full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Adam Spencer: Why I fell in love with monster prime numbers

Unscramble the Blue Letters

We didn't know for almost 40 years until fnark Nelson Cole came along. And at a gathering of prestigious aciamren mathematicians, he walked to the board, took up a piece of chalk, and srteatd writing out the powers of two: two, four, eight, 16 — come on, join in with me, you know how it goes — 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1,024, 2,048. I'm in geek heaven. We'll stop it there for a second. Frank Nelson Cole did not stop there. He went on and on and cuclaeltad 67 perwos of two. He took away one and wrote that number on the board. A frisson of enmcetxeit went around the room. It got even more exciting when he then wrote down these two lgrae prime numbers in your standard multiplication fraomt — and for the rest of the hour of his talk Frank Nelson Cole busted that out. He had found the prime factors of (2 ^ 67) - 1. The room went berresk — (Laughter) — as Frank Nelson Cole sat down, having delivered the only talk in the history of mathematics with no words. He admitted afterwards it wasn't that hard to do. It took focus. It took dedication. It took him, by his estimate, "three years of Sundays."

Open Cloze

We didn't know for almost 40 years until _____ Nelson Cole came along. And at a gathering of prestigious ________ mathematicians, he walked to the board, took up a piece of chalk, and _______ writing out the powers of two: two, four, eight, 16 — come on, join in with me, you know how it goes — 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1,024, 2,048. I'm in geek heaven. We'll stop it there for a second. Frank Nelson Cole did not stop there. He went on and on and __________ 67 ______ of two. He took away one and wrote that number on the board. A frisson of __________ went around the room. It got even more exciting when he then wrote down these two _____ prime numbers in your standard multiplication ______ — and for the rest of the hour of his talk Frank Nelson Cole busted that out. He had found the prime factors of (2 ^ 67) - 1. The room went _______ — (Laughter) — as Frank Nelson Cole sat down, having delivered the only talk in the history of mathematics with no words. He admitted afterwards it wasn't that hard to do. It took focus. It took dedication. It took him, by his estimate, "three years of Sundays."

Solution

  1. american
  2. started
  3. frank
  4. format
  5. calculated
  6. powers
  7. large
  8. excitement
  9. berserk

Original Text

We didn't know for almost 40 years until Frank Nelson Cole came along. And at a gathering of prestigious American mathematicians, he walked to the board, took up a piece of chalk, and started writing out the powers of two: two, four, eight, 16 — come on, join in with me, you know how it goes — 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1,024, 2,048. I'm in geek heaven. We'll stop it there for a second. Frank Nelson Cole did not stop there. He went on and on and calculated 67 powers of two. He took away one and wrote that number on the board. A frisson of excitement went around the room. It got even more exciting when he then wrote down these two large prime numbers in your standard multiplication format — and for the rest of the hour of his talk Frank Nelson Cole busted that out. He had found the prime factors of (2 ^ 67) - 1. The room went berserk — (Laughter) — as Frank Nelson Cole sat down, having delivered the only talk in the history of mathematics with no words. He admitted afterwards it wasn't that hard to do. It took focus. It took dedication. It took him, by his estimate, "three years of Sundays."

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
prime number 7
prime numbers 6
frank nelson 4
nelson cole 4
largest prime 4
harry potter 4
breakfast radio 3
curtis cooper 3
square peg 2
biggest prime 2
massive primes 2
large prime 2
radio show 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
frank nelson cole 4
large prime numbers 2
largest prime number 2

Important Words

  1. admitted
  2. american
  3. berserk
  4. board
  5. busted
  6. calculated
  7. chalk
  8. cole
  9. dedication
  10. delivered
  11. estimate
  12. excitement
  13. exciting
  14. factors
  15. focus
  16. format
  17. frank
  18. frisson
  19. gathering
  20. geek
  21. hard
  22. heaven
  23. history
  24. hour
  25. join
  26. large
  27. laughter
  28. mathematicians
  29. mathematics
  30. multiplication
  31. nelson
  32. number
  33. numbers
  34. piece
  35. powers
  36. prestigious
  37. prime
  38. rest
  39. room
  40. sat
  41. standard
  42. started
  43. stop
  44. sundays
  45. talk
  46. walked
  47. words
  48. writing
  49. wrote
  50. years