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Unit 1 GREAT SCIENTISTS
JOHN
SNOW DEFEATS “KING CHOLERA”
John Snow was a famous doctor in London
—
so expert, indeed, that he
attended Queen
Victoria as her personal
physician. But he became inspired when he thought
about helping
ordinary people exposed
to cholera. This was the deadly disease of its
day. Neither its cause
nor its cure was
understood. So many thousands of terrified people
died every time there was
an outbreak.
John Snow wanted to face the challenge and solve
this problem. He knew that
cholera
would never be controlled until its cause was
found.
He became interested in two
theories that possibly explained how cholera
killed people.
The first suggested that
cholera multiplied in the air, a cloud of
dangerous gas floated around
until it
found its victims. From the stomach the disease
quickly attacked the body and soon
the
affected person died.
John Snow
suspected that the second theory was correct but
he needed evidence. So
when another
outbreak hit London in 1854, he was ready to begin
his enquiry. As the disease
spread
quickly through poor neighbourhoods, he began to
gather information. In two
particular
streets, the cholera outbreak was so severe that
more than 500 people died in ten
days.
He was determined to find out why.
First he marked on a map the exact
places where all the dead people have lived. This
gave him a valuable clue about the
cause of the disease. Many of the deaths were near
the
water pump in Broad Street
(especially numbers 163738 and 40). He also
noticed that some
houses (such as 20
and 21 Broad Street and 8 and 9 Cambridge Street)
had had no deaths. He
had not foreseen
this, so he made further investigations. He
discovered that these people
worked in
the pub at 7 Cambridge Street. They had been given
free beer and so had not drunk
the
water from the pump. It seemed that the water was
to blame,
Next, John Snow looked into
the source of the water for these two streets. He
found
that it came from the river
polluted by the dirty water from London. He
immediately told the
astonished people
in Broad Street to remove the handle from the pump
so that it could not be
used. Soon
afterwards the disease slowed down. He had shown
that cholera was spread by
germs and
not in a cloud of gas.
In another part
of London, he found supporting evidence from two
other deaths that
were linked to the
Broad Street outbreak. A woman, who had moved away
from Broad Street,
liked the water from
the pump so much that she had it delivered to her
house every day. Both
she and her
daughter died of cholera after drinking the water.
With this extra evidence John
Snow was
able to announce with certainty that polluted
water carried the virus.
To prevent
this from happening again, John Snow suggested
that the source of all the
water
supplies be examined. The water companies were
instructed not to expose people to
polluted water any more. Finally “King
Cholera” was defeated.
COPERNICUS’ REVOLUTIONAY
THEORY
Nicolaus Copernicus
was frightened and his mind was confused. Although
he had tried to
ignore them, all his
mathematical calculations led to the same
conclusion: that the earth was
not the
centre of the solar system. Only if you put the
sun there did the movements of the
other planets in the sky make sense.
Yet he could not tell anyone about his theory as
the
powerful Christian Church would
have punished him for even suggesting such an
idea. They
believed God had made the
world and for that reason the earth was special
and must be the
centre of the solar
system.
The problem arose because
astronomers had noticed that some planets in the
sky
seemed to stop, move backward and
then go forward in a loop. Others appeared
brighter at
times and less bright at
others. This was very strange if the earth was the
centre of the solar
system and all
planets went around it.
Copernicus had
thought long and hard about these problems and
tried to find an answer.
He had
collected observations of the stars and used all
his mathematical knowledge to explain
them. But only new theory could do
that. So between 1510 and 1514 he worked on it,
gradually improving his theory until he
felt it was complete.
In 1514 he showed
it privately to his friends. The changes he made
to the old theory
were revolutionary.
He placed a fixed sun at the centre of the solar
system with the planets
going round it
and only the moon still going around the earth. He
also suggested that the earth
was
spinning as it went around the sun and this
explained changes in the movement of the
planets and in the brightness of the
stars. His friends were enthusiastic and
encouraged him to
publish his ideas,
but Copernicus was cautious. He did not want to be
attacked by the
Christian Church, so he
only published it as he lay dying in 1543.
Certainly he was right to be careful.
The Christian Church rejected his theory, saying
it
was aga
inst God’s idea
and people who supported it would be attacked. Yet
Copernicus’
theory is now the basis on
which all our ideas of the universe are built. His
theory replaced
the Christian idea of
gravity, which said things fell to earth because
God created the earth as
the centre of
the universe. Copernicus showed this was obviously
wrong. Now people can see
that there is
a direct link between his theory and the work of
Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein
and
Stephen Hawking.
