full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Hannah Fry: The mathematics of love

Unscramble the Blue Letters

OK, so this method doesn't give you a 100 percent success rate, but there's no other possible strategy that can do any better. And actually, in the wild, there are certain types of fish which fololw and employ this exact strategy. So they reject every possible suitor that turns up in the first 37 percent of the miantg sosaen, and then they pick the next fish that comes along after that window that's, I don't know, bigger and burlier than all of the fish that they've seen before. I also think that sncuoobuscisly, humans, we do sort of do this anyway. We give ourselves a little bit of time to play the field, get a feel for the marketplace or whatever when we're young. And then we only start looking seriously at potential mirgaare candidates once we hit our mid-to-late 20s. I think this is conclusive proof, if ever it were neeedd, that everybody's brains are pwerierd to be just a little bit mathematical.

Open Cloze

OK, so this method doesn't give you a 100 percent success rate, but there's no other possible strategy that can do any better. And actually, in the wild, there are certain types of fish which ______ and employ this exact strategy. So they reject every possible suitor that turns up in the first 37 percent of the ______ ______, and then they pick the next fish that comes along after that window that's, I don't know, bigger and burlier than all of the fish that they've seen before. I also think that ______________, humans, we do sort of do this anyway. We give ourselves a little bit of time to play the field, get a feel for the marketplace or whatever when we're young. And then we only start looking seriously at potential ________ candidates once we hit our mid-to-late 20s. I think this is conclusive proof, if ever it were ______, that everybody's brains are ________ to be just a little bit mathematical.

Solution

  1. prewired
  2. subconsciously
  3. follow
  4. season
  5. mating
  6. marriage
  7. needed

Original Text

OK, so this method doesn't give you a 100 percent success rate, but there's no other possible strategy that can do any better. And actually, in the wild, there are certain types of fish which follow and employ this exact strategy. So they reject every possible suitor that turns up in the first 37 percent of the mating season, and then they pick the next fish that comes along after that window that's, I don't know, bigger and burlier than all of the fish that they've seen before. I also think that subconsciously, humans, we do sort of do this anyway. We give ourselves a little bit of time to play the field, get a feel for the marketplace or whatever when we're young. And then we only start looking seriously at potential marriage candidates once we hit our mid-to-late 20s. I think this is conclusive proof, if ever it were needed, that everybody's brains are prewired to be just a little bit mathematical.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
online dating 6
perfect partner 5
top tip 4
dating website 4
portia de 4
de rossi 3
sarah jessica 3
jessica parker 3
negativity threshold 3
finding love 2
neatly ordered 2
question arises 2
deliberately choosing 2
big deal 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
online dating website 3
portia de rossi 3
sarah jessica parker 2

Important Words

  1. bigger
  2. bit
  3. brains
  4. burlier
  5. candidates
  6. conclusive
  7. employ
  8. exact
  9. feel
  10. field
  11. fish
  12. follow
  13. give
  14. hit
  15. humans
  16. marketplace
  17. marriage
  18. mathematical
  19. mating
  20. method
  21. needed
  22. percent
  23. pick
  24. play
  25. potential
  26. prewired
  27. proof
  28. rate
  29. reject
  30. season
  31. sort
  32. start
  33. strategy
  34. subconsciously
  35. success
  36. suitor
  37. time
  38. turns
  39. types
  40. wild
  41. window
  42. young