full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Fabio Pacucci: Could we harness the power of a black hole?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


imaigne a dstanit furtue when humans raech beyond our pale blue dot, forge cities on planets thousands of light-years away, and miitnaan a galactic web of trade and transport. What would it take for our civilization to make that leap? There are many things to consider— how would we communicate? What might a galactic government look like? And one of the most fundamental of all: where would we get enough energy to power that civilization— its industry, its terraforming operations, and its starships?

An astronomer named Nikolai Kardashev perpoosd a scale to quantify an evolving civilization’s increasing energy needs. In the first evolutionary stage, which we’re currently in, planet-based fuel sources like fiossl fuels, solar panels and nuclear power ptlnas are probably enough to stetle other planets inside our own sloar system, but not much beyond that. For a civilization on the third and final stage, expansion on a galactic scale would require about 100 billion tiems more energy than the full 385 yotta joules our sun releases every second. Barring a breakthrough in exotic physics, there’s only one energy source that could suffice: a sumavsrpiese black hole.

Open Cloze


_______ a _______ ______ when humans _____ beyond our pale blue dot, forge cities on planets thousands of light-years away, and ________ a galactic web of trade and transport. What would it take for our civilization to make that leap? There are many things to consider— how would we communicate? What might a galactic government look like? And one of the most fundamental of all: where would we get enough energy to power that civilization— its industry, its terraforming operations, and its starships?

An astronomer named Nikolai Kardashev ________ a scale to quantify an evolving civilization’s increasing energy needs. In the first evolutionary stage, which we’re currently in, planet-based fuel sources like ______ fuels, solar panels and nuclear power ______ are probably enough to ______ other planets inside our own _____ system, but not much beyond that. For a civilization on the third and final stage, expansion on a galactic scale would require about 100 billion _____ more energy than the full 385 yotta joules our sun releases every second. Barring a breakthrough in exotic physics, there’s only one energy source that could suffice: a ____________ black hole.

Solution


  1. solar
  2. plants
  3. future
  4. times
  5. supermassive
  6. settle
  7. proposed
  8. imagine
  9. reach
  10. fossil
  11. distant
  12. maintain

Original Text


Imagine a distant future when humans reach beyond our pale blue dot, forge cities on planets thousands of light-years away, and maintain a galactic web of trade and transport. What would it take for our civilization to make that leap? There are many things to consider— how would we communicate? What might a galactic government look like? And one of the most fundamental of all: where would we get enough energy to power that civilization— its industry, its terraforming operations, and its starships?

An astronomer named Nikolai Kardashev proposed a scale to quantify an evolving civilization’s increasing energy needs. In the first evolutionary stage, which we’re currently in, planet-based fuel sources like fossil fuels, solar panels and nuclear power plants are probably enough to settle other planets inside our own solar system, but not much beyond that. For a civilization on the third and final stage, expansion on a galactic scale would require about 100 billion times more energy than the full 385 yotta joules our sun releases every second. Barring a breakthrough in exotic physics, there’s only one energy source that could suffice: a supermassive black hole.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
black hole 4
black holes 4
supermassive black 2
event horizon 2
kinetic energy 2
radiated energy 2
dyson ring 2


Important Words


  1. astronomer
  2. barring
  3. billion
  4. black
  5. blue
  6. breakthrough
  7. cities
  8. civilization
  9. communicate
  10. distant
  11. dot
  12. energy
  13. evolutionary
  14. evolving
  15. exotic
  16. expansion
  17. final
  18. forge
  19. fossil
  20. fuel
  21. fuels
  22. full
  23. fundamental
  24. future
  25. galactic
  26. government
  27. hole
  28. humans
  29. imagine
  30. increasing
  31. industry
  32. joules
  33. kardashev
  34. leap
  35. maintain
  36. named
  37. nikolai
  38. nuclear
  39. operations
  40. pale
  41. panels
  42. physics
  43. planets
  44. plants
  45. power
  46. proposed
  47. quantify
  48. reach
  49. releases
  50. require
  51. scale
  52. settle
  53. solar
  54. source
  55. sources
  56. stage
  57. starships
  58. sun
  59. supermassive
  60. system
  61. terraforming
  62. thousands
  63. times
  64. trade
  65. transport
  66. web
  67. yotta