full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Brian Greene: Is our universe the only universe?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Now maybe those future astronomers will have records handed down from an earlier era, like ours, aitstnteg to an expanding cosmos teeming with galaxies. But would those future astronomers believe such ancient knowledge? Or would they believe in the black, static empty universe that their own state-of-the-art observations reveal? I suspect the latter. Which means that we are living through a remarkably privileged era when certain deep truths about the cmsoos are still within rceah of the human siiprt of exploration. It appears that it may not always be that way. Because today's astronomers, by turning powerful teosceelps to the sky, have captured a hafundl of starkly informative photons — a kind of cosmic teelgram billions of years in tsanirt. and the msesage echoing across the ages is clear. Sometimes nature guards her secrets with the unbreakable grip of physical law. Sometimes the true nutrae of reality beckons from just beyond the horizon.

Open Cloze

Now maybe those future astronomers will have records handed down from an earlier era, like ours, _________ to an expanding cosmos teeming with galaxies. But would those future astronomers believe such ancient knowledge? Or would they believe in the black, static empty universe that their own state-of-the-art observations reveal? I suspect the latter. Which means that we are living through a remarkably privileged era when certain deep truths about the ______ are still within _____ of the human ______ of exploration. It appears that it may not always be that way. Because today's astronomers, by turning powerful __________ to the sky, have captured a _______ of starkly informative photons — a kind of cosmic ________ billions of years in _______. and the _______ echoing across the ages is clear. Sometimes nature guards her secrets with the unbreakable grip of physical law. Sometimes the true ______ of reality beckons from just beyond the horizon.

Solution

  1. transit
  2. cosmos
  3. attesting
  4. nature
  5. spirit
  6. message
  7. handful
  8. reach
  9. telescopes
  10. telegram

Original Text

Now maybe those future astronomers will have records handed down from an earlier era, like ours, attesting to an expanding cosmos teeming with galaxies. But would those future astronomers believe such ancient knowledge? Or would they believe in the black, static empty universe that their own state-of-the-art observations reveal? I suspect the latter. Which means that we are living through a remarkably privileged era when certain deep truths about the cosmos are still within reach of the human spirit of exploration. It appears that it may not always be that way. Because today's astronomers, by turning powerful telescopes to the sky, have captured a handful of starkly informative photons — a kind of cosmic telegram billions of years in transit. and the message echoing across the ages is clear. Sometimes nature guards her secrets with the unbreakable grip of physical law. Sometimes the true nature of reality beckons from just beyond the horizon.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
dark energy 13
extra dimensions 7
string theory 6
big bang 5
candidate shapes 4
physical features 3
giving rise 3
wide variety 3
highly controversial 2
great astronomer 2
distant galaxies 2
gravitational pull 2
repulsive gravity 2
peculiar number 2
tiny vibrating 2
wrong question 2
humans find 2
theory predicts 2
powerful telescopes 2
future astronomers 2

Important Words

  1. ages
  2. ancient
  3. appears
  4. astronomers
  5. attesting
  6. beckons
  7. billions
  8. black
  9. captured
  10. clear
  11. cosmic
  12. cosmos
  13. deep
  14. earlier
  15. echoing
  16. empty
  17. era
  18. expanding
  19. exploration
  20. future
  21. galaxies
  22. grip
  23. guards
  24. handed
  25. handful
  26. horizon
  27. human
  28. informative
  29. kind
  30. knowledge
  31. law
  32. living
  33. means
  34. message
  35. nature
  36. observations
  37. photons
  38. physical
  39. powerful
  40. privileged
  41. reach
  42. reality
  43. records
  44. remarkably
  45. reveal
  46. secrets
  47. sky
  48. spirit
  49. starkly
  50. static
  51. suspect
  52. teeming
  53. telegram
  54. telescopes
  55. transit
  56. true
  57. truths
  58. turning
  59. unbreakable
  60. universe
  61. years