The Atomic Structure of Matter

Exercise 13. Match the beginning and the end of the sentences.

Exercise 12. Find synonyms to the following words in the text.

Exercise 11. Give English equivalents for the following words and word combinations.

Exercise 10. Give Ukrainian equivalents for the following words and word combinations.

The whole realm; the sense of vision; give rise; in terms of; as follows; double refraction; Compton effect; rectilinear propagation; sharp shadows; incandescent light bulb.

Різноманітні відомі властивості; кінцева швидкість; збудження атому; утворення електронно-позитронних пар; світло, що проходить крізь маленький отвір; розглянемо промені світла; перевернуте зображення; в той час як; затемнення.

Branch; to constitute; shown; classified; hot; to examine; upside down.

1.	The fact that objects may be made to cast fairly sharp shadows	a.	that an inverted image is formed.
2.	It may be seen	b.	is an experimental demonstration of this principle.
3.	They are interesting because the results of many experiments	c.	when either the object or the pinhole is moved.
4.	The same thing happens	d.	consider the rays of light emanating from a single point a near the top of the bulb.
5.	Another illustration is the image formation of an object	e.	are revealed through the sense of vision as colour phenomena.
6.	In order to see how an image is formed,	f.	which is produced by light passing through a small opening.

Exercise 14. Render the text “Properties of light”.

TEXT 2

The most important of all chemical theories is the atomic theory. In 1805 the English chemist and physicist John Dalton (1766–1844), of Manchester, stated the hypothesis that substances consist of small particles of matter. He called these particles atoms, from the Greek word «atomos», meaning indivisible. This hypothesis gave a simple explanation or picture of previously observed but unsatisfactorily explained relations among the weights of substances taking part in chemical reactions with one another. It was necessary that the hypothesis be confirmed. Hadn't it been verified by further work in chemistry and physics it wouldn't have become the atomic theory. The existence of atoms is now accepted as a fact.

All ordinary matter consists of atoms. The exceptional kinds of matter are the elementary particles from which atoms are made (electrons, protons, neutrons) and similar sub-atomic particles (positrons, mesons). But atoms are the units which retain their identity when chemical reactions take place, and therefore they are important to us now. Atoms are the structural units of all solids, liquids, and gases. They are very small ‑ only about 2 Å to 5 Å in diameter.

This is indeed small. If a piece of rock, or anything else, one inch in diameter were magnified to the size of the earth, its constituent atoms would become about the size of golf balls or tennis balls.

Every atom consists of one nucleus and one or more electrons. The nucleus is a small, heavy particle containing almost all the mass of the atom. Nuclei are very small indeed. The nucleus of an atom is only about one ten-thousandth as great in diameter as the atom itself, and the volume of the nucleus is one million-millionth, of the volume of the atom.

If nuclei could be packed together side by side, they would give a form of matter with very great density. The electron is a particle with a small mass, 1/1845 that of the lightest nucleus, and with a negative electrical charge.

The electron itself is about as large as a nucleus, its diameter being about 10-12 cm. The electrons in an atom are attracted by the nucleus. The electrons in an atom move rapidly around in the space extending over a diameter of a few Å about the nucleus, and because they move about so fast they effectively fill this space in such a way as to repel any other atom which approaches to within this diameter.

Were it not for the rapid progress of scientific knowledge about atoms the evidence for the existence of atoms would not be so overwhelming.

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