full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Bill Gross: A solar energy system that tracks the sun

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Traditionally, cntcetroonras look like this. Those shpeas are parabolas. They take all the parallel imocning rays and focus it to a single spot. They have to tacrk the sun, because they have to point directly at the sun. They usually have a one dreege acceptance angle — once they're more than a degree off, none of the sunlight rays will hit the fcuos. So we tried to come up with a non-tracking collector that would gather much more than one degree of light, with no moving parts. So we ceetrad a genetic algorithm to try this out, we made a model in Excel of a multisurface reflector, and an amazing thing evolved, literally, from trying a billion cycles, a bloiiln different attempts, with a fitness function that defined how can you collect the most light, from the most angles, over a day, from the sun.

Open Cloze

Traditionally, _____________ look like this. Those ______ are parabolas. They take all the parallel ________ rays and focus it to a single spot. They have to _____ the sun, because they have to point directly at the sun. They usually have a one ______ acceptance angle — once they're more than a degree off, none of the sunlight rays will hit the _____. So we tried to come up with a non-tracking collector that would gather much more than one degree of light, with no moving parts. So we _______ a genetic algorithm to try this out, we made a model in Excel of a multisurface reflector, and an amazing thing evolved, literally, from trying a billion cycles, a _______ different attempts, with a fitness function that defined how can you collect the most light, from the most angles, over a day, from the sun.

Solution

  1. focus
  2. degree
  3. billion
  4. shapes
  5. concentrators
  6. incoming
  7. created
  8. track

Original Text

Traditionally, concentrators look like this. Those shapes are parabolas. They take all the parallel incoming rays and focus it to a single spot. They have to track the sun, because they have to point directly at the sun. They usually have a one degree acceptance angle — once they're more than a degree off, none of the sunlight rays will hit the focus. So we tried to come up with a non-tracking collector that would gather much more than one degree of light, with no moving parts. So we created a genetic algorithm to try this out, we made a model in Excel of a multisurface reflector, and an amazing thing evolved, literally, from trying a billion cycles, a billion different attempts, with a fitness function that defined how can you collect the most light, from the most angles, over a day, from the sun.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
solar energy 6
stirling engine 5
solar cells 5
genetic algorithms 4
genetic algorithm 4
hot air 4
robert stirling 4
energy crisis 3
solar cell 3
collect light 3
air engine 3
internal combustion 3
hot water 3
stirling engines 2
ibm pc 2
battery backup 2
inexpensive microprocessors 2
intractable problems 2
natural selection 2
moving parts 2
sunlight strikes 2
convert sunlight 2
steam engines 2
engine works 2
piston moves 2
heat engine 2
hot cap 2
highest temperature 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
hot air engine 3

Important Words

  1. acceptance
  2. algorithm
  3. amazing
  4. angle
  5. angles
  6. attempts
  7. billion
  8. collect
  9. collector
  10. concentrators
  11. created
  12. cycles
  13. day
  14. defined
  15. degree
  16. evolved
  17. excel
  18. fitness
  19. focus
  20. function
  21. gather
  22. genetic
  23. hit
  24. incoming
  25. light
  26. literally
  27. model
  28. moving
  29. multisurface
  30. parabolas
  31. parallel
  32. parts
  33. point
  34. rays
  35. reflector
  36. shapes
  37. single
  38. spot
  39. sun
  40. sunlight
  41. track
  42. traditionally