Unit 2 The
United Kingdom
PUZZLES IN GEOGRAPHY
People
may wonder why different words are used to
describe these four countries: England,
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
You can clarify this question if you study British
history.
First there was England.
Wales was linked to it in the thirteenth century.
Now when
people refer to England you
find Wales included as well. Next England and
Wales were
joined to Scotland in the
seventeenth century and the name was changed to
Happily this was accomplished without
conflict when King James of Scotland became King
of England and Wales as well. Finally
the English government tried in the early
twentieth
century to form the United
Kingdom by getting Ireland connected in the same
peaceful way.
However, the southern
part of Ireland was unwilling and broke away to
form its own
government. So only
Northern Ireland joined with England, Wales and
Scotland to become
the United Kingdom
and this was shown to the world in a new flag
called the Union Jack.
To their credit the four
countries do work together in some areas (eg, the
currency and
international relations),
but they will have very different institutions.
For example, Northern
Ireland, England
and Scotland have different educational and legal
system as well as different
football
terms for competitions like the World Cup!
England is the largest of the four
countries, and for convenience it is divided
roughly into
three zones. The zone
nearest France is called the South of England, the
middle zone is called
the Midlands and
the one nearest to Scotland is known as the North.
You find most of the
population settled
in the south, but most of the industrial cities in
the Midlands and the North
of England.
Although, nationwide, these cities are not as
large as those in China, they have
world-famous football teams and some of
them even have two! It is a pity that the
industrial
cities built in the
nineteenth century do not attract visitors. For
historical architecture you
have to go
to older but smaller towns built by the Romans.
There you will find out more about
British history and culture.
The
greatest historical treasure of all is London with
its museums, art collections, theatres,
parks and buildings. It is the centre
of national government and its administration. It
has the
oldest port built by the Romans
in the first century AD, the oldest building begun
by the
Anglo-Saxons in the 1060s and
the oldest castle constructed by later Norman
rulers in 1066.
There have been four
sets of invaders of England. The first invaders,
the Romans, left their
towns and roads.
The second, the Anglo-Saxons, left their language
and their government.
The third, the
Vikings, influenced the vocabulary and place-names
of the North of England,
and the
fourth, the Normans, left castles and introduced
new words for food.
If you look around
the British countryside you will find evidence of
all these invaders.
You must keep your
eyes open if you are going to make your trip to
the United Kingdom
enjoyable and
worthwhile.
SIGHTSEEING IN LONDON
Worried about the time available, Zhang
Pingyu had made a list of the sites she wanted to
see
in London. Her first delight was
going to the Tower. It was built long ago by the
Norman
invaders of AD 1066. This solid
stone, square tower had remained standing for one
thousand
years. Although the buildings
had expanded around it, it remained part of a
royal palace and
prison combined. To
her great surprise, Zhang Pingyu found the Queen's
jewels guarded by
special royal
soldiers who, on special occasions, still wore the
four-hundred-year-old uniform
of the
time of Queen Elizabeth I.
There followed
St Paul's Cathedral built after the terrible fire
of London in 1666. It
looked splendid
when first built! Westminster Abbey, too, was very
interesting. It contained
statues in
memory of dead poets and writers, such as
Shakespeare. Then just as she came out
of the abbey, Pingyu heard the famous
sound of the clock, Big Ben, ringing out the hour.
She
finished the day by looking at the
outside of Buckingham Palace, the Queen's house in
London. Oh, she had so much to tell her
friends!
The
second day the girl visited Greenwich and saw its
old ships and famous clock that
sets
the world time. What interested her most was the
longitude line. It is an imaginary line
dividing the eastern and western halves
of the world and is very useful for navigation. It
passes through Greenwich, so Pingyu had
a photo taken standing on either side of the line.
The last day she visited Karl Marx's
statue in Highgate Cemetery. It seemed strange
that
the man who had developed
communism should have lived and died in London.
Not only that,
but he had worked in the
famous reading room of the Library of the British
Museum. Sadly
the library had moved
from its original place into another building and
the old reading room
was gone. But she
was thrilled by so many wonderful treasures from
different cultures
displayed in the
museum. When she saw many visitors enjoying
looking at the beautiful old
Chinese
pots and other objects on show, she felt very
proud of her country.
The next day
Pingyu was leaving London for Windsor Castle.
Queen?
Unit 3
LIFE IN THE FUTURE
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Spacemail:
liqiang
299A@
15/11/3008(earth
time)
Dear Mum and Dad,
I
still cannot believe that I am taking up the prize
that I won last year. I have to remind myself
constantly that I am really in AD 3008.
