AUTOMATION IN THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Our goal should be automating the routine and thereby leaving more time for the creative process.
With that word of caution, let’s proceed by arbitrarily dividing research into three stages and examining each stage to find what functions of the research process might he automated without endangering creativity. Stage one includes the dreams, the ideas, the exploratory work, selecting the problem, setting the objective, testing technical feasibility, and searching the literature. Stage two involves planning the experiment, conducting the experiment, checking the alternates, data taking and data evaluation. Stage three is the solution of the problem – drawing conclusions and making recommendations.
Although there is a great deal of creativity involved in stage one, there are also opportunities for automation. The burden of keeping up with the literature even in one’s own restricted field is becoming heavier with each passing year. The mass of reading is necessary to make a literature search increased immensely. Advances in computer technology made possible storing and quick retrieval of essentially all the scientific literature.
Grammar Review
I. Find it and passive constructions in this extract. What function do they perform?
It is generally agreed that the more difficult it is to follow the lecture, the more easily we get obsessed by sleep or other pleasant activity apart from listening to the professor. It has been observed that the father you are from the source of noise, the more you are prone to sleepiness. It is thought that his phenomenon develops due to the fact that the sound vibrations produced by the professor’s articulative organs affect the auditory receptors of the nearby listeners stronger, resulting in more vivacity and higher speed of writing.
II. Translate into English:
1.Была высказана мысль использовать другой метод. 2. Были получены новые данные в поддержку этой идеи. 3. На такой вопрос нельзя ответить в таких условиях. 4. В настоящее время химические методы очистки воды широко используются. 5. Предложенная гипотеза учитывает все экспериментальные наблюдения. 6. Постановка проблемы означает первый шаг на пути к ее решению. 7. Такие проблемы может решить только ученый, полностью осознающий возможную опасность. 8. Успех исследования зависит от определения его цели.
III. Give Russian equivalents:
1. That this factor is too important to be ignored does not require any further proof. 2. The main point that the author tries to make is that biology rather than physics will be in the forefront of the search for knowledge in the years to come. 3. That the leadership in high energy passed to Berkeley turned out to be fortunate for the English Cambridge. 4. The only real danger for physics is that it will become too pure and isolated from the practical problems of life for young people to want to study it at all. 5. That the sun is but a typical star is one of the most significant facts of modern astronomy. 6. Moreover, human speech differs from all forms of animal speech in that it can be expressed and presented in writing. 7. That this was not the case was proved when they obtained more data.
Unit 6
Read and translate the text:
Text
TO SMOKE OR NOT TO SMOKE?
The problem of smoking is much under discussion. Some people smoke, some don’t. At present little is known for certain about the tobacco effect on the human organism. The amount of nicotine absorbed by a heavy smoker over day is capable of killing a horse. Yet it does no visible harm to the smoker. At least no immediate harm. As to long-rang effects much of what is attributed to tobacco can be caused by different factors. Quite a number of studies are carried on in order to establish cause-effect relationship between smoking and some dangerous diseases. The number of theories advanced is increasing, but the many papers dealing with the problem have to admit that most evidence is ambiguous and that there is a little confusion and a lot of controversy concerning the results obtained. However, the little evidence that is conclusive makes all doctors say that the practice is harmful.
Most of those smoking wish to give it up, and it is a matter of record that a great many heavy smokers often make several attempts before they give up ... either smoking or the attempts. It requires not a little will power and a great deal of determination. So only few succeed. And those few say that they have left so much better ever since.
Grammar Review
I. Substitute the proper nouns for the underlined pronouns:
1. Physicists may also be mentioned in this connection but without distinguishing between the practical and theoretical ones. 2. A great deal of attention has been devoted to problems generated by the “information explosion” as it has been popularly termed. 3. One famous question was already raised: that of the “mathematical dream”. 4. The telescope admitted a hundred times as much light as the unaided human eye, and according to Galileo, it showed an object at fifty miles, as clearly as if it was only five miles away. 5. The most wonderful instincts, those of the hive-bee and of the ant, can’t be explained in this way. 6. There are men to whom nothing seems great but reason. For men of this class it is a cosmos so admirable that to penetrate to its ways seems to them the only thing that makes life worth living. 7. Electrolysis of sulphate and chroride solution gave about the same type of deposit. This was composed of both the amorphous and compact metal.
II. Give English equivalents of the sentences:
1. Руководитель работы всегда настаивал на проверке полученных результатов. 2. Такая проверка имела целью исключить случайные ошибки и помогла получить надежные данные. 3. Присутствие смеси в образцах помешало получить ожидаемые результаты. 4. Каждое новое открытие приводит к возникновению новых областей исследования. 5. Такие глобальные изменения явились результатом применения новой теории. 6. Через несколько лет ученому удалось получить экспериментальные результаты, подтверждающие его теорию. 7. Ученые многих стран занимаются изучением этого явления и должны в равной мере нести ответственность за применение его возможных результатов на практике.
“False friends of the translator”