full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Michael Benton: Mass extinctions and the future of life on Earth
Unscramble the Blue Letters
For example, 100 yraes ago, Sir Ernest Rutherford, a very fmouas physicist, Nobel Prize winner, said, 'All of science is physics, and the rest is stamp collecting.' By which he meant that if you cannot make it into mcmiteaahts or phsicys, it doesn't count. That eledxucs then the natural sciences, medicine and a lot of other areas. And I think at the far end of the spectrum would be my subject, palaeontology. I'd like to give you an example though, to show you how we apply sitniiecfc methods to ahicvee a certain level of understanding and certainty.
And this is something that has been developing during my career so that when I started, a lot of what we did would be called a speculation or guesswork, whereas now, a lot of what we do can be tested and can be called scientific. The example I'm going to take is the question I asked when I was seven, 'Could T. rex bite a car in half?' This is a question about the most famous dinosaur, taunusrryanos Rex, which was huge, five tons in weight, enormous jaws and teeth. Could it bite a car in half? Well, there were no cars in the Cretaceous, but let's fogret that for the moment. When I started, you could only asenwr that question by guesswork, or you could make some very simple medlos of the skull, like levers, and try to calculate things. If you were going to make a realistic model that had all the properties of the orgiinal bone and flesh of the dinosaur, you could not do it. But now, with the poewr of computing, we can do this kind of thing. So the way you calculate the bite force of T. rex, and the way plpoee have done it, is they scan a skull and make a three-dimensional, digital model inside the computer. You then dvidie that model into a mesh, or into a fwaroermk of eelmetns or small components. And each of these elements can be given physical properties so that we know the pyhsaicl properties of bone of living animals. These are material pperietros, like how far can you twsit the bone before it breaks, how much crsmoipeosn can that bone take. And so all of those properties are meppad into the skull. And then you apply imaginary forces and increase those pressures until the thing breaks. And so the bite force of T. rex is huge. Let me lead you to the figure. Our bite force is about 800 newtons at most. The biggest bite force of any living animal is the great white sarhk, and that is about 5,000 newtons. T. rex, 50,000 newtons, ten times. And that's equivalent to five tons of weight, acting. So it could bite a car in half.
Open Cloze
For example, 100 _____ ago, Sir Ernest Rutherford, a very ______ physicist, Nobel Prize winner, said, 'All of science is physics, and the rest is stamp collecting.' By which he meant that if you cannot make it into ___________ or _______, it doesn't count. That ________ then the natural sciences, medicine and a lot of other areas. And I think at the far end of the spectrum would be my subject, palaeontology. I'd like to give you an example though, to show you how we apply __________ methods to _______ a certain level of understanding and certainty.
And this is something that has been developing during my career so that when I started, a lot of what we did would be called a speculation or guesswork, whereas now, a lot of what we do can be tested and can be called scientific. The example I'm going to take is the question I asked when I was seven, 'Could T. rex bite a car in half?' This is a question about the most famous dinosaur, _____________ Rex, which was huge, five tons in weight, enormous jaws and teeth. Could it bite a car in half? Well, there were no cars in the Cretaceous, but let's ______ that for the moment. When I started, you could only ______ that question by guesswork, or you could make some very simple ______ of the skull, like levers, and try to calculate things. If you were going to make a realistic model that had all the properties of the ________ bone and flesh of the dinosaur, you could not do it. But now, with the _____ of computing, we can do this kind of thing. So the way you calculate the bite force of T. rex, and the way ______ have done it, is they scan a skull and make a three-dimensional, digital model inside the computer. You then ______ that model into a mesh, or into a _________ of ________ or small components. And each of these elements can be given physical properties so that we know the ________ properties of bone of living animals. These are material __________, like how far can you _____ the bone before it breaks, how much ___________ can that bone take. And so all of those properties are ______ into the skull. And then you apply imaginary forces and increase those pressures until the thing breaks. And so the bite force of T. rex is huge. Let me lead you to the figure. Our bite force is about 800 newtons at most. The biggest bite force of any living animal is the great white _____, and that is about 5,000 newtons. T. rex, 50,000 newtons, ten times. And that's equivalent to five tons of weight, acting. So it could bite a car in half.
