full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Freeman Dyson: Let's look for life in the outer solar system

Unscramble the Blue Letters


There's a long history in astronomy of unlikely things turning out to be there. And I mean, the finest example of that was radio atosrmnoy as a whole. This was — oiarlilngy, when radio astronomy began, Mr. Jansky, at the Bell labs, detected radio wvaes coming from the sky. And the regular astronomers were scornful about this. They said, "It's all right, you can detect radio waves from the Sun, but the Sun is the only object in the uesrvine that's close enough and bright enough actually to be detectable. You can eaisly calculate that radio waves from the Sun are fairly faint, and everything else in the universe is millions of times further away, so it certainly will not be detectable. So there's no pniot in looking." And that, of course, that set back the progress of radio astronomy by about 20 yaers. Since there was nothing there, you might as well not look. Well, of course, as soon as anybody did look, which was after about 20 years, when rdaio astronomy really took off. Because it turned out the universe is absolutely full of all kinds of wdnofurel things radiating in the radio spectrum, much brighter than the Sun. So, the same thing could be true for this kind of life, which I'm talking about, on cold objects: that it could in fact be very abundant all over the universe, and it's not been detected just because we haven't taken the trouble to look.

Open Cloze


There's a long history in astronomy of unlikely things turning out to be there. And I mean, the finest example of that was radio _________ as a whole. This was — __________, when radio astronomy began, Mr. Jansky, at the Bell labs, detected radio _____ coming from the sky. And the regular astronomers were scornful about this. They said, "It's all right, you can detect radio waves from the Sun, but the Sun is the only object in the ________ that's close enough and bright enough actually to be detectable. You can ______ calculate that radio waves from the Sun are fairly faint, and everything else in the universe is millions of times further away, so it certainly will not be detectable. So there's no _____ in looking." And that, of course, that set back the progress of radio astronomy by about 20 _____. Since there was nothing there, you might as well not look. Well, of course, as soon as anybody did look, which was after about 20 years, when _____ astronomy really took off. Because it turned out the universe is absolutely full of all kinds of _________ things radiating in the radio spectrum, much brighter than the Sun. So, the same thing could be true for this kind of life, which I'm talking about, on cold objects: that it could in fact be very abundant all over the universe, and it's not been detected just because we haven't taken the trouble to look.

Solution


  1. astronomy
  2. easily
  3. originally
  4. years
  5. wonderful
  6. waves
  7. point
  8. radio
  9. universe

Original Text


There's a long history in astronomy of unlikely things turning out to be there. And I mean, the finest example of that was radio astronomy as a whole. This was — originally, when radio astronomy began, Mr. Jansky, at the Bell labs, detected radio waves coming from the sky. And the regular astronomers were scornful about this. They said, "It's all right, you can detect radio waves from the Sun, but the Sun is the only object in the universe that's close enough and bright enough actually to be detectable. You can easily calculate that radio waves from the Sun are fairly faint, and everything else in the universe is millions of times further away, so it certainly will not be detectable. So there's no point in looking." And that, of course, that set back the progress of radio astronomy by about 20 years. Since there was nothing there, you might as well not look. Well, of course, as soon as anybody did look, which was after about 20 years, when radio astronomy really took off. Because it turned out the universe is absolutely full of all kinds of wonderful things radiating in the radio spectrum, much brighter than the Sun. So, the same thing could be true for this kind of life, which I'm talking about, on cold objects: that it could in fact be very abundant all over the universe, and it's not been detected just because we haven't taken the trouble to look.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
radio astronomy 4
real estate 3
radio waves 3


Important Words


  1. absolutely
  2. abundant
  3. astronomers
  4. astronomy
  5. began
  6. bell
  7. bright
  8. brighter
  9. calculate
  10. close
  11. cold
  12. coming
  13. detect
  14. detectable
  15. detected
  16. easily
  17. fact
  18. faint
  19. finest
  20. full
  21. history
  22. jansky
  23. kind
  24. kinds
  25. labs
  26. life
  27. long
  28. millions
  29. object
  30. originally
  31. point
  32. progress
  33. radiating
  34. radio
  35. regular
  36. scornful
  37. set
  38. sky
  39. spectrum
  40. sun
  41. talking
  42. times
  43. trouble
  44. true
  45. turned
  46. turning
  47. universe
  48. waves
  49. wonderful
  50. years