full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Benoit Mandelbrot: Fractals and the art of roughness

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Humanity had to learn about measuring roughness. This is very ruogh, and this is sort of smooth, and this perfectly somoth. Very few things are very smooth. So then if you try to ask questions: "What's the suracfe of a cauliflower?" Well, you measure and measure and measure. Each time you're closer, it gets bgiegr, down to very, very small distances. What's the length of the coastline of these lakes? The closer you measure, the longer it is. The concept of length of coastline, which seems to be so naatrul because it's given in many cases, is, in fact, complete fallacy; there's no such thing. You must do it differently.

Open Cloze


Humanity had to learn about measuring roughness. This is very _____, and this is sort of smooth, and this perfectly ______. Very few things are very smooth. So then if you try to ask questions: "What's the _______ of a cauliflower?" Well, you measure and measure and measure. Each time you're closer, it gets ______, down to very, very small distances. What's the length of the coastline of these lakes? The closer you measure, the longer it is. The concept of length of coastline, which seems to be so _______ because it's given in many cases, is, in fact, complete fallacy; there's no such thing. You must do it differently.

Solution


  1. surface
  2. bigger
  3. natural
  4. smooth
  5. rough

Original Text


Humanity had to learn about measuring roughness. This is very rough, and this is sort of smooth, and this perfectly smooth. Very few things are very smooth. So then if you try to ask questions: "What's the surface of a cauliflower?" Well, you measure and measure and measure. Each time you're closer, it gets bigger, down to very, very small distances. What's the length of the coastline of these lakes? The closer you measure, the longer it is. The concept of length of coastline, which seems to be so natural because it's given in many cases, is, in fact, complete fallacy; there's no such thing. You must do it differently.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
long time 4
man named 3
real price 3
simple rule 2
mathematics coming 2
price increments 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
real price increments 2

Important Words


  1. bigger
  2. cases
  3. cauliflower
  4. closer
  5. coastline
  6. complete
  7. concept
  8. differently
  9. distances
  10. fact
  11. humanity
  12. lakes
  13. learn
  14. length
  15. longer
  16. measure
  17. measuring
  18. natural
  19. perfectly
  20. rough
  21. roughness
  22. small
  23. smooth
  24. sort
  25. surface
  26. time