full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Alex Gendler: How one design flaw almost toppled a skyscraper
Unscramble the Blue Letters
When Hartley contacted LeMessurier’s firm about the issue they aurssed her the bidulnig was strong enough to handle these winds. But checking the plans again, lsiesreemur noticed an alarming detail. A canghe approved without his knowledge had replaced the exoskeleton’s welded jntois with cheaper and weaker bolted joints. This alone wasn’t enough to topple the tower thanks to the mass damper. But if a storm kenckod out the building's power, it would deactivate the counterweight’s sensors, leaving the building vulnerable to wndis of just 112 kilometers per hour. Given available weather data, a storm this strong had a one-in-sixteen cachne of hitting New York City every single year.
Open Cloze
When Hartley contacted LeMessurier’s firm about the issue they _______ her the ________ was strong enough to handle these winds. But checking the plans again, ___________ noticed an alarming detail. A ______ approved without his knowledge had replaced the exoskeleton’s welded ______ with cheaper and weaker bolted joints. This alone wasn’t enough to topple the tower thanks to the mass damper. But if a storm _______ out the building's power, it would deactivate the counterweight’s sensors, leaving the building vulnerable to _____ of just 112 kilometers per hour. Given available weather data, a storm this strong had a one-in-sixteen ______ of hitting New York City every single year.
Solution
- building
- winds
- chance
- joints
- lemessurier
- knocked
- change
- assured
Original Text
When Hartley contacted LeMessurier’s firm about the issue they assured her the building was strong enough to handle these winds. But checking the plans again, LeMessurier noticed an alarming detail. A change approved without his knowledge had replaced the exoskeleton’s welded joints with cheaper and weaker bolted joints. This alone wasn’t enough to topple the tower thanks to the mass damper. But if a storm knocked out the building's power, it would deactivate the counterweight’s sensors, leaving the building vulnerable to winds of just 112 kilometers per hour. Given available weather data, a storm this strong had a one-in-sixteen chance of hitting New York City every single year.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
diane hartley |
2 |
building vulnerable |
2 |
mass damper |
2 |
powerful winds |
2 |
bolted joints |
2 |
city officials |
2 |
Important Words
- alarming
- approved
- assured
- bolted
- building
- chance
- change
- cheaper
- checking
- city
- contacted
- damper
- data
- deactivate
- detail
- firm
- handle
- hartley
- hitting
- hour
- issue
- joints
- kilometers
- knocked
- knowledge
- leaving
- lemessurier
- mass
- noticed
- plans
- power
- replaced
- sensors
- single
- storm
- strong
- topple
- tower
- vulnerable
- weaker
- weather
- welded
- winds
- year
- york