full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Janna Levin: The sound the universe makes
Unscramble the Blue Letters
In this Hubble iamge, we see two galaxies. They look like they're frozen in some emarbce. And each one probably harbors a super-massive black hole at its core. But they're not frozen; they're actually merging. These two black hloes are colliding, and they will mrgee over a billion-year time scale. It's beyond our human perception to pick up a song of that duration. But LISA could see the final stages of two super-massive black holes earlier in the universe's history, the last 15 minutes before they fall together. And it's not just blcak holes, but it's also any big disturbance in the universe — and the bgegsit of them all is the Big Bang. When that expression was coined, it was dervsiie — like, "Oh, who would believe in a Big Bang?" But now it actually might be more technically accurate because it might bang. It might make a sound.
Open Cloze
In this Hubble _____, we see two galaxies. They look like they're frozen in some _______. And each one probably harbors a super-massive black hole at its core. But they're not frozen; they're actually merging. These two black _____ are colliding, and they will _____ over a billion-year time scale. It's beyond our human perception to pick up a song of that duration. But LISA could see the final stages of two super-massive black holes earlier in the universe's history, the last 15 minutes before they fall together. And it's not just _____ holes, but it's also any big disturbance in the universe — and the _______ of them all is the Big Bang. When that expression was coined, it was ________ — like, "Oh, who would believe in a Big Bang?" But now it actually might be more technically accurate because it might bang. It might make a sound.
Solution
- black
- merge
- image
- derisive
- embrace
- holes
- biggest
Original Text
In this Hubble image, we see two galaxies. They look like they're frozen in some embrace. And each one probably harbors a super-massive black hole at its core. But they're not frozen; they're actually merging. These two black holes are colliding, and they will merge over a billion-year time scale. It's beyond our human perception to pick up a song of that duration. But LISA could see the final stages of two super-massive black holes earlier in the universe's history, the last 15 minutes before they fall together. And it's not just black holes, but it's also any big disturbance in the universe — and the biggest of them all is the Big Bang. When that expression was coined, it was derisive — like, "Oh, who would believe in a Big Bang?" But now it actually might be more technically accurate because it might bang. It might make a sound.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
black holes |
26 |
black hole |
17 |
big bang |
8 |
silent movie |
2 |
freely falling |
2 |
natural curves |
2 |
general theory |
2 |
crushed black |
2 |
advanced sensitivity |
2 |
billion years |
2 |
ngrams of length 3
collocation |
frequency |
crushed black hole |
2 |
Important Words
- accurate
- bang
- big
- biggest
- black
- coined
- colliding
- core
- derisive
- disturbance
- duration
- earlier
- embrace
- expression
- fall
- final
- frozen
- galaxies
- harbors
- history
- hole
- holes
- hubble
- human
- image
- lisa
- merge
- merging
- minutes
- perception
- pick
- scale
- song
- sound
- stages
- technically
- time
- universe