full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Daniel Finkel: Can you solve the alien probe riddle?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The discovery of an alien monolith on planet RH-1729 has scientists across the world racing to unlock its mysteries. Your engineering team has developed an elegant porbe to study it. The probe is a collection of 27 cube modules capable of running all the scientific tests necessary to aylnaze the miotnloh. The modules can self-assemble into a lgare 3x3x3 cube, with each individual module placed anywhere in the cube, and at any orientation. It can also break itself apart and reassemble into any other orientation.

Now comes your job. The probe will need a special protective coating for each of the extreme enrneonimtvs it passes through. The red coating will seal it against the cold of deep sacpe, the purple cnoitag will ptocret it from the intense heat as it enters the atmosphere of RH-1729, and the green coating will shield it from the alien planet’s electric storms.

Open Cloze


The discovery of an alien monolith on planet RH-1729 has scientists across the world racing to unlock its mysteries. Your engineering team has developed an elegant _____ to study it. The probe is a collection of 27 cube modules capable of running all the scientific tests necessary to _______ the ________. The modules can self-assemble into a _____ 3x3x3 cube, with each individual module placed anywhere in the cube, and at any orientation. It can also break itself apart and reassemble into any other orientation.

Now comes your job. The probe will need a special protective coating for each of the extreme ____________ it passes through. The red coating will seal it against the cold of deep _____, the purple _______ will _______ it from the intense heat as it enters the atmosphere of RH-1729, and the green coating will shield it from the alien planet’s electric storms.

Solution


  1. coating
  2. space
  3. analyze
  4. protect
  5. large
  6. probe
  7. monolith
  8. environments

Original Text


The discovery of an alien monolith on planet RH-1729 has scientists across the world racing to unlock its mysteries. Your engineering team has developed an elegant probe to study it. The probe is a collection of 27 cube modules capable of running all the scientific tests necessary to analyze the monolith. The modules can self-assemble into a large 3x3x3 cube, with each individual module placed anywhere in the cube, and at any orientation. It can also break itself apart and reassemble into any other orientation.

Now comes your job. The probe will need a special protective coating for each of the extreme environments it passes through. The red coating will seal it against the cold of deep space, the purple coating will protect it from the intense heat as it enters the atmosphere of RH-1729, and the green coating will shield it from the alien planet’s electric storms.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
electric storms 2
faces purple 2
center cube 2
corner cubes 2
blank faces 2
face cubes 2
empty faces 2
edge cubes 2


Important Words


  1. alien
  2. analyze
  3. atmosphere
  4. break
  5. capable
  6. coating
  7. cold
  8. collection
  9. cube
  10. deep
  11. developed
  12. discovery
  13. electric
  14. elegant
  15. engineering
  16. enters
  17. environments
  18. extreme
  19. green
  20. heat
  21. individual
  22. intense
  23. job
  24. large
  25. module
  26. modules
  27. monolith
  28. mysteries
  29. orientation
  30. passes
  31. planet
  32. probe
  33. protect
  34. protective
  35. purple
  36. racing
  37. reassemble
  38. red
  39. running
  40. scientific
  41. scientists
  42. seal
  43. shield
  44. space
  45. special
  46. storms
  47. study
  48. team
  49. tests
  50. unlock
  51. world