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She reads more slowly than the man does. She has a 1ot of material to read before she has coffee. The man does more work than is necessary. The man seems to be taking a long time preparing for philosophy class.
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W: Hey Steve, got any plans for tonight?
M: Hi, Jane. No, I don’t think so. Why? Got any suggestions?
W: In fact, I do. I just got two tickets to the opening of the exhibit of the reprints by Julia Margaret Cameron. I would have to mention it earlier, but I was on the waiting list for these tickets and I wasn’t sure I’d even get them.
M: An exhibit, huh? I like such things. But I don’t know who Julia……
W: Margaret Cameron! She was a photographer in the 1800s. She is interesting to art-historians in general and students of photography in particular because she ... how should I say, change the aesthetics for photography.
M: What do you mean?
W: Well, her specialty was portraits and instead of just making a factual record of details like most photographers did, you know, just capturing what a person look like in a dispassionate（平心静气的）thought of way. She, like a portrait painter, was interested in capturing her subject’s personality.
M: Interesting! How did she do that?
W: She invented a number of techniques that affect the picture. Like one of these things she did was blur images slightly by using a soft focus on the subject. That’s pretty common now.
M: Yeah, seen that. Who did she photograph?
W: Famous people of her day, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Charles Darwin, I don’t know who else. We’ll see at the exhibition.
M: You really pick my curiosity. I am going to enjoy this. A famous photographer. Photographic processes in the 1800’s. Photographic equipment used in the 1800’s. A new museum.
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M: Do you want to the movies with on Saturday?
W: Thanks, but I have to study my research project. I’m taking that same anthropology course you took with Prof. Grady.
M: The one on ethnographic interviewing? Oh, good! I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of it.
W: I have to admit the word ’ethnography’(人种学) scared me a little at first. It seems so technical. But then when she explained that it’s what anthropologists do, you know, how they investigate and record aspects of a culture, I didn’t seem so intimidating!
M: Yeah, it’s all part of the fields work anthropologists conduct and it’s good to start doing that now before you become a graduate student and have to conduct large projects yourself. Who are you going to interview?
W: You know the publishing office where I used to work? Vivian, the woman I worked for, she’s been a manager there for over 30 years and had seen a lot of changes in the industry. I thought I’d start out by interviewing her about how the people in the office interact with each other and with outside clients.
M: Isn’t it funny how we use the thing that anthropologists study to foreign cultures and had the travel halfway across the world to do it? The best part of that course is that it shows you that ethnographic research can also be done on a familiar ground.
W: Yeah. I got the idea from my project from reading Robert Marshal’s study of office life and I realized I already had some background in that. So far, I’m really enjoying this course. Which major the woman will be choosing. An anthropology course the woman is taking. How to find a job in publishing. Which anthropology professors the man recommends.
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I’m going to pass this piece of amber around so you can see this spider trapped inside it. It’s a good example of amber-inclusion, one of the inclusions that scientists are interested in these days. This particular piece is estimated to be about 20 million years old. Please be extremely careful not to drop it. Amber shatters as easily as glass. One thing I really like about amber is its beautiful golden color.
Now, how does the spider get in there? Amber is really fossilized tree resin. Lots of chunks of amber contain insects like this one or animal parts like feathers or even plants. Here is how it happens. The resin oozes out of the tree and the spider or leaf gets in cased in it. Over millions and millions of years, the resin hardens and fossilizes into the semiprecious(次珍贵的、准宝石的) stone you see here.
Ambers can be found in many different places around the world. But the oldest deposits are right here in the United States, in Appalachia(阿巴拉契亚). It’s found in several other countries, too, though right now scientists are most interested in ambers coming from the Dominican Republic（多美尼加共和国）. Because it has a great many inclusions, something like one insect inclusion for every one hundred pieces. One possible explanation for this it that the climate is tropical and a greater variety of number of insects thrive in tropics than in other places. What’s really interesting is the scientists are now able to recover DNA from these fossils and study the genetic material for important clues to revolution. So they can feel its weight. So they can examine its contents. So they can guess its age. So they can admire its beautiful color.
