Atmospheric Electricity

Text 2

Find the Gerund in the text, define its function.

4. Put questions to the words in bold type:

1. For thousands of years people knew nothing about thunderstorms. 2. The fifth day of the week was named after Thor. 3. Lightning is a discharge of atmospheric electricity. 4. The lightning conductor invented by Franklin provides an easy path for conducting electric charges to the earth. 5. Rihman constructed the first electrical measuring device. 6. Experiments with atmospheric electricity were made by Lomonosov. 7. Many years ago people learned to protect their houses from thunderstorms. 8. We use atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

5. Form verbs from the following nouns:

observation, achievement, protection, production, installation, operation, application, development, heat, generator, inventor, reader.

Use the verbs formed from the nouns given above in sentences of your own.

6. Translate the following sentences paying attention to the words in bold type:

a) 1. My friend’s son looks like his father. 2. You may take any device you like.
3. Some liquids have like properties. 4. Steel like iron is widely used in industry.
5. A steam turbine is like any other turbine, but it is turned by steam. 6. We did not like the film that we saw yesterday. 7. Did you like the story that you heard at the lesson yesterday?

b) 1. Lightning is an atmospheric phenomenon that greatly interested some scientists of the past. 2. That the earth turns round the sun is known to everybody.
3. It is quite possible that in the future coal may be replaced by atomic energy.
4. Atomic energy can serve people, but we must never forget that that energy can also destroy the world. 5. When an object loses its potential energy that energy is turned into kinetic energy. 6. The operation of the motor is quite different from that of the generator. 7. Everybody knows that the earth is round. 8. The climate in Moscow is better than that in London. 9. The film that we saw yesterday was very interesting.

Active Words and Expressions

Electricity – электричество in order to – для того чтобы to burn – сжигать coal – уголь instead of – вместо, взамен valuable – ценный substance – вещество to contain – содержать in this connection – в этой связи to develop – разрабатывать to harness – использовать to require – требовать power – энергия, мощность in question – данный, рассматриваемый

manifestation – проявление, пример kite – воздушный змей jar – банка famous – знаменитый string – веревка key – ключ to electrify – электризовать, заряжать электрическим током to wet – мочить thus – так, таким образом to protect – защищать installation – установка discovery – открытие field – область, сфера деятельности

Electricity plays such an important part in modern life that in order to get it, men have been burning millions of tons of coal. Coal is burned instead of its being mainly used as a source of valuable chemical substances which it contains. Therefore, finding new sources of electric energy is a most important problem that scientists and engineers try to solve. In this connection one might ask: “Is it possible to develop methods of harnessing lightning?” In other words, could atmospheric electricity be changed into useful energy?

Indeed, hundreds of millions of volts are required for a lightning spark about one and a half kilometer long. However, this does not represent very much energy because of the intervals between single thunderstorms. As for the power spent in producing lightning flashes all over the world, it is only about 1\10 000 of the power got by mankind from the sun, both in the form of light and that of heat. Thus, the source in question may interest only the scientists of the future.

It has already been mentioned (see Lesson 4) that atmospheric electricity is the earliest manifestation of electricity known to a man. However, nobody understood that phenomenon and its properties until Benjamin Franklin made his kite experiment. On studying the Leyden jar (for long years the only known condenser), Franklin began thinking that lightning was a strong spark of electricity. He began experimenting in order to draw electricity from the clouds to the earth. The story about his famous kite is known all over the world.

On a stormy day Franklin and his son went into the country taking with them some necessary things such as: a kite with a long string, a key and so on. The key was connected to the lower end of the string. “If lightning is the same as electricity,” he thought, “then some of its sparks must come down the kite string to the key.” Soon the kite was flying high among the clouds where lightning flashed. However, the kite having been raised, some time passed before there was any proof of its being electrified. Then the rain fell and wetted the string. The wet string conducted the electricity from the clouds down the string to the key. Franklin and his son both saw electric sparks which grew bigger and stronger. Thus, it was proved that lightning is a discharge of electricity like that got from the batteries of Leyden jars.

Trying to develop a method of protecting buildings during thunderstorms, Franklin continued studying that problem and invented the lightning conductor. He wrote necessary instructions for the installation of his invention, the principle of his lightning conductor being in use until now. Thus, protecting buildings from lightning strokes was the first discovery in the field of electricity employed for the good of mankind.

Дата добавления: 2015-05-08