Higher Education in Russia
Higher education plays an important part in the life of any country as it provides the country with highly-qualified specialists for future development and progress. It trains people to become teachers, engineers, doctors and other professional workers. In all the industrial countries standards of living are steadily changing; this means that the kind of education, which was good enough thirty years ago, is not necessarily good for them today. The serious need to find ways and means of ensuring continuous and thorough adoption of the universities to contemporary needs in our rapidly changing world is widely recognized. And this means that styles of teaching, quality of learning materials and organization of the university itself have to be continuously brought up to date and improved. Besides, knowledge and information which comes through the mass media must also be taken into consideration. This information explosion has affected every field of study, especially, of course, in the natural and applied sciences and in all other sciences as well. The increase of information requires new methods and new approaches to students' training and instruction. At present a new system of education is introduced in this country — a distance education system. This computer system of learning helps working professionals to continue their education while remaining at their jobs. This system enables people to get knowledge and a good foundation in the sciences basic to his or her field of study. Distance learning has developed over years from satellite video courses to modern videoconferencing through personal computers. The academic year usually lasts 9 months and is divided into two terms (semesters). The first- and second-year students obtain thorough instructions in the fundamental sciences of mathematics, physics, chemistry and drawing as well as computer engineering and a number of others. The curricula are enriched and broadened by instructions in such subjects as foreign languages, history and economics. At the third year students get more advanced knowledge and begin to concentrate on their special interests, so to say, their «ma-jor» subject and take many courses in this subject. Specialized study and courses will help students to become specialists and prepare them for their future work. After four years students will get a bachelor's degree. Then the students may go on with their studies and in a year or two of further study and research get a master's degree. After graduating from the university they may go on with their study and research and may get a still higher degree. About 75 percent of students receive state grants and 15 percent are sponsored by enterprises. Universities have their own students' hostels and some of them have large and excellent sport centers. Education is a process through which culture is preserved, knowledge and skills are developed, values are formed, and information is exchanged. Education is the way to success.
Environment Protection Must Be Global
That the problem of pollution and ecology has become the most important one for mankind is evident to all. The more civilization is developing, the greater the ecological problems are becoming. Air and water pollution by industry is now reaching tremendous proportions. In our era it is changing from a national to an international problem, especially in territories where rivers cross several countries. The seas and oceans are also becoming seriously polluted. A similar situation is developing in the atmosphere. It is known that many cities throughout the world suffer from air pollution. However, our scientific knowledge and technological advancement make it possible to eliminate it if people use good will and make considerable investments for that purpose. The development of natural resources on a global scale is already possible from a scientific and technical standpoint. Large-scale experimental work in this area is successfully being carried out. At present scientists in industrially developed countries are working on the theory of interaction of all the atmospheric and oceanic global processes that determine the climate and weather of the world. Increasing growth of population, industrialization and the use of resources are slowly but surely changing the global climate and water balance. This can be described as a great experiment, one that may bring about changes in the environment more serious than ever before. The essential feature in the environment protection is that many problems can be solved only on the level of world community. Therefore, the planning of protection against pollution by human society as a whole is imperative today and in the near future. It is necessary to develop an international program to study data on land, forest, atmospheric and oceanic resources, both renewable and non-renewable. It is the joint efforts of many scientists and special public organizations that can deal with the problem and take necessary measures to protect the environment. It is still a big job and much remains to be done. However, scientists are confident that planned actions of all countries can eliminate pollution and achieve successes in purifying air, water and soil and in safeguarding natural resources. At the same time one must realize that social and political circumstances may stand in the way of further progress in this field.
