TedTest

From the Ted Talk by Adam Savage: How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries

Unscramble the Blue Letters

One of the funny things about owning a brain is that you have no control over the things that it getarhs and hldos onto, the facts and the stories. And as you get oledr, it only gets worse. Things stick around for yaers sometimes before you urentansdd why you're interested in them, before you understand their import to you. Here's three of mine. When Richard Feynman was a young boy in qeeuns, he went for a walk with his dad and his wagon and a ball. He noticed that when he pulled the wagon, the ball went to the back of the wagon. He asked his dad, "Why does the ball go to the back of the wagon?" And his dad said, "That's inertia." He said, "What's inertia?" And his dad said, "Ah. Inertia is the name that scientists give to the phenomenon of the ball going to the back of the wagon." (Laughter) "But in truth, nobody really knows." Feynman went on to earn dereegs at MIT, Princeton, he svelod the clglnheaer disaster, he ended up wnninig the nebol Prize in Physics for his Feynman diagrams, describing the movement of sabuoimtc particles. And he credits that conversation with his father as gvinig him a sense that the ssmlepit questions could carry you out to the edge of human knowledge, and that that's where he wanted to play. And play he did. Eratosthenes was the third librarian at the great Library of Alexandria, and he made many contributions to scenice. But the one he is most remembered for began in a letter that he received as the librarian, from the town of snewet, which was south of Alexandria. The letter included this fact that stuck in Eratosthenes' mind, and the fact was that the writer said, at noon on the solstice, when he looked down this deep well, he could see his reflection at the bottom, and he could also see that his head was blocking the sun. I should tell you — the idea that Christopher Columbus discovered that the world is spherical is total bull. It's not true at all. In fact, everyone who was etaudecd uotosrnded that the world was shaicrpel since Aristotle's time. arltotise had proved it with a simple observation. He noticed that every time you saw the Earth's shadow on the Moon, it was circular, and the only shape that constantly creates a crcaliur shadow is a sphere, Q.E.D. the Earth is round. But nobody knew how big it was until Eratosthenes got this letter with this fact. So he understood that the sun was directly above the city of Swenet, because looking down a well, it was a sgtairht line all the way down the well, right past the guy's head up to the sun. Eratosthenes knew another fact. He knew that a stick sutck in the ground in ariedxlnaa at the same time and the same day, at noon, the sun's zenith, on the solstice, the sun cast a shadow that showed that it was 7.2 degrees off-axis. If you know the circumference of a circle, and you have two points on it, all you need to know is the distance between those two points, and you can extrapolate the crccenureifme. 360 degrees divided by 7.2 equals 50. I know it's a little bit of a round number, and it makes me suspicious of this sorty too, but it's a good story, so we'll continue with it. He needed to know the ditancse between Swenet and Alexandria, which is good because eretnthaoess was good at geography. In fact, he invented the word geography. (Laughter) The road between Swenet and Alexandria was a road of commerce, and commerce needed to know how long it took to get there. It needed to know the exact distance, so he knew very precisely that the distance between the two cities was 500 miles. Multiply that times 50, you get 25,000, which is within one percent of the actual dmitaeer of the Earth. He did this 2,200 years ago. Now, we live in an age where multi-billion-dollar pieces of machinery are looking for the hgigs bsoon. We're dsiiconverg particles that may travel faster than the seepd of light, and all of these discoveries are made possible by technology that's been developed in the last few decades. But for most of human history, we had to discover these things using our eyes and our ears and our minds. Armand feaizu was an experimental pischyist in Paris. His specialty was actually refining and confirming other people's results, and this might sound like a bit of an also-ran, but in fact, this is the soul of science, because there is no such thing as a fact that cannot be ipennenedltdy corroborated. And he was familiar with Galileo's experiments in trying to determine whether or not light had a speed. Galileo had worked out this really wonderful experiment where he and his assistant had a lamp, each one of them was holding a lamp. Galileo would open his lamp, and his assistant would open his. They got the timing down really good. They just knew their tnimig. And then they stood at two hilltops, two miles distant, and they did the same thing, on the assumption from geillao that if light had a dbicslnerie speed, he'd noitce a delay in the light coinmg back from his assistant's lamp. But light was too fast for Galileo. He was off by several orders of magnitude when he assumed that light was roughly ten tiems as fast as the speed of sound. Fizeau was aware of this experiment. He lived in Paris, and he set up two experimental stations, roughly 5.5 miles distant, in Paris. And he solved this problem of Galileo's, and he did it with a really relatively trivial piece of equipment. He did it with one of these. I'm going to put away the cickelr for a second because I want to enagge your brains in this. So this is a toothed wheel. It's got a bcunh of notches and it's got a bunch of teeth. This was Fizeau's solution to sending dtricese pulses of light. He put a beam behind one of these notches. If I point a beam through this notch at a mirror, five miles away, that beam is bouncing off the mirror and coming back to me through this notch. But something interesting happens as he spins the wheel faster. He notices that it seems like a door is starting to close on the light beam that's coming back to his eye. Why is that? It's because the plsue of light is not coming back through the same notch. It's actually hitting a totoh. And he spins the wheel fast enough and he fully ocdcules the light. And then, based on the distance between the two stations and the speed of his wheel and the number of notches in the wheel, he clcelaauts the speed of lihgt to within two pnrceet of its actual value. And he does this in 1849. This is what really gets me going about science. Whenever I'm having trouble utndsdrianeng a concept, I go back and I research the people that discovered that concept. I look at the story of how they came to understand it. What happens when you look at what the drciseevors were thinking about when they made their dieserviocs, is you understand that they are not so different from us. We are all bags of meat and weatr. We all start with the same tolos. I love the idea that different branches of science are called fdlies of study. Most people think of science as a closed, black box, when in fact it is an open field. And we are all explorers. The popele that made these discoveries just thought a little bit harder about what they were looking at, and they were a little bit more curious. And their curiosity changed the way people tuhoght about the world, and thus it changed the wlrod. They changed the world, and so can you. Thank you. (Applause)

