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Home exercise. Pick out all the sentences with Infinitive and translate them. Be prepared to dwell on the science of the future.
Science of the Future
Alf: I can’t understand what made you buy such an expensive electronic computer!
Eric: I didn’t buy it. I got my father to do it.
Alf: Really?
Eric: The other day we went to see an exhibition of various devices of
that kind and when my father saw a computer wash the dishes, peal potatoes, sweep thq floor, scratch somebody’s back, and what not, he was thrilled to pieces, and had the makers send one to our flat at once.
Alf: It must have been a sight worth seeing, I suppose.
Eric: I don’t want you to get so excited, but it’s really marvellous. When I come to think what brain-work went to its making, and how well off some brainless people can be, I really begin to think I ought to have taken up electronics.
Alf: You seem to have forgotten how bad you were at mathematics when you were at school...
Eric: Now, that Eve got the computer, I can be taught mathematics or any other subject in no time, and if I’d had one at school I would have
been taught everything practically with no effort at all!
Alf: Do you mean to say you want the electronic computer to teach you how to work?
Eric: Er . . . well, not quite. I’m too old for that. Now I want the computer to work for me and so does my father. I mean to say he wants the com* puter to do all the housework for him. You see he may not like his pub acquaintances to see he’s under his wife’s thumb... Now I’ve just got a job in the Intelligence Department as an expert on ciphers and codes and I am expected to solve the most ingenious intricacies of the most complicated systems ever made by man.
Alf: But suppose the electronic computer goes wrong, what' then?
Eric: It doesn’t matter. Most of the messages are written in either a single code or a double code system.
Alf: What’s the difference?
Eric: When the single code system is used the message is understood by the chap who sends it but isn’t understood by the chap who receives it. Now, in the case of a double code the message isn’t understood either by the chap who sends it or the one who receives it.
Alf: Then what’s the computer for?!
Eric: Er . .. well, you see, my good fellow, they all think I’m an ass, and I am not surprised for 1 look rather silly. Now, if they didn’t hear the rattle of the electronic computer once in a while I might lose my job.. . Alf: I can see there’s' a lot to be seen, more to be heard, and plenty to imagine! I have never thought much of electronics, but now I begin to think it’s the science of the future.
Eric: Precisely.
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Home exercise. Give a written account of the text.
A-C Electric Equipment of Ship’s Deck Machinery. Introduction
Modern electric equipment of ship’s deck machinery comprises electric motors and electric apparatuses of specially developed series and individual designs.
The fact that this machinery has to operate on weather decks predetermines special environmental conditions of the electric equipment: ambient temperatures ranging from —40 to +50° C, high humidity up to due fall with frequent cyclic variations, pitching and rolling, strong vibration, periodic splashing with sea water, high dynamic overloads and a large number of on-load startings.
The electric equipment of deck machinery meeting all specific requirements of marine service is noted for a high electrical strength and mechanical robustness. With regular maintenance and timely replacement of worn parts the service life of the electric equipment is as long as 15—20 years.
Utilized construction of the electric equipment used in deck machinery makes it possible to provide for any operating conditions in the course of its service.
To improve its reliability and efficiency the electric equipment is being constantly developed through the use of new structural materials and new switching and control systems and through a detailed study and overall improvement of the interaction between the electric drives of the deck machinery and other ship’s equipment.
