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

  1. wrong
  2. swooped
  3. combine
  4. teach
  5. mental
  6. understand
  7. 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.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

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Important Words

  1. agitating
  2. air
  3. bashing
  4. beautiful
  5. biologist
  6. biology
  7. bound
  8. catalyzed
  9. cell
  10. combine
  11. completely
  12. complex
  13. crowded
  14. fact
  15. fail
  16. film
  17. finding
  18. fortuitous
  19. happened
  20. image
  21. jammed
  22. mental
  23. million
  24. misses
  25. model
  26. molecular
  27. molecules
  28. mysterious
  29. probability
  30. rate
  31. reaction
  32. revolutions
  33. science
  34. shapes
  35. simulation
  36. size
  37. spinning
  38. students
  39. stuff
  40. swooped
  41. teach
  42. understand
  43. wrong
  44. yesterday