Open Cloze

One of the funny things about owning a brain is that you have no control over the things that it _______ and _____ onto, the facts and the stories. And as you get _____, it only gets worse. Things stick around for _____ sometimes before you __________ why you're interested in them, before you understand their import to you. Here's three of mine. When Richard Feynman was a young boy in ______, he went for a walk with his dad and his wagon and a ball. He noticed that when he pulled the wagon, the ball went to the back of the wagon. He asked his dad, "Why does the ball go to the back of the wagon?" And his dad said, "That's inertia." He said, "What's inertia?" And his dad said, "Ah. Inertia is the name that scientists give to the phenomenon of the ball going to the back of the wagon." (Laughter) "But in truth, nobody really knows." Feynman went on to earn _______ at MIT, Princeton, he ______ the __________ disaster, he ended up _______ the _____ Prize in Physics for his Feynman diagrams, describing the movement of _________ particles. And he credits that conversation with his father as ______ him a sense that the ________ questions could carry you out to the edge of human knowledge, and that that's where he wanted to play. And play he did. Eratosthenes was the third librarian at the great Library of Alexandria, and he made many contributions to _______. But the one he is most remembered for began in a letter that he received as the librarian, from the town of ______, which was south of Alexandria. The letter included this fact that stuck in Eratosthenes' mind, and the fact was that the writer said, at noon on the solstice, when he looked down this deep well, he could see his reflection at the bottom, and he could also see that his head was blocking the sun. I should tell you — the idea that Christopher Columbus discovered that the world is spherical is total bull. It's not true at all. In fact, everyone who was ________ __________ that the world was _________ since Aristotle's time. _________ had proved it with a simple observation. He noticed that every time you saw the Earth's shadow on the Moon, it was circular, and the only shape that constantly creates a ________ shadow is a sphere, Q.E.D. the Earth is round. But nobody knew how big it was until Eratosthenes got this letter with this fact. So he understood that the sun was directly above the city of Swenet, because looking down a well, it was a ________ line all the way down the well, right past the guy's head up to the sun. Eratosthenes knew another fact. He knew that a stick _____ in the ground in __________ at the same time and the same day, at noon, the sun's zenith, on the solstice, the sun cast a shadow that showed that it was 7.2 degrees off-axis. If you know the circumference of a circle, and you have two points on it, all you need to know is the distance between those two points, and you can extrapolate the _____________. 360 degrees divided by 7.2 equals 50. I know it's a little bit of a round number, and it makes me suspicious of this _____ too, but it's a good story, so we'll continue with it. He needed to know the ________ between Swenet and Alexandria, which is good because ____________ was good at geography. In fact, he invented the word geography. (Laughter) The road between Swenet and Alexandria was a road of commerce, and commerce needed to know how long it took to get there. It needed to know the exact distance, so he knew very precisely that the distance between the two cities was 500 miles. Multiply that times 50, you get 25,000, which is within one percent of the actual ________ of the Earth. He did this 2,200 years ago. Now, we live in an age where multi-billion-dollar pieces of machinery are looking for the _____ _____. We're ___________ particles that may travel faster than the _____ of light, and all of these discoveries are made possible by technology that's been developed in the