full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Elizabeth Cox: Is fire a solid, a liquid, or a gas?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Sitting around a campfire, you can feel its heat, smell the woody somke, and hear it crackle. If you get too clsoe, it burns your eyes and stings your nrltosis. You could stare at the bright flames forever as they tiswt and flicker in endless incarnations. But what exactly are you looking at? The flames are obviously not solid, nor are they liquid. Mingling with the air, they’re more like a gas, but more visible—and more fleeting. And on a scientific leevl, fire differs from gas because gases can exist in the same state ietnielifndy while fires always burn out eventually.

One misconception is that fire is a plasma, the fourth state of matter in which atoms are stripped of their etnlrecos. Like fire and unlike the other kinds of matter, plasmas don’t exist in a stable state on erath. They only form when gas is exposed to an electric field or superheated to temperatures of thousands or tens of thousands of dreeges. By contrast, fuels like wood and paper burn at a few hundred degrees —far below the thleohrsd of what's usually considered a pmsala.

Open Cloze


Sitting around a campfire, you can feel its heat, smell the woody _____, and hear it crackle. If you get too _____, it burns your eyes and stings your ________. You could stare at the bright flames forever as they _____ and flicker in endless incarnations. But what exactly are you looking at? The flames are obviously not solid, nor are they liquid. Mingling with the air, they’re more like a gas, but more visible—and more fleeting. And on a scientific _____, fire differs from gas because gases can exist in the same state ____________ while fires always burn out eventually.

One misconception is that fire is a plasma, the fourth state of matter in which atoms are stripped of their _________. Like fire and unlike the other kinds of matter, plasmas don’t exist in a stable state on _____. They only form when gas is exposed to an electric field or superheated to temperatures of thousands or tens of thousands of _______. By contrast, fuels like wood and paper burn at a few hundred degrees —far below the _________ of what's usually considered a ______.

Solution


  1. threshold
  2. indefinitely
  3. earth
  4. twist
  5. smoke
  6. degrees
  7. plasma
  8. nostrils
  9. level
  10. close
  11. electrons

Original Text


Sitting around a campfire, you can feel its heat, smell the woody smoke, and hear it crackle. If you get too close, it burns your eyes and stings your nostrils. You could stare at the bright flames forever as they twist and flicker in endless incarnations. But what exactly are you looking at? The flames are obviously not solid, nor are they liquid. Mingling with the air, they’re more like a gas, but more visible—and more fleeting. And on a scientific level, fire differs from gas because gases can exist in the same state indefinitely while fires always burn out eventually.

One misconception is that fire is a plasma, the fourth state of matter in which atoms are stripped of their electrons. Like fire and unlike the other kinds of matter, plasmas don’t exist in a stable state on earth. They only form when gas is exposed to an electric field or superheated to temperatures of thousands or tens of thousands of degrees. By contrast, fuels like wood and paper burn at a few hundred degrees —far below the threshold of what's usually considered a plasma.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
sensory experience 2
chemical reaction 2
carbon dioxide 2


Important Words


  1. air
  2. atoms
  3. bright
  4. burn
  5. burns
  6. campfire
  7. close
  8. considered
  9. contrast
  10. crackle
  11. degrees
  12. differs
  13. earth
  14. electric
  15. electrons
  16. endless
  17. eventually
  18. exist
  19. exposed
  20. eyes
  21. feel
  22. field
  23. fire
  24. fires
  25. flames
  26. fleeting
  27. flicker
  28. form
  29. fourth
  30. fuels
  31. gas
  32. gases
  33. hear
  34. heat
  35. incarnations
  36. indefinitely
  37. kinds
  38. level
  39. liquid
  40. matter
  41. mingling
  42. misconception
  43. nostrils
  44. paper
  45. plasma
  46. plasmas
  47. scientific
  48. sitting
  49. smell
  50. smoke
  51. solid
  52. stable
  53. stare
  54. state
  55. stings
  56. stripped
  57. superheated
  58. temperatures
  59. tens
  60. thousands
  61. threshold
  62. twist
  63. wood
  64. woody