full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Alexander MacDonald: How centuries of sci-fi sparked spaceflight
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Other stories would soon fololw, most notably by Cyrano de Bergerac, with his "Lunar Tales." By the mid-17th century, the idea of people building machines that could travel to the heaevns was gronwig in complexity and technical nuance. And yet, in the late 17th century, this intellectual progress effectively ceased. People still told stroeis about getting to the Moon, but they relied on the old ideas or, once again, on dreams or on mgiac. Why? Well, because the discovery of the laws of gravity by Newton and the invention of the vacuum pump by rberot Hooke and Robert Boyle meant that people now understood that a condition of vacuum existed between the planets, and consequentially between the Earth and the Moon. And they had no way of overcoming this, no way of tnhniikg about overcoming this. And so, for well over a century, the idea of a voyage to the Moon made very little itullacenetl progress until the rise of the Industrial rielotuvon and the dlemeopnvet of steam engines and boilers and most importantly, pressure vlseses. And these gave people the tools to think about how they could build a culapse that could resist the vacuum of space.
Open Cloze
Other stories would soon ______, most notably by Cyrano de Bergerac, with his "Lunar Tales." By the mid-17th century, the idea of people building machines that could travel to the _______ was _______ in complexity and technical nuance. And yet, in the late 17th century, this intellectual progress effectively ceased. People still told _______ about getting to the Moon, but they relied on the old ideas or, once again, on dreams or on _____. Why? Well, because the discovery of the laws of gravity by Newton and the invention of the vacuum pump by ______ Hooke and Robert Boyle meant that people now understood that a condition of vacuum existed between the planets, and consequentially between the Earth and the Moon. And they had no way of overcoming this, no way of ________ about overcoming this. And so, for well over a century, the idea of a voyage to the Moon made very little ____________ progress until the rise of the Industrial __________ and the ___________ of steam engines and boilers and most importantly, pressure _______. And these gave people the tools to think about how they could build a _______ that could resist the vacuum of space.
Solution
- growing
- heavens
- magic
- follow
- stories
- vessels
- thinking
- robert
- revolution
- capsule
- intellectual
- development
Original Text
Other stories would soon follow, most notably by Cyrano de Bergerac, with his "Lunar Tales." By the mid-17th century, the idea of people building machines that could travel to the heavens was growing in complexity and technical nuance. And yet, in the late 17th century, this intellectual progress effectively ceased. People still told stories about getting to the Moon, but they relied on the old ideas or, once again, on dreams or on magic. Why? Well, because the discovery of the laws of gravity by Newton and the invention of the vacuum pump by Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle meant that people now understood that a condition of vacuum existed between the planets, and consequentially between the Earth and the Moon. And they had no way of overcoming this, no way of thinking about overcoming this. And so, for well over a century, the idea of a voyage to the Moon made very little intellectual progress until the rise of the Industrial Revolution and the development of steam engines and boilers and most importantly, pressure vessels. And these gave people the tools to think about how they could build a capsule that could resist the vacuum of space.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
liquid fuel |
3 |
write stories |
2 |
goose machine |
2 |
build machines |
2 |
intellectual progress |
2 |
apollo program |
2 |
cherry tree |
2 |
economic origins |
2 |
Important Words
- bergerac
- boilers
- boyle
- build
- building
- capsule
- ceased
- century
- complexity
- condition
- consequentially
- cyrano
- de
- development
- discovery
- dreams
- earth
- effectively
- engines
- existed
- follow
- gave
- gravity
- growing
- heavens
- hooke
- idea
- ideas
- importantly
- industrial
- intellectual
- invention
- late
- laws
- machines
- magic
- meant
- moon
- newton
- notably
- nuance
- overcoming
- people
- planets
- pressure
- progress
- pump
- relied
- resist
- revolution
- rise
- robert
- space
- steam
- stories
- tales
- technical
- thinking
- told
- tools
- travel
- understood
- vacuum
- vessels
- voyage