last few decades. But for most of human history, we had to discover these things using our eyes and our ears and our minds. Armand ______ was an experimental _________ in Paris. His specialty was actually refining and confirming other people's results, and this might sound like a bit of an also-ran, but in fact, this is the soul of science, because there is no such thing as a fact that cannot be _____________ corroborated. And he was familiar with Galileo's experiments in trying to determine whether or not light had a speed. Galileo had worked out this really wonderful experiment where he and his assistant had a lamp, each one of them was holding a lamp. Galileo would open his lamp, and his assistant would open his. They got the timing down really good. They just knew their ______. And then they stood at two hilltops, two miles distant, and they did the same thing, on the assumption from _______ that if light had a ___________ speed, he'd ______ a delay in the light ______ back from his assistant's lamp. But light was too fast for Galileo. He was off by several orders of magnitude when he assumed that light was roughly ten _____ as fast as the speed of sound. Fizeau was aware of this experiment. He lived in Paris, and he set up two experimental stations, roughly 5.5 miles distant, in Paris. And he solved this problem of Galileo's, and he did it with a really relatively trivial piece of equipment. He did it with one of these. I'm going to put away the _______ for a second because I want to ______ your brains in this. So this is a toothed wheel. It's got a _____ of notches and it's got a bunch of teeth. This was Fizeau's solution to sending ________ pulses of light. He put a beam behind one of these notches. If I point a beam through this notch at a mirror, five miles away, that beam is bouncing off the mirror and coming back to me through this notch. But something interesting happens as he spins the wheel faster. He notices that it seems like a door is starting to close on the light beam that's coming back to his eye. Why is that? It's because the _____ of light is not coming back through the same notch. It's actually hitting a _____. And he spins the wheel fast enough and he fully ________ the light. And then, based on the distance between the two stations and the speed of his wheel and the number of notches in the wheel, he __________ the speed of _____ to within two _______ of its actual value. And he does this in 1849. This is what really gets me going about science. Whenever I'm having trouble _____________ a concept, I go back and I research the people that discovered that concept. I look at the story of how they came to understand it. What happens when you look at what the ___________ were thinking about when they made their ___________, is you understand that they are not so different from us. We are all bags of meat and _____. We all start with the same _____. I love the idea that different branches of science are called ______ of study. Most people think of science as a closed, black box, when in fact it is an open field. And we are all explorers. The ______ that made these discoveries just thought a little bit harder about what they were looking at, and they were a little bit more curious. And their curiosity changed the way people _______ about the world, and thus it changed the _____. They changed the world, and so can you. Thank you. (Applause)

Solution

swenet
simplest
giving
alexandria
light
people
challenger
percent
gathers
physicist
discernible
diameter
galileo
straight
eratosthenes
distance
independently
discoveries
story
educated
subatomic
solved
occludes
speed
engage
older
pulse
timing
queens
thought
calculates
nobel
years
circular
boson
understood
notice
fizeau
times
water
discoverers
tools
higgs
winning
discovering
holds
stuck
world
understand
tooth
spherical
clicker
fields
aristotle
circumference
science
discrete
coming
understanding
degrees
bunch

