Unit 4b Book

1. Introduction

Unit 4b is a logical follow-up of Unit 4a. It further develops the topic of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), describing steps that had to be taken in order to repair the accelerator after the huge explosion soon after its opening in 2008. This process is explained step-by-step, including some measures taken to prevent the disaster from happening again. When reading about these measures, you will come across a little bit of new grammar, namely the nouns derived from phrasal verbs.

When reading about the LHC so far, you may have missed information about the goals of this huge machine. Therefore, Unit 4b includes some articles explaining the purpose of this CERN project; in other words, what CERN scientists hope to discover using the accelerator. In addition, in order to give you a complete picture of the collider, you will have a chance to read about and listen to some criticism of the project. After collecting all this information on the pros and cons of the LHC, you will be asked to give your opinion while discussing this topic in a forum.

Contents:

Nouns derived from phrasal verbs:

• Verb + particle: build-up, roll-out, set-up, start-up, shutdown, take-off, touchdown, takeover, clean-out, check-up, warm-up
• Particle + verb: input, output, inflow, outflow, overflow, upthrust, downthrust, inlet, outlet, overhaul, upgrade, downgrade

2. Forum: How Would You Fix It?

After doing Unit 4a, you should be familiar with the basic facts on the LHC. You should know that one of the important parts of the accelerator is a set of super-conducting magnets that guide and speed up the beam of protons in the two accelerator tubes. Of course, the magnets need to be kept at absolute-zero temperatures in order to achieve as minimum resistance as possible and are therefore cooled using liquid helium. Unfortunately, in 2008 one of the helium containers was punctured by an electrical arc and the helium was vaporised, increasing the pressure in the container extremely quickly. The pressure broke the container open and more than a tonne of helium filled the LHC tunnel. In about one third of a second, the enormous build-up of pressure set off a power explosion. The resulting shock wave lifted the 30-tonne magnets, so that they were half a meter or so off their mountings. They had to be repaired and the fix took quite a long time: the LHC was not open again until 2012. If you were one of the LHC engineers repairing them, how would you do that? What problems would you face and what would you do to overcome them? Answer these questions in this forum. Answer at least two of the questions and respond to at least one contribution of a fellow student.

3. Reading and Grammar: How the Damage to the LHC Was Repaired

Now, you will have a chance to read about the procedure of the LHC repair. You can see to what extent your answers to the forum questions were correct. Scan the article on p. 29 in your coursebook (Bonamy, D. (2013). Technical English Level 4 Coursebook. Pearson Longman) and mark the statements in this quiz True (t) or False (f).

Then focus on the bold-faced expressions in the same text. They are nouns derived from phrasal verbs. Match them to their one-word more formal synonyms in this task. You will see that basically, there are three possible forms of the compound nouns derived from phrasal verbs:

• Verb + particle: build-up, roll-out, set-up, start-up, shutdown, take-off, touchdown, takeover, clean-out, check-up, warm-up, break-in

(Be careful about the plural of these nouns: it is formed by adding -s to the end of the noun, not the verb. For example: break-ins).

• Particle + verb: input, output, inflow, outflow, overflow, upthrust, downthrust, inlet, outlet
• In some cases, the noun takes the same form as the verb: overhaul, upgrade, downgrade

Unfortunately, there are no general rules regarding the compound nouns derived from phrasal verbs. Some of them are hyphenated, while some others become one word as compound nouns. Moreover, they are subject to change depending on how the language develops. There is a strong tendency for hyphenated forms of phrasal nouns to evolve into single words. For example, the compound nouns “set-up” and “take-off” seem to be no longer hyphenated these days: “setup, takeoff”. If both versions are current, the hyphenated form is usually the more formal one.

Now practise changing phrasal verbs into corresponding phrasal nouns in this task. Finally, if you want to learn and memorize more phrasal nouns apart from those listed in your coursebook, you can use these links:

https://english-at-home.com/phrasal-nouns/

https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/30/phrasal-verbs-vs-nouns/

4. Specialist Reading: What CERN Scientists Hope to Discover vs. What Is Being Criticized about the LHC

So far, you have had a chance to get some information about the technical principle of the LHC and its parts and their dimensions, but you may miss some information about the overall purpose of the collider and its goals. In addition, in order to give you a complete picture of the collider, you will have a chance to read about some criticism of the project. Read both the texts in these two tasks: Reading 1 and Reading 2 and complete all the gaps while reading. You may also find it useful to take some notes on the main points given in the texts because later in this unit, you will be asked to give your opinion on the collider.

Note: If you are interested, you can read it online here or download it as a pdf text from this Moodle course here.

5. Listening: Are Colliders Useless?

Now, you will have a chance to hear another criticism of the LHC and the reasons for it. Go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7UOCw-FsIc&ab_channel=PandorasBox and watch the video from 26:06 do 35:20 only. While watching this short extract, do this listening task. Apart from completing all the gaps in the task, you may also find it useful to make some notes on the main points of the recording because later in this unit, you will be asked to give your opinion on the collider. 

6. Forum: Pros and Cons of the LHC

Based on what you have learned while completing the reading tasks in Section 4 and the listening task in section 5, give your opinion on the LHC in this forum. Answer at least two of the questions and respond to at least one contribution of a fellow student.

7. Word List

The key terms related to the topic of Unit 4b can be found:

• in the Excel format here.
• in the interactive flash card format here. This format is particularly good for drilling the new vocabulary.
• in a zip file here. This file is downloadable, so that after unpacking it, you can drill the new vocabulary on your desktop, laptop or any other portable device where you have a browser installed. The recommended one is Mozilla Firefox. Important: after unzipping the zip file, make sure to keep all the related files in the same directory at all times. Do not change any file names and do not transfer or delete anything.

Recommendation: Remember that the best way to learn new vocabulary is to see each new word in a context; that is, seeing it in the contexts provided in the tasks you complete in the unit.

8. A printer-friendly version of Unit 4b

A printer-friendly version of Unit 4b exercises and the keys to these exercises can be found here