full transcript

From the Ted Talk by James Tanton: Can you survive the creation of the universe by solving this riddle?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


It’s moments after the Big Bang and... wow, you’re still reeling. You’re a particle of matter, amidst a chaotic stew of forces, fusion, and annihilation. If you’re lucky and avoid being destroyed by antimatter, you'll be the seed of a frutue galaxy.

You gravitate towards a ring of particles that have devised a game. A friendly gluon explains: there are an equal nmuber of matter and antimatter particles. At the blow of a ciomsc whistle, every paltrcie of matter with a particle of amtienttar to its immediate right will merge with that aratptiicnle to—poof!— both annihilate.

The circle will tighten to make a smaller circle, and the pceorss will repaet until just one particle of matter remains.

Open Cloze


It’s moments after the Big Bang and... wow, you’re still reeling. You’re a particle of matter, amidst a chaotic stew of forces, fusion, and annihilation. If you’re lucky and avoid being destroyed by antimatter, you'll be the seed of a ______ galaxy.

You gravitate towards a ring of particles that have devised a game. A friendly gluon explains: there are an equal ______ of matter and antimatter particles. At the blow of a ______ whistle, every ________ of matter with a particle of __________ to its immediate right will merge with that ____________ to—poof!— both annihilate.

The circle will tighten to make a smaller circle, and the _______ will ______ until just one particle of matter remains.

Solution


  1. repeat
  2. antimatter
  3. particle
  4. future
  5. process
  6. anitparticle
  7. number
  8. cosmic

Original Text


It’s moments after the Big Bang and... wow, you’re still reeling. You’re a particle of matter, amidst a chaotic stew of forces, fusion, and annihilation. If you’re lucky and avoid being destroyed by antimatter, you'll be the seed of a future galaxy.

You gravitate towards a ring of particles that have devised a game. A friendly gluon explains: there are an equal number of matter and antimatter particles. At the blow of a cosmic whistle, every particle of matter with a particle of antimatter to its immediate right will merge with that anitparticle to—poof!— both annihilate.

The circle will tighten to make a smaller circle, and the process will repeat until just one particle of matter remains.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
simulate annihilations 2
nestled pairs 2


Important Words


  1. anitparticle
  2. annihilate
  3. annihilation
  4. antimatter
  5. avoid
  6. bang
  7. big
  8. blow
  9. chaotic
  10. circle
  11. cosmic
  12. destroyed
  13. devised
  14. equal
  15. forces
  16. friendly
  17. fusion
  18. future
  19. galaxy
  20. game
  21. gluon
  22. gravitate
  23. lucky
  24. matter
  25. merge
  26. moments
  27. number
  28. particle
  29. particles
  30. process
  31. reeling
  32. remains
  33. repeat
  34. ring
  35. seed
  36. smaller
  37. stew
  38. tighten
  39. whistle
  40. wow