Solution
- original
- famous
- people
- twist
- years
- answer
- physical
- scientific
- power
- mapped
- divide
- excludes
- physics
- forget
- achieve
- mathematics
- tyrannosaurus
- compression
- framework
- properties
- models
- elements
- shark
Original Text
For example, 100 years ago, Sir Ernest Rutherford, a very famous physicist, Nobel Prize winner, said, 'All of science is physics, and the rest is stamp collecting.' By which he meant that if you cannot make it into mathematics or physics, it doesn't count. That excludes then the natural sciences, medicine and a lot of other areas. And I think at the far end of the spectrum would be my subject, palaeontology. I'd like to give you an example though, to show you how we apply scientific methods to achieve a certain level of understanding and certainty.
And this is something that has been developing during my career so that when I started, a lot of what we did would be called a speculation or guesswork, whereas now, a lot of what we do can be tested and can be called scientific. The example I'm going to take is the question I asked when I was seven, 'Could T. rex bite a car in half?' This is a question about the most famous dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus Rex, which was huge, five tons in weight, enormous jaws and teeth. Could it bite a car in half? Well, there were no cars in the Cretaceous, but let's forget that for the moment. When I started, you could only answer that question by guesswork, or you could make some very simple models of the skull, like levers, and try to calculate things. If you were going to make a realistic model that had all the properties of the original bone and flesh of the dinosaur, you could not do it. But now, with the power of computing, we can do this kind of thing. So the way you calculate the bite force of T. rex, and the way people have done it, is they scan a skull and make a three-dimensional, digital model inside the computer. You then divide that model into a mesh, or into a framework of elements or small components. And each of these elements can be given physical properties so that we know the physical properties of bone of living animals. These are material properties, like how far can you twist the bone before it breaks, how much compression can that bone take. And so all of those properties are mapped into the skull. And then you apply imaginary forces and increase those pressures until the thing breaks. And so the bite force of T. rex is huge. Let me lead you to the figure. Our bite force is about 800 newtons at most. The biggest bite force of any living animal is the great white shark, and that is about 5,000 newtons. T. rex, 50,000 newtons, ten times. And that's equivalent to five tons of weight, acting. So it could bite a car in half.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| bite force |
4 |
| million years |
4 |
| human activity |
3 |
| carbon dioxide |
3 |
| physical properties |
2 |
| great auk |
2 |
| al gore |
2 |
| lowest estimate |
2 |
| normal rate |
2 |
| mass extinctions |
2 |
| climate change |
2 |
Important Words
- achieve
- acting
- animal
- animals
- answer
- apply
- areas
- asked
- biggest
- bite
- bone
- breaks
- calculate
- called
- car
- career
- cars
- certainty
- collecting
- components
- compression
- computer
- computing
- count
- cretaceous
- developing
- digital
- dinosaur
- divide
- elements
- enormous
- equivalent
- ernest
- excludes
- famous
- figure
- flesh
- force
- forces
- forget
- framework
- give
- great
- guesswork
- huge
- imaginary
- increase
- jaws
- kind
- lead
- level
- levers
- living
- lot
- mapped
- material
- mathematics
- meant
- medicine
- mesh
- methods
- model
- models
- moment
- natural
- newtons
- nobel
- original
- palaeontology
- people
- physical
- physicist
- physics
- power
- pressures
- prize
- properties
- question
- realistic
- rest
- rex
- rutherford
- scan
- science
- sciences
- scientific
- shark
- show
- simple
- sir
- skull
- small
- spectrum
- speculation
- stamp
- started
- subject
- teeth
- ten
- tested
- times
- tons
- twist
- tyrannosaurus
- understanding
- weight
- white
- winner
- years