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1、unit 14#SciencePreviewOur huma ns have bee n always con fused by some questio ns since we are throw n into the world by God. Those are what is our place in the uni verse? and where did it and we come from? To try to an swer these questi ons, people have created differe nt world pictures. Some are sc
2、ie ntific, some are mythic, some are hypothetical and some are just imagi nary. There is ano ther effort to stir the readers imaginations about the same questions. The exploration will never stop its steps until our huma n can get the truth one day.Text Reading Warm-up,.1) Match the words in Column
3、A for the proper day in Column B.A world-k nown Christia n story, Gen esis, has expla ined who created the world and why it should be. In this famous story, God spent 7 days in creating the world. Now your task is to match the proper day for each item.B1. the first day2. the sec ond day3. the third
4、day4. the forth day5. the fifth day6. the sixth day7. the seve nth dayAA. beast, cattle and in sectB. fishes and birdsC. light and dark nessD. grass and treeE. day and ni ghtF. arch and waterG. sun and moonH. la nd and seaI. huma nJ. star and seas onK. restII . Mythology and scienceMythology and sci
5、e nee can n ever be isolated from each other. They are closely related to each other. There are differe nt ways to know the n ature of the world. Now please choose the n ames here from the table. Some are scientists and the other are mythological figures. Please put the names in the proper circles.B
6、rahmaNewt onEin stei nGalileoPoseid onHalleyPtolemyOdi nLaplaceJesus ChristCurie MarieI RaKeplerZeusHubbleAllahCupidSakyam uniCoper ni cusGaiaMythological FiguresScie ntistsIII. Discussi ons.1. There are hun dreds of versi ons about how the world comes into being. And can you tell one?2. Ein ste in
7、once has said, Imag in ati on is more importa nt tha n kno wledge. For kno wledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and un dersta nd. How do you think about it?3. What do your think about the relati on ship b
8、etwee n religi on and scie nee?4. We have already en tered the the space era, and as you know, how far can we go in this doma in?TextSpace and Time Stephen Hawking 1 We find ourselves in a bewildering (confusing) world. We want to make sense of (understand) what we see around us and to ask: What is
9、the nature (the basic qualities of a thing) of the uni verse? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it ?)2 To try to answer these questions we adopt (use) some world picture. Just as an infinite tower of tortoises supporting the flat earth is such a picture, so
10、 is the theory of superstrings(5). Both are theories of the uni verse, though the latter is much more mathematical and precise tha n the former. Both theories lack observational (noticeable) evidenee: no one has ever seen a giant (huge) tortoise with the earth on its back, but then, no one has seen
11、a superstring either. However, the tortoise theory fails to be a good scie ntific theory because it predicts that people should be able to fall off (fall to the ground) the edge of the world. This has not been found to agree with (to be the same as sth) experie nee, uni ess that tur ns out to be the
12、 expla natio n for the people who are supposed to have disappeared in the Bermuda Trian g)!3 The earliest theoretical attempts to describe and explai n the uni verse invo lved the idea that eve nts and n atural phe nomena were con trolled by spirits with huma n emotio ns who acted in a very huma nli
13、ke and un predictable manner (way). These spirits in habited (lived in a particular place) natural objects, like rivers and mountains, including celestial (heavenly) bodies, like the sun and moon. They had to be placated (to be made sb feel less angry about sth) and their favor (seek-) sought in ord
14、er to ensure (to make sure that sth happens or is definite) the fertility (the state of being fertile) of the soil and the rotation of the seasons. Gradually, however, it must have been noticed that there were certain regularities (patterns or rules): the sun always rose in the east and set in the w
15、est, whether or not a sacrifice (n ani mal, etc. that is offered to gods) had bee n made to the sun god. Further, the sun, the moon, and the pla nets followed precise paths across the sky that could be predicted in advanee (beforehand) with considerable (great) accuracy (correctness). The sun and th
16、e moon might still be gods, but they were gods who obeyed strict laws, apparently (obviously) without any exceptions, if one discounts (dismiss) stories like that of the sun stopping_for. (waiting for) Joshua(7).4 At first, these regularities and laws were obvious only in astronomy (the scientific study of the sun, moon, stars, planets,
