全新版大学英语综合教程讲稿B1unit3.docVIP

Unit 3 Understanding Science PUBLIC ATTITUDES TOWARD SCIENCE Stephen Hawking Pre-reading tasks Read text A and then think over the following questions: 1.What is the attitude of some people towards the changes brought about by science and technology?Answer: Some people would like to stop the changes and go back to what they see as a purer and simpler age. 2.What does the author think we should do about science and technology?Answer: If we can accept that we cannot prevent science and technology from changing our world, we can at least try to ensure that the changes they make are in the right directions. 3.How does the public feel about science?Answer: The public is in two minds about science. It has come to expect the steady increase in the standard of living that new developments in science and technology have brought to continue,but it also distrusts science because it doesnt understand it. 4.What does the author think of the future of human civilization?Answer: He has sufficient faith in the good sense of the public to believe that we might prove the sick joke wrong. ? Cultural Notes ?? Stephen Hawking (1942 -): a British scientist who has greatly influenced peoples ideas on the origins of the universe. He has devoted much of his life to probing the space-time described by general relativity and the singularities where it breaks down. And hes done most of his work while confined to a wheelchair, brought on by the progressive neurological disease. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a post once held by Isaac Newton. In the late 1960s, Hawking proved that if general relativity is true and the universe is expand- ing, a singularity must have occurred at the birth of the universe. In 1974 he first recognized a truly remarkable property of black holes, objects from which nothing was supposed to be able to escape. He has written the international bestseller A Brief History of Time. The book spent more than four years on the London Sunday T