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

  1. black
  2. merge
  3. image
  4. derisive
  5. embrace
  6. holes
  7. 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

  1. accurate
  2. bang
  3. big
  4. biggest
  5. black
  6. coined
  7. colliding
  8. core
  9. derisive
  10. disturbance
  11. duration
  12. earlier
  13. embrace
  14. expression
  15. fall
  16. final
  17. frozen
  18. galaxies
  19. harbors
  20. history
  21. hole
  22. holes
  23. hubble
  24. human
  25. image
  26. lisa
  27. merge
  28. merging
  29. minutes
  30. perception
  31. pick
  32. scale
  33. song
  34. sound
  35. stages
  36. technically
  37. time
  38. universe