A) Discuss the problems answering the questions.

1. ARTIFICIAL INTELLEGENCE

We call ourselves Homo sapiens – man the wise- because our mental capacities are so important to us. For thousands of years, we have tried to understand how we think, that is, how a mere handful of stuff can perceive, understand, predict, and manipulate a world far larger and more complicated than itself. The field of artificial intelligence, or AI, goes further still: it attempts not just to understand but also to build intelligent entities.

AI is one of the newest sciences. Work started in earnest soon after World War II, and the name itself was coined in 1956. Along with molecular biology, AI is regularly cited as the ’field I would most like to be in’ by scientists i9n other disciplines. A student in physics might reasonably feel that all the good ideas have already been taken by Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and the rest. AI, on the other hand, still has openings for several full-time Einsteins.

AI currently encompasses a huge variety of subfields, ranging from general-purpose areas, such as learning and perception to such specific tasks as playing chess, proving mathematical theorems, writing poetry, and diagnosing diseases. Ai systematizes and automates intellectual tasks and is therefore potentially relevant to any sphere of human intellectual activity. In this case, it is truly a universal field.

Questions:

1. How are humans and animals different? Name the basic features. 2. Why in your view brain is a thing that most scientists want to study? Is it an area you’d like to be engaged in? 3. What is AI concerned with? 4. Give the area’s background. 5. What opportunities does the field open for researchers? 6. Outline the scope of the field. 7. Give your arguments to support the idea that AI is truly a universal tool.

2. EXPLORING THE MYSTERIES OF QUANTUM THEORY

Quantum theory just seems too weird to believe. Particles may be in more than one place at a time. They don’t exist until you measure them. Spookier still, they can even stay in touch when they are separated by great distances.

Einstein thought this was all a bit much, believing it to be evidence of major problems with the theory, as many critics still suspect today. Quantum enthusiasts point to the theory’s extraordinary success in explaining the behaviour of atoms, electrons and other quantum systems. They insist we have to accept the theory as it is, however strange it may seem.

If you listen to physicist Tim Palmer, it begins to sound plausible. What has been missing, he argues, are some key ideas from an area of science that most quantum physicists have ignored: the science of fractals, those intricate patterns found in everything from fractured surfaces to oceanic flows. Take the mathematics of fractals into account, says Palmer, and the long-standing puzzles of quantum theory may be much easier to understand. They might even dissolve away.

Arguments over quantum theory have raged since the 1920s, starting with a series of famous exchanges between Einstein and Danish physicist Niels Bohr. Bohr and his supporters believed that the theory’s successful description of atoms and radiation meant you should abandon old philosophical concepts, such as the idea that objects have definite properties even when no one is there to measure them. Einstein and his followers countered that such radicalism was wildly premature. They argued that much of the quantum weirdness was nothing more than a lack of adequate knowledge. Find a quantum system’s “hidden variables”, Einstein suspected, and quantum theory might make common sense, a view that quantum enthusiasts thought was ultraconservative and out of touch. The argument rages to this day.

Questions:

1. What facts in the physical world make quantum theory ‘too weird to believe’? 2. What major arguments of physicists engaged in the field has been raging to this day? 3. When did it start? Who were among the first to voice the disagreement? 4. Present the ideas of those involved in the discussion. 5. If this is your area, could you give your point of view?

b) Make a similar OVERVIEW of your field of study. Speak about its major unresolved problems and new challenges, bold hypotheses, mysteries it hides, and the features that attract both young and experienced investigators.You may find this vocabulary useful.

Vocabulary: to help to explain the strange (weird, mysterious) behaviour (characteristics, nature) of sth; to be evidence of sth; to suspect that; to point to sth; to put forward a hypothesis; to be successful in explaining sth; to accept facts; to have opposing views; sth is missing; to ignore sth; to take sth into account; a long-standing puzzle; to draw attention of scientists; to reinterpret the usual (traditional, common) view (understanding, concept); to suggest a refreshingly different approach (a seemingly odd thing); the suggestion that makes sense; to explore the mysteries of; to have a simple and comprehensible resolution; to abandon old philosophical concepts (beliefs, way of thinking); a lack of adequate knowledge.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 758