression the French Resistance movement emerged stronger from this severe trial.
_________________________________
1. According to Boyle’s law the volume of a gas is inversely proportional to its pressure. 2. Because of their energy, the molecules of a liquid are always in rapid motion. 3. The a.c. voltages are changed by means of magnetic induction. 4. Quartz is one of the crystals showing an electrical effect due to compression. 5. Owing to loss of heat by radiation and friction, heat engines convert only part of heat into useful work. 6. A gas can be dissolved in a liquid; in this case the liquid changes its boiling point. 7. Polzunov’s engine was the first steam engine used instead of water wheels.
C
1. Thanks to the heroism of the Soviet people the German invaders were finally crushed. 2. Despite the machinations of the enemies of Russia, our country is growing in strength. 3. The Russian troops left Tiraspol base in accordance with the Russian-Moldavian agreement. 4. Reduction of trade with the west due to the discriminatory policy of the capitalist states was compensated by increasing trade between our regions themselves.
______________________________
1. According to modern physical theories some of the electrons in a metal are free to move about in the interatomic species of the metal. 2. As to China’s natural resources, they were found to be far greater than it was formerly believed. 3. Because of the warm climate in prehistoric Europe, man had no need for the protection of special shelters or clothing. 4. By means of an electric battery it is possible to direct the flow of electrons in a conductor. 5. In case of atomic explosion the energy is liberated in the form of heat and penetrating radiation. 6. Semi-conductors are used now in radiosets instead of conventional radio-tubes. 7. Owing to food shortage and inadequate equipment the expedition could not reach the North Pole. 8. In spite of complete exhaustion Maresyev continued moving on.
II. Переведите текст, обращая внимание на значение предложных оборотов:
DIAMOND AND GRAPHITE
Carbon is known in variety of forms; upon examining wood and coal, fat and starch, soap, sugar, and gasoline we find that one element is common to all, namely, carbon.
Diamond and graphite, in spite of their visible dissimilarity, also belong to this group of substances.
When burned, one gram of carbon gives out different amount of heat according to the form used, thus diamond gives 7,805 calories, and graphite – 7,850.
The diamond is distinguished by its natural crystalline form. For ornamental purposes it is “cut” by grinding new faces to give it the artificial form called “brilliant”.
Owing to its hardness, - it is the hardest of familiar substances, - it can be scratched or polished only by means of rubbing with a diamond powder.
The colorless stones and those with special tints are highly valuable; as to the less valuable specimens, due to bad coloration, they are used for grinding, for glass cutting, and on the points of drills.
Diamonds are sold by the carat and the value increases with the size. The largest known specimen weighed 3,032 carats and was evaluated extremely high because of its perfect color.
Graphite is found in Siberia, Cumberland, Brazil, Ceylon and elsewhere. Unlike the diamond, it is quite soft, has a specific gravity of 2.3, and conducts electricity.
Thanks to its conductivity for heat, graphite is used to make crucibles.
As graphite does not interact with chlorine, it is widely used for electrodes instead of conventional conductors in electrochemical industries in cases when chlorine is to be liberated. Graphite is employed also as a lubricant.
Практикум
А
THE CHANDRA X-RAY TELESCOPE is now installed in its highly elliptical orbit, where the Earth itself, and not just its atmosphere, will not interfere with x-ray reception. Named for astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekher, the 14-m-long telescope is considered one of NASA’s three “great observatories”; the other telescopes in this battleship class are the Hubble Space Telescope and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Chandra will have superb angular resolution (half an arc-second, 8 times better than previous x-ray telescopes), sensitivity to faint objects (20 times better), and spectral resolution (1 eV). The object of the mission is unflinchingly to explore graphic violence wherever it can be found at x-ray wavelengths: quasars, black holes, pulsars, supernovas, and intergalactic plasmas.
BLOCH STATES: NOT FOR ELECTRONS ONLY. It is often essential to consider an electron traveling through a solid as being a wave that spreads out through the whole of the solid. The quantum description of this spread-out electron was formulated by Felix Bloch in the 1920s. Physicists have since sought to extend this idea of a “Bloch state” to guest atoms in a crystal, but an atom’s mass is so large (and its equivalent wavelength so small) that a Bloch state for an atom has been difficult to observe. Now, physicists from Japan have seen clear signs of a Bloch state for a muonium “atom”, in effect a light isotope of hydrogen whose proton is replaced by a positively charged muon particle having 1/9 of the proton’s mass. Performing experiments at the Rutherford Appleton lab in England, the researchers studied spin-polarized muonium (Mu) atoms in a KCI crystal cooled down to 10 mK. Measuring how long it took the atoms to lose their initial polarization in the presence of an external magnetic field provided information on their energy state and matched the predictions of a Bloch model. Further studies may offer new insights into the energy bands of atoms in crystals.
PARTICLE ACCELERATOR TURN-ONS. The concrete poured and the magnets tuned, several important new machines are about to take up important physics matters. The Main Injector at Fermilab, dedicated in June, is an additional 2-mile racecourse for getting protons up to speed in much greater numbers. What this means is that the proton-antiproton collider run starting in 2000 will record in one year as much data as was taken in the earlier 10-year era. This is crucial since beam intensity is no less important than the energy of collision when producing rare objects, such as supersymmetric particles (hypothetical cousins of the known leptons and quarks) and the much sought Higgs boson (playing a sort of midwife role in the life of many other particles, the Higgs should also exist in its own right). New theoretical estimates for the mass of the Higgs suggest that Fermilab might just have enough energy to discover the Higgs (Science, 25 June). Meanwhile, two accelerator schemes dedicated to studying CP violation through the agency of B-meson decays, are nearly ready. The Assymetric B Factory at SLAC in California is now smashing 9-GeV electrons into 3.1-GeV positrons to produce pairs of Bs. The decay products are absorbed in a detector called BaBar. A comparable setup at the KEK lab in Japan will soon collide 8-GeV electrons with 3.5-GeV positrons inside a detector called BELLE. By the way, the cost of these detectors is a not-inconsiderable portion of the accelerators themselves. BaBar and BELLE cost, respectively $80 million and $70 million (Physics World, May 1999). Finally, at the DAFNE electron-positron collider in Frascati, Italy, CP violation is also the subject matter, but the approach is different. Here the collisions are dedicated to making phi mesons, which then decay into a pair of K mesons, which in turn break up (amid the KLOE detector) in a process that violates charge-parity in variance (CERN Courier, June 1999.)
B
International Herald Tribune
24 November, 1999