full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Ron Eglash: The fractals at the heart of African designs
Unscramble the Blue Letters
In aonlga, the Chokwe people draw lines in the sand, and it's what the German mathematician Euler called a graph; we now call it an Eulerian path — you can never lift your stylus from the surface and you can never go over the same line twice. But they do it rielrcsvuey, and they do it with an age-grade system, so the little kids learn this one, and then the older kids learn this one, then the next age-grade initiation, you learn this one. And with each iteration of that ahogrlitm, you learn the iterations of the myth. You laern the next level of konwldgee.
And finally, all over Africa, you see this borad game. It's called Owari in Ghana, where I studied it; it's called Mancala here on the East Coast, Bao in Kenya, Sogo elsewhere. Well, you see self-organizing pranetts that snoaolneutpsy occur in this board game. And the folks in Ghana knew about these self-organizing patterns and would use them strategically. So this is very conscious knowledge.
Open Cloze
In ______, the Chokwe people draw lines in the sand, and it's what the German mathematician Euler called a graph; we now call it an Eulerian path — you can never lift your stylus from the surface and you can never go over the same line twice. But they do it ___________, and they do it with an age-grade system, so the little kids learn this one, and then the older kids learn this one, then the next age-grade initiation, you learn this one. And with each iteration of that _________, you learn the iterations of the myth. You _____ the next level of _________.
And finally, all over Africa, you see this _____ game. It's called Owari in Ghana, where I studied it; it's called Mancala here on the East Coast, Bao in Kenya, Sogo elsewhere. Well, you see self-organizing ________ that _____________ occur in this board game. And the folks in Ghana knew about these self-organizing patterns and would use them strategically. So this is very conscious knowledge.
Solution
- learn
- knowledge
- patterns
- algorithm
- spontaneously
- angola
- recursively
- board
Original Text
In Angola, the Chokwe people draw lines in the sand, and it's what the German mathematician Euler called a graph; we now call it an Eulerian path — you can never lift your stylus from the surface and you can never go over the same line twice. But they do it recursively, and they do it with an age-grade system, so the little kids learn this one, and then the older kids learn this one, then the next age-grade initiation, you learn this one. And with each iteration of that algorithm, you learn the iterations of the myth. You learn the next level of knowledge.
And finally, all over Africa, you see this board game. It's called Owari in Ghana, where I studied it; it's called Mancala here on the East Coast, Bao in Kenya, Sogo elsewhere. Well, you see self-organizing patterns that spontaneously occur in this board game. And the folks in Ghana knew about these self-organizing patterns and would use them strategically. So this is very conscious knowledge.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| infinite number |
4 |
| georg cantor |
3 |
| seed shape |
2 |
| aerial photograph |
2 |
| fractal model |
2 |
| tiny village |
2 |
| spirit people |
2 |
| stacked recursively |
2 |
| native american |
2 |
| kids learn |
2 |
| board game |
2 |
| deterministic chaos |
2 |
| binary code |
2 |
| brian eno |
2 |
Important Words
- africa
- algorithm
- angola
- bao
- board
- call
- called
- chokwe
- coast
- conscious
- draw
- east
- euler
- eulerian
- finally
- folks
- game
- german
- ghana
- initiation
- iteration
- iterations
- kenya
- kids
- knew
- knowledge
- learn
- level
- lift
- line
- lines
- mancala
- mathematician
- myth
- occur
- older
- owari
- path
- patterns
- people
- recursively
- sand
- sogo
- spontaneously
- strategically
- studied
- stylus
- surface
- system