full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Brian Greene: Is our universe the only universe?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


But there's a cost to this elegant unification, because years of research have shown that the math of string theory doesn't quite work. It has internal inconsistencies, unless we allow for something wholly unfamiliar — exrta dimensions of space. That is, we all know about the usual three dimensions of space. And you can think about those as height, width and depth. But string theory says that, on fantastically small scales, there are additional disiemnnos crumpled to a tiny size so small that we have not dteceted them. But even though the dimensions are hidden, they would have an impact on things that we can observe because the shape of the extra dimensions constrains how the strings can vibrate. And in srnitg theory, vibration determines everything. So particle masses, the strengths of fceros, and most importantly, the amount of dark egnrey would be determined by the shpae of the extra dimensions. So if we knew the shape of the extra dimensions, we should be able to calculate these features, calculate the amount of dark energy.

Open Cloze


But there's a cost to this elegant unification, because years of research have shown that the math of string theory doesn't quite work. It has internal inconsistencies, unless we allow for something wholly unfamiliar — _____ dimensions of space. That is, we all know about the usual three dimensions of space. And you can think about those as height, width and depth. But string theory says that, on fantastically small scales, there are additional __________ crumpled to a tiny size so small that we have not ________ them. But even though the dimensions are hidden, they would have an impact on things that we can observe because the shape of the extra dimensions constrains how the strings can vibrate. And in ______ theory, vibration determines everything. So particle masses, the strengths of ______, and most importantly, the amount of dark ______ would be determined by the _____ of the extra dimensions. So if we knew the shape of the extra dimensions, we should be able to calculate these features, calculate the amount of dark energy.

Solution


  1. string
  2. dimensions
  3. detected
  4. forces
  5. extra
  6. energy
  7. shape

Original Text


But there's a cost to this elegant unification, because years of research have shown that the math of string theory doesn't quite work. It has internal inconsistencies, unless we allow for something wholly unfamiliar — extra dimensions of space. That is, we all know about the usual three dimensions of space. And you can think about those as height, width and depth. But string theory says that, on fantastically small scales, there are additional dimensions crumpled to a tiny size so small that we have not detected them. But even though the dimensions are hidden, they would have an impact on things that we can observe because the shape of the extra dimensions constrains how the strings can vibrate. And in string theory, vibration determines everything. So particle masses, the strengths of forces, and most importantly, the amount of dark energy would be determined by the shape of the extra dimensions. So if we knew the shape of the extra dimensions, we should be able to calculate these features, calculate the amount of dark energy.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
dark energy 13
extra dimensions 7
string theory 6
big bang 5
candidate shapes 4
physical features 3
giving rise 3
wide variety 3
highly controversial 2
great astronomer 2
distant galaxies 2
gravitational pull 2
repulsive gravity 2
peculiar number 2
tiny vibrating 2
wrong question 2
humans find 2
theory predicts 2
powerful telescopes 2
future astronomers 2


Important Words


  1. additional
  2. amount
  3. calculate
  4. constrains
  5. cost
  6. crumpled
  7. dark
  8. depth
  9. detected
  10. determined
  11. determines
  12. dimensions
  13. elegant
  14. energy
  15. extra
  16. fantastically
  17. features
  18. forces
  19. height
  20. hidden
  21. impact
  22. importantly
  23. inconsistencies
  24. internal
  25. knew
  26. masses
  27. math
  28. observe
  29. particle
  30. research
  31. scales
  32. shape
  33. shown
  34. size
  35. small
  36. space
  37. strengths
  38. string
  39. strings
  40. theory
  41. tiny
  42. unfamiliar
  43. unification
  44. usual
  45. vibrate
  46. vibration
  47. wholly
  48. width
  49. work
  50. years