大学英语综合教程第三册第四课课前活动.pptVIP

Unit 4 Extraterrestrials UFO Extraterrestrials Isaac Asimov Venus Congress The Supreme Court UFO (Unidentified Flying Objects) Extraterrestrials UFO and Extraterrestrials Life-forms that may have evolved on other planets. There is no hard evidence at present that life exists other than on the Earth. Most UFOs have been satisfactorily explained as being natural or man-made, and the Viking missions to Mars火星 were inconclusive in testing for the existence of life on that planet. Nevertheless, searches have been and are being made for signs that life has arisen in other parts of the universe. Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Asimov was a Russian-born American writer of science fiction. Among his best-known science fiction are, I, Robert (1950) and the Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953). Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Asimov developed Three Laws because he was tired of the science fiction stories of the 1920s and 1930s in which the robots, like Frankenstein’s creation, turned on their creators and became dangerous monsters. The brains of Asimov’s robots were designed around the Three Laws: a) A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. b) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. c) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Venus Venus Venus is also known as morning star or evening star. In Chinese, it’s called 太白金星. It can be the brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon and follows a near-circular path. Astronomers refer to Venus as the Earth’s sister planet. Both are similar in size, mass, density and volume. However, Venus is very different from the Earth. It has no oceans and is surrounded by a heavy atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide二氧化碳 with virtually no water vapor. At the surface, the temperature is higher than 400°C, which has