Worried about the journey, I was unsettled for the
first
few days. As a result, I suffered
from“time flag”. This is similar to the “jet lag”
you get from
flying, but it seems you
keep getting flashbacks from your previous time
period. So I was
very nervous and
uncertain at first, however, my friend and guide,
Wangping, was very
understanding and
gave some green tablets which helped a lot. Well-
know for their expertise,
his parents’
company, called “Future Tours”, transported me
safely into the future in a time
capsule.
I can still
remember the moment when the space stewardess
called us all to the capsule
and we
climbed in through a small opening. The seats were
comfortable and after a calming
drink,
we felt sleepy and closed our eyes. The capsule
began swinging gently sideways as we
lay relaxed and dreaming. A few minutes
later, the journey was completed and we had
arrived.
I was still on the earth but
one thousand years in the future. What would I
find?
At first my surroundings were
difficult to tolerate. The air seemed thin, as
though its
combination of gas had
little oxygen left. Hit by a lack of fresh air, my
head ached. Just as I
tried to make the
necessary adjustment to this new situation,
Wangping appeared. “Put on this
mask,”
he advised. “it’ll make you feel much better.”
H
e handed it to me and immediately
hurried me through to a small room
nearby for a rest. I felt better in no time. Soon
I was back
on my feet again and
following him to collect a hovering carriage
driven by computer. These
carriages
float above the ground and by bending or pressing
down in your seat, you can move
swiftly. Wangping fastened my safety
belt and showed me how to use it. Soon I could fly
as
fast as him. However, I lost sight
of Wangping when we reached what looked like a
large
market because of too many
carriages flying by in all directions. He was
swept up into the
centre of them. Just
at that moment I had a “time lag” flashback and
saw the area again as it
had been in
the year AD 2008. I realized that I had been
transported into the future of what
was
still my hometown! Then I caught sight of Wangping
again and flew after him.
Arriving at a
strange-looking house, he showed me into a large,
bright clean room. It
had a green wall,
a brown floor and soft lighting. Suddenly the wall
moved- it was made of
trees! I found
later that their leaves provided the room with
much-needed oxygen. Then
Wangping
flashed a switch on a computer screen, and a table
and some chairs rose from
under the
floor as if by magic. “Why not sit down and eat a
little?” he said. “You may found
this
difficult as it is your first time travel trip.
Just relax, since there is nothing planned on the
timetable today. Tomorrow you’ll be
ready for some visits.” Having said this, he
spread some
food on the table, and
produced a bed from the floor. After he left, I
had a brief meal and a
hot bath.
Exhausted, I slid into bed and fell fast asleep.
More news later from your loving son,
Li Qiang
I HAVE
SEEN AMAZING THINGS
My first visit was
to a space station considered the most modern in
space. Described as an
enormous round
plate, it spins slowly in space to imitate the
pull of the earth’s gravity. Inside
was
an exhibition f the most up-to-date inventions of
the 31
st
century. A guide
(G) showed us
around along a moveable
path.
G: Good morning
to all
our visitors from 2008. First we’re going to
examine one of the latest
forms of
communication among our space citizens. No more
typists working on a typewriter
or
computer! No more postage or postcodes! Messages
can now be sent using a “thoughtpad”.
You place the metal band over your
head, clear your mind, press the sending button,
think
your message and the next instant
it’s sent. It’s stored on the “thoughtpad” of the
receiver. It’s
quick, efficient and
environmentally friendly. The only limitation is
if the user does not think
his or her
message clearly, an unclear message may be sent.
But we cannot blame the tools for
the
faults of the user, can we?
During the
explanation I looked at the pair of small objects
called “thoughtpads” on a table.
They
just looked like metal ribbons. So ordinary but so
powerful! While I was observing
them,
the path moved us on.
G: And now ladies
and gentlemen, we are in the “environment area”.
People used to collect
waste in
dustbins. Then the rubbish was sent to be buried
or burned, am I right? (
We
nodded
.)
Well, now there’s a
system where the waste is disposed of using the
principles of ecology. A
giant machine,
always greedy for more, swallows all the waste
available. The rubbish is
turned into
several grades of usefu
l material, such
as “fertilizer” for the fields and “soil” for
deserts. Nothing is wasted, and
everything, even plastic bags, is recycled. A
great idea, isn’t
it?
I
stared at the moving model of the waste machine,
absorbed by its efficiency. But again we
moved on.
G: Our third stop
shows the changes that have happened to work
practices. Manufacturing no
longer
takes place on the earth but on space station like
this one. A group of engineers
programme robots to perform tasks in
space. The robots produce goods such as drugs,
clothes,
furniture, hovering carriages,
etc. There is no waste, no pollution and no
environmental
damage! However, the
companies have to train their representatives to
live and work in space