Original Text

One of the funny things about owning a brain is that you have no control over the things that it gathers and holds onto, the facts and the stories. And as you get older, it only gets worse. Things stick around for years sometimes before you understand why you're interested in them, before you understand their import to you. Here's three of mine. When Richard Feynman was a young boy in Queens, he went for a walk with his dad and his wagon and a ball. He noticed that when he pulled the wagon, the ball went to the back of the wagon. He asked his dad, "Why does the ball go to the back of the wagon?" And his dad said, "That's inertia." He said, "What's inertia?" And his dad said, "Ah. Inertia is the name that scientists give to the phenomenon of the ball going to the back of the wagon." (Laughter) "But in truth, nobody really knows." Feynman went on to earn degrees at MIT, Princeton, he solved the Challenger disaster, he ended up winning the Nobel Prize in Physics for his Feynman diagrams, describing the movement of subatomic particles. And he credits that conversation with his father as giving him a sense that the simplest questions could carry you out to the edge of human knowledge, and that that's where he wanted to play. And play he did. Eratosthenes was the third librarian at the great Library of Alexandria, and he made many contributions to science. But the one he is most remembered for began in a letter that he received as the librarian, from the town of Swenet, which was south of Alexandria. The letter included this fact that stuck in Eratosthenes' mind, and the fact was that the writer said, at noon on the solstice, when he looked down this deep well, he could see his reflection at the bottom, and he could also see that his head was blocking the sun. I should tell you — the idea that Christopher Columbus discovered that the world is spherical is total bull. It's not true at all. In fact, everyone who was educated understood that the world was spherical since Aristotle's time. Aristotle had proved it with a simple observation. He noticed that every time you saw the Earth's shadow on the Moon, it was circular, and the only shape that constantly creates a circular shadow is a sphere, Q.E.D. the Earth is round. But nobody knew how big it was until Eratosthenes got this letter with this fact. So he understood that the sun was directly above the city of Swenet, because looking down a well, it was a straight line all the way down the well, right past the guy's head up to the sun. Eratosthenes knew another fact. He knew that a stick stuck in the ground in Alexandria at the same time and the same day, at noon, the sun's zenith, on the solstice, the sun cast a shadow that showed that it was 7.2 degrees off-axis. If you know the circumference of a circle, and you have two points on it, all you need to know is the distance between those two points, and you can extrapolate the circumference. 360 degrees divided by 7.2 equals 50. I know it's a little bit of a round number, and it makes me suspicious of this story too, but it's a good story, so we'll continue with it. He needed to know the distance between Swenet and Alexandria, which is good because Eratosthenes was good at geography. In fact, he invented the word geography. (Laughter) The road between Swenet and Alexandria was a road of commerce, and commerce needed to know how long it took to get there. It needed to know the exact distance, so he knew very precisely that the distance between the two cities was 500 miles. Multiply that times 50, you get 25,000, which is within one percent of the actual diameter of the Earth. He did this 2,200 years ago. Now, we live in an age where multi-billion-dollar pieces of machinery are looking for the Higgs boson. We're discovering particles that may travel faster than the speed of light, and all of these discoveries are made possible by technology that's been developed in the last few decades. But for most of human history, we had to discover these things using our eyes and our ears and our minds. Armand Fizeau was an experimental physicist in Paris. His specialty was actually refining and confirming other people's results, and this might sound like a bit of an also-ran, but in fact, this is the soul of science, because there is no such thing as a fact that cannot be independently corroborated. And he was familiar with Galileo's experiments in trying to determine whether or not light had a speed. Galileo had worked out this really wonderful experiment where he and his assistant had a lamp, each one of them was holding a lamp. Galileo would open his lamp, and his assistant would open his. They got the timing down really good. They just knew their timing. And then they stood at two hilltops, two miles distant, and they did the same thing, on the assumption from Galileo that if light had a discernible speed, he'd notice a delay in the light coming back from his assistant's lamp. But light was too fast for Galileo. He was off by several orders of magnitude when he assumed that light was roughly ten times as fast as the speed of sound. Fizeau was aware of this experiment. He lived in Paris, and he set up two experimental stations, roughly 5.5 miles distant, in Paris. And he solved this problem of Galileo's, and he did it with a really relatively trivial piece of equipment. He did it with one of these. I'm going to put away the clicker for a second because I want to engage your brains in this. So this is a toothed wheel. It's got a bunch of notches and it's got a bunch of teeth. This was Fizeau's solution to sending discrete pulses of light. He put a beam behind one of these notches. If I point a beam through this notch at a mirror, five miles away, that beam is bouncing off the mirror and coming back to me through this notch. But something interesting happens as he spins the wheel faster. He notices that it seems like a door is starting to close on the light beam that's coming back to his eye. Why is that? It's because the pulse of light is not coming back through the same notch. It's actually hitting a tooth. And he spins the wheel fast enough and he fully occludes the light. And then, based on the distance between the two stations and the speed of his wheel and the number of notches in the wheel, he calculates the speed of light to within two percent of its actual value. And he does this in 1849. This is what really gets me going about science. Whenever I'm having trouble understanding a concept, I go back and I research the people that discovered that concept. I look at the story of how they came to understand it. What happens when you look at what the discoverers were thinking about when they made their discoveries, is you understand that they are not so different from us. We are all bags of meat and water. We all start with the same tools. I love the idea that different branches of science are called fields of study. Most people think of science as a closed, black box, when in fact it is an open field. And we are all explorers. The people that made these discoveries just thought a little bit harder about what they were looking at, and they were a little bit more curious. And their curiosity changed the way people thought about the world, and thus it changed the world. They changed the world, and so can you. Thank you. (Applause)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

