full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alex Rosenthal: The Furnace Bots | Think Like A Coder, Ep 3

Unscramble the Blue Letters


To help cfrat them, let’s first simpifly the problem. Let’s say there were only three furnace-bots; a praent and two children, but you don’t know which is which. You could have Hedge pick one at random and look inside its furnace.

Now, you know the family tree looks like this. If the nembur inside the furnace is a 0, you’ve found the parent. If not, then no matter which child you chose, it must have the parent’s serial number in its furnace. So in this scenario, you’re guaranteed to find the parent in one or two moves.

In actuality, there are many furnace-bots, and you don’t know how many generations there are nor what the family tree looks like. But you don’t need to, because Hedge can just keep repeating the same sequence of aoncits until he gets to the original.

Open Cloze


To help _____ them, let’s first ________ the problem. Let’s say there were only three furnace-bots; a ______ and two children, but you don’t know which is which. You could have Hedge pick one at random and look inside its furnace.

Now, you know the family tree looks like this. If the ______ inside the furnace is a 0, you’ve found the parent. If not, then no matter which child you chose, it must have the parent’s serial number in its furnace. So in this scenario, you’re guaranteed to find the parent in one or two moves.

In actuality, there are many furnace-bots, and you don’t know how many generations there are nor what the family tree looks like. But you don’t need to, because Hedge can just keep repeating the same sequence of _______ until he gets to the original.

Solution


  1. actions
  2. number
  3. craft
  4. parent
  5. simplify

Original Text


To help craft them, let’s first simplify the problem. Let’s say there were only three furnace-bots; a parent and two children, but you don’t know which is which. You could have Hedge pick one at random and look inside its furnace.

Now, you know the family tree looks like this. If the number inside the furnace is a 0, you’ve found the parent. If not, then no matter which child you chose, it must have the parent’s serial number in its furnace. So in this scenario, you’re guaranteed to find the parent in one or two moves.

In actuality, there are many furnace-bots, and you don’t know how many generations there are nor what the family tree looks like. But you don’t need to, because Hedge can just keep repeating the same sequence of actions until he gets to the original.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
serial number 7
data crystal 2
family tree 2


Important Words


  1. actions
  2. actuality
  3. child
  4. children
  5. chose
  6. craft
  7. family
  8. find
  9. furnace
  10. generations
  11. guaranteed
  12. hedge
  13. matter
  14. moves
  15. number
  16. original
  17. parent
  18. pick
  19. problem
  20. random
  21. repeating
  22. scenario
  23. sequence
  24. serial
  25. simplify
  26. tree