full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alexander MacDonald: How centuries of sci-fi sparked spaceflight

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So it was in this context, in 1835, that the next great story of spaceflight was written, by Edgar Allan Poe. Now, today we think of Poe in trems of gothic pemos and telltale haetrs and renavs. But he considered himself a thancicel thinker. He grew up in bomraltie, the first American city with gas street lighting, and he was fascinated by the tcoeghcinolal revolution that he saw going on all around him. He considered his own greatest work not to be one of his gothic tales but rather his epic prose poem "Eureka," in which he expounded his own personal view of the cosmographical nature of the universe. In his stories, he would describe in fantastical technical detail mihnceas and contraptions, and nowhere was he more iitfnalnuel in this than in his short story, "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall."

Open Cloze


So it was in this context, in 1835, that the next great story of spaceflight was written, by Edgar Allan Poe. Now, today we think of Poe in _____ of gothic _____ and telltale ______ and ______. But he considered himself a _________ thinker. He grew up in _________, the first American city with gas street lighting, and he was fascinated by the _____________ revolution that he saw going on all around him. He considered his own greatest work not to be one of his gothic tales but rather his epic prose poem "Eureka," in which he expounded his own personal view of the cosmographical nature of the universe. In his stories, he would describe in fantastical technical detail ________ and contraptions, and nowhere was he more ___________ in this than in his short story, "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall."

Solution


  1. machines
  2. baltimore
  3. poems
  4. technical
  5. terms
  6. hearts
  7. ravens
  8. technological
  9. influential

Original Text


So it was in this context, in 1835, that the next great story of spaceflight was written, by Edgar Allan Poe. Now, today we think of Poe in terms of gothic poems and telltale hearts and ravens. But he considered himself a technical thinker. He grew up in Baltimore, the first American city with gas street lighting, and he was fascinated by the technological revolution that he saw going on all around him. He considered his own greatest work not to be one of his gothic tales but rather his epic prose poem "Eureka," in which he expounded his own personal view of the cosmographical nature of the universe. In his stories, he would describe in fantastical technical detail machines and contraptions, and nowhere was he more influential in this than in his short story, "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall."

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
liquid fuel 3
write stories 2
goose machine 2
build machines 2
intellectual progress 2
apollo program 2
cherry tree 2
economic origins 2


Important Words


  1. adventure
  2. allan
  3. american
  4. baltimore
  5. city
  6. considered
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  8. contraptions
  9. cosmographical
  10. describe
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  12. edgar
  13. epic
  14. expounded
  15. fantastical
  16. fascinated
  17. gas
  18. gothic
  19. great
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  21. grew
  22. hans
  23. hearts
  24. influential
  25. lighting
  26. machines
  27. nature
  28. personal
  29. pfaall
  30. poe
  31. poem
  32. poems
  33. prose
  34. ravens
  35. revolution
  36. short
  37. spaceflight
  38. stories
  39. story
  40. street
  41. tales
  42. technical
  43. technological
  44. telltale
  45. terms
  46. thinker
  47. today
  48. universe
  49. unparalleled
  50. view
  51. work
  52. written