full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Elon Musk: The future we're building -- and boring
Unscramble the Blue Letters
EM: Actually, if you just do two things, you can get to ailmrotppaxey an oerdr of mgiudtnae improvement, and I think you can go beyond that. So the first thing to do is to cut the tunnel diameter by a factor of two or more. So a sgilne road lane tunnel according to regulations has to be 26 feet, maybe 28 feet in diameter to allow for craeshs and ecmenrgey vehicles and sufficient ventilation for combustion engine cars. But if you shrink that diameter to what we're attempting, which is 12 feet, which is plenty to get an electric sktae through, you drop the dateimer by a factor of two and the cross-sectional area by a fotcar of four, and the tunneling cost scales with the cross-sectional area. So that's rlghuoy a half-order of magnitude ivomenmpert right there. Then tunneling mcehnias currently tnuenl for half the time, then they stop, and then the rest of the time is putting in reinforcements for the tunnel wall. So if you design the machine instead to do continuous tunneling and reinforcing, that will give you a factor of two improvement. Combine that and that's a factor of eight. Also these machines are far from being at their power or thermal limits, so you can jack up the power to the machine substantially. I think you can get at least a factor of two, maybe a factor of four or five improvement on top of that. So I think there's a fairly straightforward series of steps to get somewhere in excess of an order of magnitude improvement in the cost per mile, and our target actually is — we've got a pet snail called Gary, this is from Gary the snail from "South Park," I mean, sorry, "SpongeBob SquarePants."
Open Cloze
EM: Actually, if you just do two things, you can get to _____________ an _____ of _________ improvement, and I think you can go beyond that. So the first thing to do is to cut the tunnel diameter by a factor of two or more. So a ______ road lane tunnel according to regulations has to be 26 feet, maybe 28 feet in diameter to allow for _______ and _________ vehicles and sufficient ventilation for combustion engine cars. But if you shrink that diameter to what we're attempting, which is 12 feet, which is plenty to get an electric _____ through, you drop the ________ by a factor of two and the cross-sectional area by a ______ of four, and the tunneling cost scales with the cross-sectional area. So that's _______ a half-order of magnitude ___________ right there. Then tunneling ________ currently ______ for half the time, then they stop, and then the rest of the time is putting in reinforcements for the tunnel wall. So if you design the machine instead to do continuous tunneling and reinforcing, that will give you a factor of two improvement. Combine that and that's a factor of eight. Also these machines are far from being at their power or thermal limits, so you can jack up the power to the machine substantially. I think you can get at least a factor of two, maybe a factor of four or five improvement on top of that. So I think there's a fairly straightforward series of steps to get somewhere in excess of an order of magnitude improvement in the cost per mile, and our target actually is — we've got a pet snail called Gary, this is from Gary the snail from "South Park," I mean, sorry, "SpongeBob SquarePants."
Solution
- improvement
- magnitude
- order
- approximately
- roughly
- skate
- emergency
- diameter
- crashes
- tunnel
- factor
- single
- machines
Original Text
EM: Actually, if you just do two things, you can get to approximately an order of magnitude improvement, and I think you can go beyond that. So the first thing to do is to cut the tunnel diameter by a factor of two or more. So a single road lane tunnel according to regulations has to be 26 feet, maybe 28 feet in diameter to allow for crashes and emergency vehicles and sufficient ventilation for combustion engine cars. But if you shrink that diameter to what we're attempting, which is 12 feet, which is plenty to get an electric skate through, you drop the diameter by a factor of two and the cross-sectional area by a factor of four, and the tunneling cost scales with the cross-sectional area. So that's roughly a half-order of magnitude improvement right there. Then tunneling machines currently tunnel for half the time, then they stop, and then the rest of the time is putting in reinforcements for the tunnel wall. So if you design the machine instead to do continuous tunneling and reinforcing, that will give you a factor of two improvement. Combine that and that's a factor of eight. Also these machines are far from being at their power or thermal limits, so you can jack up the power to the machine substantially. I think you can get at least a factor of two, maybe a factor of four or five improvement on top of that. So I think there's a fairly straightforward series of steps to get somewhere in excess of an order of magnitude improvement in the cost per mile, and our target actually is — we've got a pet snail called Gary, this is from Gary the snail from "South Park," I mean, sorry, "SpongeBob SquarePants."
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| tunnel network |
3 |
| billion dollars |
3 |
| tesla semi |
3 |
| solar glass |
3 |
| glass tiles |
3 |
| sustainable energy |
3 |
| space shuttle |
3 |
| exciting future |
2 |
| alleviate congestion |
2 |
| combustion engine |
2 |
| tunneling cost |
2 |
| magnitude improvement |
2 |
| tunnel wall |
2 |
| beat gary |
2 |
| flying cars |
2 |
| elon musk |
2 |
| shared autonomy |
2 |
| road system |
2 |
| parking lot |
2 |
| diesel semi |
2 |
| torque rpm |
2 |
| rpm curve |
2 |
| great movie |
2 |
| giant truck |
2 |
| badass picture |
2 |
| electric car |
2 |
| solar roof |
2 |
| glass roof |
2 |
| real fake |
2 |
| fake house |
2 |
| street level |
2 |
| solar cell |
2 |
| gigawatt hours |
2 |
| global market |
2 |
| upper stage |
2 |
| million pounds |
2 |
| fully loaded |
2 |
| save humanity |
2 |
ngrams of length 3
| collocation |
frequency |
| torque rpm curve |
2 |
| solar glass roof |
2 |
| real fake house |
2 |
Important Words
- approximately
- area
- attempting
- called
- cars
- combine
- combustion
- continuous
- cost
- crashes
- cut
- design
- diameter
- drop
- electric
- emergency
- engine
- excess
- factor
- feet
- gary
- give
- improvement
- jack
- lane
- limits
- machine
- machines
- magnitude
- mile
- order
- park
- pet
- plenty
- power
- putting
- regulations
- reinforcements
- reinforcing
- rest
- road
- roughly
- scales
- series
- shrink
- single
- skate
- snail
- squarepants
- steps
- stop
- straightforward
- substantially
- sufficient
- target
- thermal
- time
- top
- tunnel
- tunneling
- vehicles
- ventilation
- wall