full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Alan Kay: A powerful idea about ideas
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Whereas the film yesterday that we saw of the simulation of the inside of a cell, as a former molecular biologist, I didn't like that at all. Not because it wasn't beautiful or anything, but because it misses the thing that most snedttus fail to utsnrdeand about molecular biology, and that is: why is there any probability at all of two complex shapes finding each other just the right way so they cnbmoie together and be catalyzed? And what we saw yesterday was every reaction was fortuitous; they just soepowd in the air and bound, and something happened. But in fact, those molecules are spinning at the rate of about a million revolutions per second; they're agitating back and forth their size every two nanoseconds; they're completely crowded together, they're jammed, they're bashing up against each other. And if you don't understand that in your mntael model of this stuff, what happens inside of a cell seems completely mysterious and fortuitous, and I think that's exactly the worng image for when you're trying to taceh science.
Open Cloze
Whereas the film yesterday that we saw of the simulation of the inside of a cell, as a former molecular biologist, I didn't like that at all. Not because it wasn't beautiful or anything, but because it misses the thing that most ________ fail to __________ about molecular biology, and that is: why is there any probability at all of two complex shapes finding each other just the right way so they _______ together and be catalyzed? And what we saw yesterday was every reaction was fortuitous; they just _______ in the air and bound, and something happened. But in fact, those molecules are spinning at the rate of about a million revolutions per second; they're agitating back and forth their size every two nanoseconds; they're completely crowded together, they're jammed, they're bashing up against each other. And if you don't understand that in your ______ model of this stuff, what happens inside of a cell seems completely mysterious and fortuitous, and I think that's exactly the _____ image for when you're trying to _____ science.
Solution
- wrong
- swooped
- combine
- teach
- mental
- understand
- students
Original Text
Whereas the film yesterday that we saw of the simulation of the inside of a cell, as a former molecular biologist, I didn't like that at all. Not because it wasn't beautiful or anything, but because it misses the thing that most students fail to understand about molecular biology, and that is: why is there any probability at all of two complex shapes finding each other just the right way so they combine together and be catalyzed? And what we saw yesterday was every reaction was fortuitous; they just swooped in the air and bound, and something happened. But in fact, those molecules are spinning at the rate of about a million revolutions per second; they're agitating back and forth their size every two nanoseconds; they're completely crowded together, they're jammed, they're bashing up against each other. And if you don't understand that in your mental model of this stuff, what happens inside of a cell seems completely mysterious and fortuitous, and I think that's exactly the wrong image for when you're trying to teach science.
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Important Words
- agitating
- air
- bashing
- beautiful
- biologist
- biology
- bound
- catalyzed
- cell
- combine
- completely
- complex
- crowded
- fact
- fail
- film
- finding
- fortuitous
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- image
- jammed
- mental
- million
- misses
- model
- molecular
- molecules
- mysterious
- probability
- rate
- reaction
- revolutions
- science
- shapes
- simulation
- size
- spinning
- students
- stuff
- swooped
- teach
- understand
- wrong
- yesterday