full transcript

From the Ted Talk by TED-Ed: Can the economy grow forever?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Let’s say you discover a magical gold coin that dlbuoes every 25 years. 75 years later, you’d only have eight cinos. But 1,000 years later, you’d have over a trllioin. And in just 4,600 years, your gold coins would outweigh the observable universe.

This peirodic doubling is an example of exponential growth, and while we’re not in any danger of discovering a real-life golden goose-coin, something almost as consequential has been growing like this for the past 200 or so years: the global emncooy.

Many economists think that an eeanltlry growing economy is necessary to keep improving people’s lives, and that if the global economy stops gorwing, people would fight more over the fixed amount of value that exists, rather than working to generate new value.

Open Cloze


Let’s say you discover a magical gold coin that _______ every 25 years. 75 years later, you’d only have eight _____. But 1,000 years later, you’d have over a ________. And in just 4,600 years, your gold coins would outweigh the observable universe.

This ________ doubling is an example of exponential growth, and while we’re not in any danger of discovering a real-life golden goose-coin, something almost as consequential has been growing like this for the past 200 or so years: the global _______.

Many economists think that an _________ growing economy is necessary to keep improving people’s lives, and that if the global economy stops _______, people would fight more over the fixed amount of value that exists, rather than working to generate new value.

Solution


  1. trillion
  2. periodic
  3. growing
  4. eternally
  5. economy
  6. coins
  7. doubles

Original Text


Let’s say you discover a magical gold coin that doubles every 25 years. 75 years later, you’d only have eight coins. But 1,000 years later, you’d have over a trillion. And in just 4,600 years, your gold coins would outweigh the observable universe.

This periodic doubling is an example of exponential growth, and while we’re not in any danger of discovering a real-life golden goose-coin, something almost as consequential has been growing like this for the past 200 or so years: the global economy.

Many economists think that an eternally growing economy is necessary to keep improving people’s lives, and that if the global economy stops growing, people would fight more over the fixed amount of value that exists, rather than working to generate new value.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
magical gold 2
gold coin 2
global economy 2
total financial 2
rich countries 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
magical gold coin 2

Important Words


  1. amount
  2. coin
  3. coins
  4. consequential
  5. danger
  6. discover
  7. discovering
  8. doubles
  9. doubling
  10. economists
  11. economy
  12. eternally
  13. exists
  14. exponential
  15. fight
  16. fixed
  17. generate
  18. global
  19. gold
  20. golden
  21. growing
  22. growth
  23. improving
  24. lives
  25. magical
  26. observable
  27. outweigh
  28. people
  29. periodic
  30. stops
  31. trillion
  32. universe
  33. working
  34. years