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

  1. building
  2. winds
  3. chance
  4. joints
  5. lemessurier
  6. knocked
  7. change
  8. 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

  1. alarming
  2. approved
  3. assured
  4. bolted
  5. building
  6. chance
  7. change
  8. cheaper
  9. checking
  10. city
  11. contacted
  12. damper
  13. data
  14. deactivate
  15. detail
  16. firm
  17. handle
  18. hartley
  19. hitting
  20. hour
  21. issue
  22. joints
  23. kilometers
  24. knocked
  25. knowledge
  26. leaving
  27. lemessurier
  28. mass
  29. noticed
  30. plans
  31. power
  32. replaced
  33. sensors
  34. single
  35. storm
  36. strong
  37. topple
  38. tower
  39. vulnerable
  40. weaker
  41. weather
  42. welded
  43. winds
  44. year
  45. york