full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Dan Finkel: Can you solve the world's most evil wizard riddle?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

There’s another inihgst that will help. The board is very symmetrical: If MoldeVort is in a corner, it doesn’t really mteatr to you which corner it is. So we can think of the corners as being functionally the same, and color them all blue. Similarly, the spaces neighboring the corners behave the same as each other, and we’ll make them red. Finally, the mdpntoiis of the sides are a third type. So instead of having to devoelp a strategy for each of the 16 spcaes on the outside of the board, we can reduce the problem to just three. Meanwhile, all the inside spaces are bad for us, because if MoldeVort ever reaches one, he’ll be able to say any number larger than 3 and go free. ognrae spaces are trouble too, since any number except 1, 2, or 4 would take him to an inside space or off the board. So orange is out and you’ll need to keep him on blue and red.

Open Cloze

There’s another _______ that will help. The board is very symmetrical: If MoldeVort is in a corner, it doesn’t really ______ to you which corner it is. So we can think of the corners as being functionally the same, and color them all blue. Similarly, the spaces neighboring the corners behave the same as each other, and we’ll make them red. Finally, the _________ of the sides are a third type. So instead of having to _______ a strategy for each of the 16 ______ on the outside of the board, we can reduce the problem to just three. Meanwhile, all the inside spaces are bad for us, because if MoldeVort ever reaches one, he’ll be able to say any number larger than 3 and go free. ______ spaces are trouble too, since any number except 1, 2, or 4 would take him to an inside space or off the board. So orange is out and you’ll need to keep him on blue and red.

Solution

  1. insight
  2. spaces
  3. matter
  4. orange
  5. midpoints
  6. develop

Original Text

There’s another insight that will help. The board is very symmetrical: If MoldeVort is in a corner, it doesn’t really matter to you which corner it is. So we can think of the corners as being functionally the same, and color them all blue. Similarly, the spaces neighboring the corners behave the same as each other, and we’ll make them red. Finally, the midpoints of the sides are a third type. So instead of having to develop a strategy for each of the 16 spaces on the outside of the board, we can reduce the problem to just three. Meanwhile, all the inside spaces are bad for us, because if MoldeVort ever reaches one, he’ll be able to say any number larger than 3 and go free. Orange spaces are trouble too, since any number except 1, 2, or 4 would take him to an inside space or off the board. So orange is out and you’ll need to keep him on blue and red.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
evil wizard 2
number larger 2

Important Words

  1. bad
  2. behave
  3. blue
  4. board
  5. color
  6. corner
  7. corners
  8. develop
  9. finally
  10. free
  11. functionally
  12. insight
  13. larger
  14. matter
  15. midpoints
  16. moldevort
  17. neighboring
  18. number
  19. orange
  20. problem
  21. reaches
  22. red
  23. reduce
  24. sides
  25. similarly
  26. space
  27. spaces
  28. strategy
  29. trouble
  30. type