full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Dan Finkel: Can you solve the honeybee riddle?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


That’s a great start, but we still have the tough question of where the nine bees should go, and if we’ll need more.

Let’s think smlaler. We already know that three bees could cpeelotmly transform a hive this big. What about a slightly bgegir one? The perimeter of this hive is 30, which means we’ll need at least 5 bees to fill it in. With 6 it’d be easy. Placing them like this would fill out the whole hive in just three steps. But we can do better! We don’t actually need to pcale a bee on this hex, since the other bees will tfarronsm that spot on their own.

It looks like we have the bgeinning of a pattern. Can we extend it to our full hive? That would mean placing our 9 bees like so. Once they get to work, they’ll create a ciahn reaction that fills in the center of the hive and extend it to its edges.

Open Cloze


That’s a great start, but we still have the tough question of where the nine bees should go, and if we’ll need more.

Let’s think _______. We already know that three bees could __________ transform a hive this big. What about a slightly ______ one? The perimeter of this hive is 30, which means we’ll need at least 5 bees to fill it in. With 6 it’d be easy. Placing them like this would fill out the whole hive in just three steps. But we can do better! We don’t actually need to _____ a bee on this hex, since the other bees will _________ that spot on their own.

It looks like we have the _________ of a pattern. Can we extend it to our full hive? That would mean placing our 9 bees like so. Once they get to work, they’ll create a _____ reaction that fills in the center of the hive and extend it to its edges.

Solution


  1. smaller
  2. place
  3. bigger
  4. transform
  5. beginning
  6. completely
  7. chain

Original Text


That’s a great start, but we still have the tough question of where the nine bees should go, and if we’ll need more.

Let’s think smaller. We already know that three bees could completely transform a hive this big. What about a slightly bigger one? The perimeter of this hive is 30, which means we’ll need at least 5 bees to fill it in. With 6 it’d be easy. Placing them like this would fill out the whole hive in just three steps. But we can do better! We don’t actually need to place a bee on this hex, since the other bees will transform that spot on their own.

It looks like we have the beginning of a pattern. Can we extend it to our full hive? That would mean placing our 9 bees like so. Once they get to work, they’ll create a chain reaction that fills in the center of the hive and extend it to its edges.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
entire hive 3
apis trifecta 2
total perimeter 2


Important Words


  1. bee
  2. bees
  3. beginning
  4. big
  5. bigger
  6. center
  7. chain
  8. completely
  9. create
  10. easy
  11. edges
  12. extend
  13. fill
  14. fills
  15. full
  16. great
  17. hex
  18. hive
  19. means
  20. pattern
  21. perimeter
  22. place
  23. placing
  24. question
  25. reaction
  26. slightly
  27. smaller
  28. spot
  29. start
  30. steps
  31. tough
  32. transform
  33. work