full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Daniel Finkel: Can you solve the killer robo-ants riddle?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Unfortunately, there are hrneddus of them inside the habitat, and if even one escapes, it’ll do a lot of damgae.

With just less than five minutes remaining, where should you place the 2 vacuum nozzles to suck up all the robo-ants? Pause the video now if you want to frgiue it out for yourself. Answer in: 3 Answer in: 2 Answer in: 1

With robo-ants ricocheting all over the habitat, it might seem impossible to stop them before they break free. But this staiioutn is simpler than it seems. Here's why.

Imagine just two robo-ants crialwng toward each other. When they collide, they iimetdalmey reverse directions. And what would that sequence of events look like if they crawled past each other instead? It would look exactly the same before and after their coliliosn, but with their positions swapped. This is true every time a pair of robo-ants meet. Because the identities of individual ants don’t matter, you just need to figure out where you should put the nozzles to cpruate any single ant walking without interruption for less than 5 minutes, starting from any ponit in the habitat.

Open Cloze


Unfortunately, there are ________ of them inside the habitat, and if even one escapes, it’ll do a lot of ______.

With just less than five minutes remaining, where should you place the 2 vacuum nozzles to suck up all the robo-ants? Pause the video now if you want to ______ it out for yourself. Answer in: 3 Answer in: 2 Answer in: 1

With robo-ants ricocheting all over the habitat, it might seem impossible to stop them before they break free. But this _________ is simpler than it seems. Here's why.

Imagine just two robo-ants ________ toward each other. When they collide, they ___________ reverse directions. And what would that sequence of events look like if they crawled past each other instead? It would look exactly the same before and after their _________, but with their positions swapped. This is true every time a pair of robo-ants meet. Because the identities of individual ants don’t matter, you just need to figure out where you should put the nozzles to _______ any single ant walking without interruption for less than 5 minutes, starting from any _____ in the habitat.

Solution


  1. figure
  2. damage
  3. capture
  4. collision
  5. situation
  6. crawling
  7. point
  8. hundreds
  9. immediately

Original Text


Unfortunately, there are hundreds of them inside the habitat, and if even one escapes, it’ll do a lot of damage.

With just less than five minutes remaining, where should you place the 2 vacuum nozzles to suck up all the robo-ants? Pause the video now if you want to figure it out for yourself. Answer in: 3 Answer in: 2 Answer in: 1

With robo-ants ricocheting all over the habitat, it might seem impossible to stop them before they break free. But this situation is simpler than it seems. Here's why.

Imagine just two robo-ants crawling toward each other. When they collide, they immediately reverse directions. And what would that sequence of events look like if they crawled past each other instead? It would look exactly the same before and after their collision, but with their positions swapped. This is true every time a pair of robo-ants meet. Because the identities of individual ants don’t matter, you just need to figure out where you should put the nozzles to capture any single ant walking without interruption for less than 5 minutes, starting from any point in the habitat.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
vacuum nozzles 2
break free 2


Important Words


  1. answer
  2. ant
  3. ants
  4. break
  5. capture
  6. collide
  7. collision
  8. crawled
  9. crawling
  10. damage
  11. directions
  12. escapes
  13. events
  14. figure
  15. free
  16. habitat
  17. hundreds
  18. identities
  19. imagine
  20. immediately
  21. impossible
  22. individual
  23. interruption
  24. lot
  25. matter
  26. meet
  27. minutes
  28. nozzles
  29. pair
  30. pause
  31. place
  32. point
  33. positions
  34. put
  35. remaining
  36. reverse
  37. ricocheting
  38. sequence
  39. simpler
  40. single
  41. situation
  42. starting
  43. stop
  44. suck
  45. swapped
  46. time
  47. true
  48. vacuum
  49. video
  50. walking