Unit 11      Part A
1. Napoleon was many things but he was, first of all, remembered as a military leader. Rising from an artillery officer to the commander of the French army, he waged war after war against neighboring countries. In 1804, he declared himself emperor and became the most powerful man in the world. At one time he controlled most of Europe. But Napoleon’s power was short-lived. His defeat came when he decided to attack Russia. Soon the whole of Europe rose again him, eventually forcing him to give up his throne. In 1821, he died alone on the small island of St. Helena.
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2. Tom Cruise has always represented cool, but somehow over the last couple of years, he has gone from just another Hollywood pretty boy to a certified world renowned actor. It seems that everything he touches turns to gold. Not everyone likes him, but at least now almost everyone respects him. His movies make millions. He is an international star ---- men envy him, and women love him.
3. His critics agree that the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, is a dignified moral idealist.
But he’s also tough. Elected to the post in 1996, thanks largely to the US’s displeasure with Boutros Ghali, Annan has proved to be energetic and willing to press Americans to accept greater international responsibility.
As the host of 159 heads of state at this year’s Millennium Summit in New York September 6 to 8, he advocated intervention against war, disease and poverty.
Part B  A Musician-turned Economist
Alan Greenspan, who has been Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board for over a decade, is regarded as one of the most important men by many people in the world.
Greenspan was born on March 6, 1926. His father was a stockbroker and his mother worked in retailing. When he was 4 years old, his parents divorced and he was raised by his mother in NY.
Young Alan was a shy boy but he was very good at large numbers. When he was only 5, his mother would get him to add two three-digit numbers in his head. He loved baseball and tennis. And like his mother, he developed a deep appreciation for music. In the mid-1940s he studied briefly at a music school in NY, and then toured the country for a year with a music band. Then he entered NY University’s School of Commerce and graduated with a degree in economics. He got a Master’s degree at NYU in 1949, and shifted to Columbia University to work on his PhD. When his money ran low, he withdrew from graduate school and went to work for the National Industrial Conference Board. He eventually earned a PhD from NYU in 1977.
In the mid-50s Greenspan opened an economic consulting company. In 1987 he began to work in the Federal Government. Today his work as Chief of Federal Reserve Board is much the same as the work he did on Wall Street, trying to understand how the economy is working and what drives it; offering suggestions for improvement. He is, however, making less money.
Part C    Edwin Hubble
Edwin Powell Hubb
le was a tall, elegant, athletic man. During his lifetime, his research was focused on nebulae (星云), which are misty patches of light in the sky. In 1924, he announced the discovery of a star in a nebula. He calculated that this star was much further away than anyone had thought and that therefore the nebula was not inside our galaxy, but a galaxy of stars just like the Milky Way, only much further away. His discovery enabled the world to realize that the universe was much bigger than had been previously presumed.
Hubble wanted to classify the galaxies according to their content, distance, shape and brightness patterns, and in his observations he made another great discovery: the galaxies were moving away from each other at a rate constant to the distance between them. This is know the Hubble’s law. The gr
eater the distance between them, the faster the move away from each other. This supported the big bang theory of how the universe came into being.
Hubble died in 1953. to honor his great contribution to space exploration, his name was chosen for the world’s most powerful space telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope.
Unit 12  Part A
College students are familiar with the initials, WWW, which stand for World Wide Web. But do you know who invented this? According to the magazine Time, Tim Berners-Lee was the creator.
Tim Berners-Lee is extremely intelligent but no good at “random connection”, such as linking names and faces. In order to keep track of such links, he wrote some software ---- “a memory substitute” ---- in 1980. a decade later, it took a great leap, growing to cover the world. It is today’s World Wide Web, which could prove as important as the printing press. Yet so far, most of the wealth and fame coming from the Web have gone to people other than him. He has not appeared on the cover of any magazine. He has a small office at M.I.T., where his nonprofit group helps and guards the Web.
Part B  The Story of the Walkman
Akio Morita, chairman of Sony, was annoyed because his children constantly played loud music. He told his company engineers to devise some machine to make the music only audible to the user. They did, and the Walkman was born. This totally changed the way we listen to music. Morita personally insisted on using the name “Walkman” for the new machine. His advisers said the phrase meant nothing in English. But he knew it was easy to pronounce the word in nearly every language. It was short, catching and summed by the importance of the new device!
Now the personal stereo is used by everyone. There are new designs such as CD Walkmans, recording Walkmans, etc. As size, weight and cost get smaller, quality gets bigger.
Socially, however, the Walkman habit may not be so good. By playing their personal stereos at full volume in small spaces, listeners may disturb others. The repeated loud beat can also be annoying. That is why in London Underground Railway System there are signs saying,
“Keep Your Personal Stereos Personal.” Furthermore, drivers listening to Walkmans many sometimes cause road accidents to happen. And the rise in hearing problems is often blamed on their misuse.
There is no doubt that modern society has a love-hate relationship with the Walkman. Yet even criticism proves how popular the Walkman has become. Rather like the television or the computer, it is
hard to imagine how we ever lived without them.
Part C  The Camera Man
Do you own a camera? Undoubtedly you do, and you probably use it often, too. Just slip the camera in your backpack pocket, and you’re set to record your activities on film. But before 1888, you would have needed a wagon to carry all the necessary equipment just to take one photograph. Early cameras were the size of microwave ovens! But George Eastman changed the way the world took pictures.
Born in upstate NY on July 12, 1854, George Eastman was the youngest of three children. His father died when George was a young boy. He was forced to quit school at 14 and work to support his family. In 1874, he got a job as a junior clerk at a bank for $15 a week.
A friend introduced George to photography when he was 24. George loved taking pictures, but he didn't like the complicated process. He worked for years to invent something to replace the old machine. When he succeeded, he started a company to produce his “film” --- Kodak. Then he worked on developing a simple camera.
When he introduced his camera in 1888, George coined the advertising slogan, “You push the button, we do the rest.” People began buying the cameras, and Kodak soon grew to be very large.
George Eastman was also a great philanthropist. He gave much of his fortune to establish hospitals, clinics, universities, museums and performing arts centers. When he died in 1932 at the age of 77, an editorial in The New York Times said he would be remembered for giving generously for the good of mankind. And, of course, for putting a Kodak smile on the faces of people around the world.

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