Electricity
It is impossible to imagine our civilization without electricity: economic and social progress will be turned to the past and our daily lives completely transformed. Electrical power has become universal. Thousands of applications of electricity such as lighting, electrochemistry and electrometallurgy are longstanding and unquestionable.With the appearance of the electrical motor, power cables replaced transmission shafts, gear wheels, belts and pulleys in the 19-th century workshops. And in the home a whole range of various time and labour saving appliances have become a part of our everyday lives. Other devices are based on specific properties of electricity: electrostatics in the case of photocopying machine and electromag-netism in the case of radar and television. These applications have made electricity most widely used. The first industrial application was in the silver workshops in Paris. The generator — a new compact source of electricity — was also developed there. The generator replaced the batteries and other devices that had been used before.Electric lighting came into wide use at the end of the last century with the development of the electric lamp by Thomas Edison. Then the transformer was invented, the first electric lines and networks were set up, dynamos and induction motors were designed. Since the beginning of the 20th century the successful development of electricity has begun throughout the industrial world. The consumption of electricity has doubled every ten years. Today consumption of electricity per capita is an indicator of the state of development and economic health of a nation. Electricity has replaced other sources of energy as it has been realized that it offers improved service and reduced cost. One of the greatest advantages of electricity is that it is clean, easily-regulated and generates no by-products. Applications of electricity now cover all fields of human activity from house washing machines to the latest laser devices. Electricity is the efficient source of some of the most recent technological advances such as the laser and electron beams. Truly electricity provides mankind with the energy of the future.
4.Television
The television set is evidently the most important and popular electronic product of all time. All homes in developed countries have one or more TV sets and in many countries there are considerably more TV sets than telephones. But in 1939 at the World's Fair in New York a tiny nine-by-twelve inch box was the centre of attention for hundreds of people. They were the first to see a television set in action. Compared to today's TV shows of underwater and outer-space research, those first black-white pictures were not very good. The pictures were only transmitted from one side of the Fair territory to the other. But in 1939 they were,^of historical importance. Within a few days rthe news of television spread throughout the world. A lot of people wanted to have a look at the new invention. Everyone was interested in it. But only few people owned television sets in the next few years. When World War II broke out electronic factories that began the TV production stopped making them and started making war materials instead. When the war was over, TV sets began coming off factory assembly lines. By 1958 there were millions of them. In a surprisingly short time people watched fewer films and turned from newspapers and magazines to TV. In its short history television has had great influence on people's life and way of thinking. Rocket-launching, concerts and football and tennis matches can be seen direct as they occur. The b oundaries of time and space have disappeared. At present TV communication is provided with the help of a system of artificial earth satellites so that people living in different parts of the country and all over the world and in different time zones are able to watch the central TV programs at the most convenient hours. Nowadays many countries also have cable TV, a system using wires for the transmission of television programs (like telephone calls). Cable television first appeared in 1949 as a means of transmitting TV signals to rural and mountain areas far from big cities. Cable television's next big step forward was made by the mid — 1980s. Scientists announced that many technical problems had been solved and in the future it would be possible via satellite and cable TV to use more channels on a TV set at every home in the world. Then we saw how a new technical invention, colour television, was rapidly replacing black-and-white television. Recently it was reported that the first pocket-size colour television set had been developed. It was stated that a liquid-crystal display was used similar to those on calculators and watches and that it weighed less than a pound. A few years ago it became evident that the next major advance for TV would be digital television. In a digital system the usual continuous signal is replaced by a digital code containing detailed information on brightness, colour, etc. A digital TV set hangs on the wall like a picture. Essentially, it is a minicomputer with a visual display. Once a week you put the programs you like into the memory, and the TV set will automatically switch on the desired channel at the right time. You can watch several programs simultaneously on miniscreens and then produce one of them in full format. Also, the TV set can automatically video-record the programs when you are absent or occupied. By the end of 1980s television has moved to a new and the most important stage in its development since the appearance of colour television. Technically it is called high-definition television (HDTV) or Hi-Vision. This is the much higher resolution television of the 21st century. This revolution was started by Japanese manufacturers when they developed a new video system with a picture resembling a wide-screen film more than traditional television. The new system increases the screen's width-to-height ratio (16:9). The result is a picture several times sharper than in the existing TV sets. Besides, recent developments in plasma display panel technology make HDTV commercially practicable. The plasma display makes it possible to produce a large, bright, colour, flat TV screen so thin and light that it can also be hung on a wall like a framed picture. The engineering problem that has existed almost since the first days of television may be solved now.