Students

Who are they and how do they look? In the streets, in parks, cafes, on discos, everywhere you can see young people standing together and talking about something with great interest. What are they talking about? They talk about studying, music, clothes and about money, which will finish soon. But in spite of the problems they are never sad. At the same time students walk in town, go to cafes, discos and concerts.

Students become friends very fast and forever. Perhaps later when they meet they’ll talk about how they are glad to see each other, how they were missing and call each other brother, thought they were studying in different groups and saw each other only during the entrance exams. But this will be in future.

And now there are some different types of students. One part does nothing but study. Others have time for studying and for things they love to do. Someone likes going in for sport, some are fond of playing computer games, other like singing or dancing and so on. And there are some students who don’t want to study and want to graduate the university with good and excellent marks.

Students wear everything that is comfortable to them. They listen to different types of music. Pop, rock, rap these are only few types they listen to. And all students like sleeping. So are they so different after all?

 

Exercise 4. Answer the questions.

 

1. What people are considered to be outstanding?

2. What qualities must they possess?

3. Is it enough to be talented to be called outstanding?

4. Are there any world famous composers of the 20th century?

5. What distinguished writers lived in the 20th century?

6. Who is the first cosmonaut, the first human being to journey into outer space? When was it? What is the name of his spacecraft? What is the world-known word that he said when taking off?

7. Who was the first human to conduct a space walk? When was it? What is the name of his spacecraft?

8. Who was the first person on the Moon? When was it? What is the name of his spacecraft? What are the world-known words that he said when setting his boot on the Moon surface?

9. Who is the man standing behind the rocket industry?

10. What famous inventors do you know?

11. Who invented the electric candle?

12. Who discovered the Periodic Law of elements?

13. Do you know any outstanding scientists of the world?

14. Which of them made great discoveries?

15. Do you know any outstanding scientists of the world in your profession / specialty?

 

Exercise 5. Read the following text and translate it.

 

Applications of mechanical engineering are found in the records of many ancient and medieval societies throughout the globe. In ancient Greece, the works of Archimedes (287 BC – 212 BC) deeply influenced mechanics in the Western tradition and Heron of Alexandria (c. 10 – 70 AD) created the first steam engine. In China, Zhang Heng (78 – 139 AD) improved a water clock and invented a seismometer, and Ma Jun (200 – 265 AD) invented a chariot with differential gears. The medieval Chinese horologist and engineer Su Song (1020 – 1101 AD) incorporated an escapement mechanism into his astronomical clock tower two centuries before any escapement can be found in clocks of medieval Europe, as well as the world's first known endless power-transmitting chain drive.

During the years from 7th to 15th century, the era called the Islamic Golden Age, there were remarkable contributions from Muslim inventors in the field of mechanical technology. Al-Jazari, who was one of them, wrote his famous Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206, and presented many mechanical designs. He is also considered to be the inventor of such mechanical devices which now form the very basic of mechanisms, such as the crankshaft and camshaft.

Important breakthroughs in the foundations of mechanical engineering occurred in England during the 17th century when Sir Isaac Newton both formulated the three Newton’s Laws of Motion and developed calculus. Newton’s Laws as well as the precise observations of Tycho Brahe and the studies of terrestrial projectile motion of Galileo became the grounds of the so called classical mechanics.

 

Exercise 6. Read the text again and think of a title for it.

Exercise 7. Look at the names in the box below. These all are world-wide known mechanical engineers. What do you know about them? Match the engineers’ names and their characteristics. There are two extra characteristics, can you name the famous mechanical engineer they describe?

 

Ivan Ivanovich Polzunov (1728 – 1766 n.s.)		Ivan Petrovich Kulibin (1735 – 1818)	James Watt (1736 – 1819)
Yefim Alekseyevich(1774 –1842) and Miron Yefimovich (1803 –1849) Cherepanov
George Stephenson (1781 – 1848)	Stepan Osipovich Makarov (1849 –1904)	Aleksey Nikolaevich Krylov (1863 – 1945)
Henry Ford (1863 –1947)		Ferdinand Porsche (1875 – 1951)	Mikhail Ilyich Koshkin (1898 – 1940)
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (1907 – 1966)	Zhosef Yakovlevich Kotin (1908 – 1979)	Evgeny Oscarovich Paton (born 1953)

 

The chief designer of all the Soviet heavy tanks and tractors lines. The heavy KV and IS tanks, the self-propelled guns built on their frames, the PT-76 amphibious tank, the KT-12 skidding tractor, and the powerful K-700 wheeled tractor were built under his direction (the famous 122 mm gun IS-2 tank was the most powerful tank of World War II).		A prominent American industrialist, the founder of the Motor Company of his own name, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production.
A Russian Naval engineer, applied mathematician and memoirist.
The lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer in the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s. He is considered by many as the father of practical astronautics.
A Russian inventor. He is credited with creation of the first steam engine in Russia and the first two-cylinder engine in the world.		A Ukrainian and Soviet engineer, a pioneer researcher of the new joining – welding technology for the materials. He created the methods of design of rational bridge spans, investigated the conditions of their operation, and suggested the methods to restore the damaged bridges (the Old Volga Bridge in Tver was after the War restored according to his method).
A Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world. The SI unit of power was named after him.
	An English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives. Renowned as being the “Father of Railways”.
A Russian mechanic and inventor. He built a “planetary” pocket-clock, which showed not only the current time, but also the month, the day of the week, the season and the current moon phase.
His pioneering Theory of oscillating motions of the ship, significantly extending William Froude’s rolling theory, became internationally known. This was the first comprehensive theoretical study in the field. In 1898 he received a Gold Medal from the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, the first time the prize was awarded to a foreigner. He also created a theory of damping of ship rolling and pitching, and he was first to propose gyroscopic damping which now is the most common way of damping the roll. He actively collaborated with Stepan Osipovich Makarov, admiral and maritime scientist, working on the ship floodability problem. The results of this work soon became classic and are used today worldwide.
A Soviet tank designer, the chief designer of the famous T-34 medium tank. The T-34 was the most effective and most produced tank of World War II.		Russian inventors and industrial engineers, father and son. They built the first Russian steam locomotive, and then in 1835 – the second one, more powerful.
An Austrian automotive engineer best known for creating the first hybrid vehicle (gasoline-electric), the Volkswagen Beetle, and the Mercedes-Benz SS / SSK, as well as the first of many automobiles of his own name. He made a number of contributions to advanced German tank designs: Tiger I, Tiger II, and the Elefant as well as the super-heavy Panzer VIII Maus tank, which was never put into production.
A German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the engine named after him.
A Russian vice-admiral, a highly accomplished and decorated commander of the Imperial Russian Navy. He was a brilliant and innovative naval architect, inventor, tactician, ship designer and a pioneering Russian oceanographer, and he also designed the first mine-laying ships intended exclusively for that purpose. He designed and built the icebreaker Ermak to explore the Arctic. He also developed the Russian flag semaphore system.

Exercise 8. Read the following text about Ivan Kulibin, a prominent Russian mechanical engineer.