[00:42.81]Lesson 1 1 Dialogue
[00:48.46]Four doctors are at a medical conference.
[00:53.32]A:Which speech are you going to listen to this afternoon?
[00:58.36]B:I haven't decided.There's a talk on cancer that might be quite interesting,
[01:05.23]so perhaps I'll go to that.
[01:08.68]A:Has it got anything to do with your present research?
[01:13.53]B:No.It has nothing to do with it at all.
[01:18.11]C:I'm not sure whether to go to the one about accidents.
[01:23.07]D:It's Dr Stone,isn't it?She's usually good.
[01:29.23]C:Perhaps I'll go to that one.
[01:33.00]D:How did you find the talk this morning?
[01:37.57]A:Very disappointing.Maybe it was useful for some people,but it wasn't for me.
[01:46.21]I doubt if he'll be asked to speak again next year.
[01:50.97]D:I'm not sure that this conference is as good as last year's.
[01:57.13]A:No,I'm sure it's not.
[02:00.79]B:Which speech are you going to?
[02:04.63]D:I'm not going to any.I need some fresh air,so I'm going out for a walk.
[02:13.07]B:Have fun.
[02:15.81]Lesson 2
[02:23.67]2 Reading comprehension
[02:28.43]MADAME CURIE(1)
[02:32.58]Madame Curie will always be remembered as the discoverer of radium.
[02:38.64]Marie Curie was born in Poland,on November 7th,1867.
[02:45.49]When she was young,she became interested in physics
[02:50.63]and read as many books as she could on the subject.
[02:55.36]At that time women were not admitted to universities in Poland,
[03:01.52]so Marie was determined to go to Paris and study there.
[03:07.56]She arrived in Paris in 1891.
[03:11.79]She had very little money to live on,
[03:15.74]ate very little and was always cold in winter.
[03:21.01]There was a small fire in her room,but she had to carry coal up six floors
[03:29.27]and wear an overcoat in her small room to keep warm.
[03:34.54]She succeeded in taking a first-class degree in physics
[03:38.62]two years after arriving in Paris.
[03:42.67]After graduation she took another degreen in mathematics.
[03:47.84]In 1895 she married Pierre Curie,a very bright scientist
[03:55.39]who was teaching at the School of Physics and Industrial Chemistry at Paris.
[04:01.35]Marie started to do research,
[04:05.32]even though she had very little equipment and no money.
[04:10.36]Not long before another scientist had found that uranium gave off rays,
[04:17.02]so Marie decided to study this area for her doctor's degree.
[04:22.48]She gave these rays a new name"radioactive".
[04:28.04]One day she made an important discovery.
[04:32.20]There was a certain mineral which was even more radioactive than uranium.
[04:38.36]Therefore,she decided,it must contain some other matter
[04:43.22]that no one had yet discovered.
[04:46.88]In 1898 she discovered the first of these new radioactive minerals,
[04:54.32]which she named"polonium"in honour of her motherland---Poland,
[05:00.67]and on which she wrote a research paper.
[05:04.93]From then on,Marie and Pierre worked together on their research.
[05:10.67]They devoted all their hours to working in their laboratory.
[05:15.40]As months went by,the work seemed endless.
[05:20.47]Marie described her thoughts in words much like this:
[05:25.20]"Life is not easy for any of us.
[05:29.04]We must work ,and above all we must believe in ourselves.
[05:35.10]We must believe that each one of us is able to do something well,
[05:40.95]and that,when we discover what this something is,
[05:46.10]we must work hard at it until we succeed.
[05:50.77]One evening in 1902 as she was sitting with Pierre at home,she said to him,
[05:58.22]"Let's go down to the laboratory again."
[06:02.29]It was nine o'clock and they had been there only two hours before.
[06:08.04]They put on their overcoats and went down to the laboratory.
[06:13.00]As they opened the door on the ground floor,Marie said,
[06:18.78]"Don't light the lamps.Look!"
[06:22.82]On the laboratory bench was a glass container from which came a tiny soft light
[06:31.08]It was what they had been working so hard to find:pure radium.
[06:38.16]The matter that the Curies had discovered was radium.
[06:43.51]It looked like ordinary salt,
[06:47.35]but was one million times more radioactive than uranium.
[06:53.70]Its rays could go through every mineral except lead.
[06:59.03]In 1903 Marie received her doctor's degree for her study on radioactive matter.
[07:06.68]Altogether,between 1899 and 1904 she and Pierre wrote 34 articles about their work.
[07:16.74]Marie Curie never made money out of her research.
[07:21.78]She refused to treat these new discoveries as though they belonged to her,
[07:27.66]and instead shared all her knowledge with the whole scientific world.
[07:34.61]Lesson 3
[07:43.26]1 Reading comprehension
[07:47.98]MADAME CURIE (2)
[07:51.85]Poloinum and radium were important discoveries.
[07:57.41]Polonium is used to set off a nuclear bomb.
[08:02.77]Radium,because of its powerful radioactive rays,can go deep into the human body.
[08:11.91]Scientists soon discovered that it could be used as a cure for cancer.
[08:19.07]In 1903 Marie and Pierre Curie were given the Nobel Prize for Physics.
[08:28.21]However,there is also a disadvantage which was not discovered for many years.
[08:37.04]Radioactive matter is dangerous to work with
[08:42.08]because it has a bad effect on the blood.
[08:46.52]Pierre and Marie noticed that after years of working with radioactive matter
[08:53.89]their boodies ached and their hands suffered too.
[08:59.06]In fact,radium not only damaged their health
[09:04.91]but also made the laboratory equipment with which they were working radioactive.
[09:12.57]Three of the Curies'notebooks were considered to be too radioactive to touch
[09:19.93]seventy-five years after they were written.
[09:24.61]In 1906 Pierre died in a road accident.
[09:30.67]Marie was deeply shocked by Pierre'sdeath,but was determined to go on working.
[09:38.82]Soon after the accident,she was given Pierre's post at the University of Paris
[09:45.95]as head of the Phy sics Department.
[09:50.21]So Marie Curie became the first woman in France to be a universiy professor.
[09:57.58]In 1911 she received a second Nobel Prize for her research,
[10:04.42]the first person in the world to receive two Nobel Prizes.
[10:10.98]After the First World War Madame Curie travelled to the USA,
[10:18.11]where she was received by the President
[10:22.05]and given a gram of radium for her future work.
[10:27.10]There were soon two Radium Institutes in the world,one in Paris and one in Warsaw.
[10:36.16]Marie was invited to many countries to give speeches about her work.
[10:41.62]For the last ten years of her life she was almost blind.
[10:47.99]The radium with which she had worked for many years
[10:52.85]had caused blindness and illness and finally a disease of the blood.
[10:59.62]She died in Paris at the age of 66.
[11:04.58]Today she is remembered and admired as a scientist.
[11:10.04]But she is also remembered for her determination and courage,
[11:15.71]her willingness to share her knowledge,
[11:19.65]her interest in women's rights,and her medical service during the war |