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Now we’ve been talking about the revolutionary period in the United States history when the colonies wanted to separate from England. I’d like to mention one point about the very famous episode from that period, a point I think is pretty relevant even today. I’m sure you remember, from when you are children, the story of Paul Revere’s famous horseback ride to the Massachusetts countryside. In that version, he single-headily alerted the people that ’the British were coming’. We have this image of us solitary rider galloping（飞驰的）along of the dark from one farm house to another. And of course the story emphasized the courage of one man, made him a hero in our history books, right? But, that rather romantic version of the story is not what actually happened that night. In fact, that version misses the most important point entirely. Paul Revere was only one of the many riders helping deliver the messages that night. Just one part of a pre-arrange plan, that was thought out well in advance in preparation for just such an emergency. I don’t mean to diminish Revere’s role though. He was actually an important organizer and promoter of this group effort for freedom. His mid-night rider didn’t just go knocking on farm house doors. They also awaken the institutions of New England. They went from town to town and engage the town leaders, the military commanders and volunteer groups, even church leaders, people who would then continue to spread the word. My point is that Paul Revere and his political party understood, probably more clearly than later generations ever have, that political institutions are theirs a kind of medium for the will of people and also to both build on and support the individual action. They knew the success requires careful planning and organization. The way they went about the work that night made a big difference in the history and this country. The difficulties faced by the colonists. The skill of military heroes. The courage of one man. The cause of the Revolutionary War.
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Let me warn you against a mistake that historians of science often make. They sometimes assume that people in the past use the same concepts we do. Here is a wonderful example that makes the use of history of mathematics some while ago. It concerns an ancient Mesopotamian(美索不达米亚人) tablet that has some calculations on it using square numbers. The calculations look an awful one like the calculations of the link of the sides of triangle. So that’s what many historians assume they were. But using square numbers to do this is a very sophisticated technique. If the Mesopotamians knew how to do it, as historians started thinking that they did. Well, they learn math with incredibly advanced. Well, it turns out the idea of Mesopotamians use square numbers to calculate the link of triangle’s sides is probably wrong. Why? Because we discovered that Mesopotamians didn’t know how to measure angles, which is a crucial element in the whole process of triangle calculations. Apparently the Mesopotamians had a number of other uses for square numbers. These other uses were important but they were not used with triangles. And so these tablets in all likelihood were practice sheets, if you like, for doing simpler math exercises with square numbers. In all likelihood, it was the ancient Greeks who first calculate the link of triangle’s sides using square numbers. And this was hundreds of years after the Mesopotamians. To explain how angles are measured. To prove that Mesopotamiansdid not know how to use square numbers. To discuss a mistaken historical interpretation. To explain why tablets are reliable historical records.
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The ancestors of the horse lived ______ and were about half a meter tall. years ago 60 million 60 million years ago ago 60 million years million years ago 60
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The museum on Ellis Island, a former immigration station, contains documents and artifacts______ to four centuries of United States immigration. related them related related that be related
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______, particularly the oxides of sulfur, greatly increases the rate at which rust forms. The presence of air pollutants Air pollutants are present Because the presence of air pollutants Air pollutants whose presence
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The Sun, the Moon, and Earth have magnetic fields, and______evidence that the stellar that extend through vast regions galaxies have fields of space. which is is because There is
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The “confederation school” poets of nineteenth-century Canada were primarily nature poets, ______ a wealth of eulogies to Canadian rural life. and producing who they produced producing whose production of
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Since prehistoric people first applied natural pigments to cave walls, ______ have painted to express themselves. when artists artists artists who that artists
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About 42 million bushels of oats are used annually ______ manufacture of breakfast foods in die United States. the is the in the to
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Any acid can, in principle, neutralize any base, although ______ between some of the more reactive compounds. side reactions can occur the occurrence of side reactions can can side reactions occur side reactions that can occur
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Just over two-thirds of Earth’s surface is covered by wafer, ______ more than 98 percent of this water is contained in the oceans. with which and resulting
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Pleasing to look at and touch, beads come in shapes, colors, and materials ______ to handle and to sort them. that almost compel one one compels that compel almost one is almost compelled
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In 1978 the united States National Air and Space Administration selected Sally Ride______ the first woman astronaut. who being to be and being was
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Adhesions are ______ formed within the body in response to inflammation or injury. that thin bands of scar tissue they thin bands of scar tissue when thin bands of scar tissue thin bands of scar tissue able to
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The planet Neptune is about 30 times ______ from the Sun as Earth is. far as far more far far that
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Not until the 1850’s ______ a few public-spirited citizens and state legislatures seek to rescue historic buildings in the United States from destruction or alteration. both came did when