Important Words

actual
age
alexandria
applause
aristotle
armand
asked
assistant
assumed
assumption
aware
bags
ball
based
beam
began
big
bit
black
blocking
boson
bottom
bouncing
box
boy
brain
brains
branches
bull
bunch
calculates
called
carry
cast
challenger
changed
christopher
circle
circular
circumference
cities
city
clicker
close
closed
columbus
coming
commerce
concept
confirming
constantly
continue
contributions
control
conversation
corroborated
creates
credits
curiosity
curious
dad
day
decades
deep
degrees
delay
describing
determine
developed
diagrams
diameter
disaster
discernible
discover
discovered
discoverers
discoveries
discovering
discrete
distance
distant
divided
door
earn
ears
earth
edge
educated
ended
engage
equals
equipment
eratosthenes
exact
experiment
experimental
experiments
explorers
extrapolate
eye
eyes
fact
facts
familiar
fast
faster
father
feynman
field
fields
fizeau
fully
funny
galileo
gathers
geography
give
giving
good
great
ground
harder
head
higgs
hilltops
history
hitting
holding
holds
human
idea
import
included
independently
inertia
interested
interesting
invented
knew
knowledge
lamp
laughter
letter
librarian
library
light
line
live
lived
long
looked
love
machinery
magnitude
meat
miles
mind
minds
mirror
mit
moon
movement
multiply
needed
nobel
noon
notch
notches
notice
noticed
notices
number
observation
occludes
older
open
orders
owning
paris
particles
people
percent
phenomenon
physicist
physics
piece
pieces
play
point
points
precisely
princeton
prize
problem
proved
pulled
pulse
pulses
put
queens
questions
received
refining
reflection
remembered
research
results
richard
road
roughly
science
scientists
sending
sense
set
shadow
shape
showed
simple
simplest
solstice
solution
solved
soul
sound
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speed
sphere
spherical
spins
start
starting
stations
stick
stood
stories
story
straight
stuck
study
subatomic
sun
suspicious
swenet
technology
teeth
ten
thinking
thought
time
times
timing
tools
tooth
toothed
total
town
travel
trivial
trouble
true
truth
understand
understanding
understood
wagon
walk
wanted
water
wheel
winning
wonderful
word
worked
world
worse
writer
years
young
zenith