Make and write down 3 sentences.

Ex: The researchers are prepared enough to conduct such an experiment.

The equation		large		to read...
The experiment	is is not	interesting		to conduct...
The paper		good	enough	to check...
The device		challenging		to investigate...
The substance		sophisticated		to solve...

Use the table to make sentences. Write down three of the resultant sentences.

Ex: The shorter is the distance, the sooner we’ll reach the destination.

The greater The longer The more challenging The less		the distance	the more powerful...
		the task	the greater...
	is	the distance	the more attractive...
		the experiment	the less...
		the resistance	the more...

Write a paragraph on your research work. Use the vocabulary and grammar of this lesson.

LESSON 5. Predictions. Certainty or uncertainty

Part I

Reading and Speaking

Discuss the following with a partner.

1. Do you know who Isaac Asimov is?

2. Have you read any of his books? What are they about?  

Read the text.

Future is imperfect

Predictions about technology’s future are almost always doomed. According to “2001: A Space Odyssey”, for example, humans should be making flights to the outer reaches of our solar system. Per 1984, by now we should have become a society of brainwashed drones, toiling under constant surveillance for faceless overlords. Clearly, that would never — hey, wait a second! Nevertheless, Isaac Asimov, the revered science-fiction author, made a stab at describing our lives today—back in 1964. 50 years ago Asimov called his vision “Visit to the World’s Fair of 2014.” Now it is, in fact, 2014. Shall we dust off his little time capsule and see how well his predictions fared? You might assume that his projections fall into two categories: the ones that came to pass and those that didn’t.

Give the guy credit for anticipating self-driving cars, video calling, the widespread use of nuclear power and single-duty household robots. Asimov also worried at length about overpopulation, estimating the 2014 world population to be 6.5 billion. He came very close; the actual world population is about 7.1. And, yes, he also got a lot wrong. He foresaw underground and underwater homes becoming popular, along with “transportation that makes the least possible contact with the surface”—cars and boats that levitate on jets of compressed air. His weirdest prophesies concern our desperate suffering “from the disease of boredom, ” once robotics and automation have taken away most of our jobs. “The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.” If technology ever does buy us more leisure time, technology will also expand to fill it.

But many of Asimov’s prognostications also fall into a third category that you might not have expected: technologies that are indeed feasible today—but aren’t yet commonplace. By now he thought that windows would be little more than “an archaic touch, ” thanks to the popularity of glowing wall panels. Sure, we have flat-screen technology—but we still like to look outside at real grass, sky and squirrels.

In downtown areas, he predicted moving sidewalks. We’ve built those at airports but skipped them on city streets. And he foresaw moon colonies established by 2014, with Mars colonies already in the planning stages. In each case, what kept his hopeful prediction from coming true has not been technological; instead we seem to lack the will, desire or courage to make them a reality. His dream of “large solar-power stations” operating in the desert has been slow to arrive. But stations are finally being built, as economic and political obstacles fall.

Asimov’s predictions illustrate three lessons for those who would predict the future. First, almost every new technology takes longer to arrive than sci-fi writers imagine. Second, you’ll never hit all the big ones; the history of technology is framed by enormous zigs or zags—consider, for instance, the Internet—that not even Asimov saw coming. And third, many attractive or logical developments never materialize, thanks to our own human failings. The fault, dear Isaac, is not in our engineering but in ourselves.

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