Компьютерная техника. Еремина Н.В. - 23 стр.

menace. For one of the computer's greatest assets is its ability to simulate one or a million
variants of the same theme. "What if?" is the question the computer can answer
accurately, swiftly, and over and over again. From this variety of possibilities, a trip from
the earth to the moon can be simulated as often as necessary, with every possible
trajectory plotted and every mile of the journey through space marked with symbolic
signposts that will provide assurance that, mathematically at least, man has travelled this
way before.
       The computer can do far more than simulate the mechanics of space flight; it can
furnish accurate models of life itself. In computer simulation, then, there may come the
great breakthrough needed to convert the inexact social sciences – the studies of man as
a social being – into exact science. For the sociologist the problem has always been the
lack of an adequate yardstick by which to measure and count. The one absolutely
essential tool of science is the measuring device. Anything that can be counted,
measured, quantified, can be studied with scientific accuracy. Now it becomes possible to
perform controlled experiments, in which every factor that goes in is known in advance and
the answers that come out are then valid.
       With computer simulation you can have a series of problems in which you can figure
out all the ramifications, all the per mutations and combinations, and do it very quickly and
know the different combinations that are at stake. So you can use it really as a means of
controlled experiment. You can get a computer model of a city and play out all the different
effects, so that if you decide, for example, to relocate traffic in one way you can trace out
very quickly, on the model, the effects on industry locations, residential densities, and the
like. And more important, when you have alternative plans of this kind you can then
choose, and that is the fundamental aspect of all such notions of planning. It allows you to
have a sense of wider choice, to see therefore, the consequences of it and say, I prefer
this, scheme rather than another.


4.2 Exercises
      4.2.1 Look through the passage carefully and find the English equivalents
for the following Russian phrases:
      невероятная технология; невооруженный разум и мышцы; ослепительные
обещания (надежды); ужасающая угроза; смысл нашей жизни; задачи
маневрирования, задачи возвращения в атмосферу; столкнуться с опасностью
(риском); безопасно; одно из величайших ценных качеств; даст уверенность;
показывает угловое пространственное положение; до запуска двигателей ре-
активной системы.