full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Mohamad Jebara: This company pays kids to do their math homework

Unscramble the Blue Letters


(Laughter)

That day, my enitre mathematical world came crashing down on me.

(Laughter)

"Imaginary numbers? Seriously? But mathematics is a sruoce of truth, please don't go abstract on me. I would have studied art if I wanted to play with imaginary numbers."

(Laughter)

"This is Extension Maths, let's get back with our program!" She didn't, and over the next couple of weeks, I reluctantly performed meaningless calculations,

(Laughter)

finding imaginary solutions to qtaduirac eaiqtouns.

(lehguatr)

But then something amazing happened. We baegn finding elegant solutions to real-world problems we previously had no answers to, starting with the complex world of iarmagniy numbers. So some mchaeiaamttin 500 years ago decides to have some fun and make up these imaginary numbers, and because of that we can now derive these anzmaig identities with applications in the real world, in fields like electrical engineering. Wow! I gained a whole new lveel of apaieciortpn for mathematics. And after my brief mistrust, I was now in love with the subject more than ever.

Open Cloze


(Laughter)

That day, my ______ mathematical world came crashing down on me.

(Laughter)

"Imaginary numbers? Seriously? But mathematics is a ______ of truth, please don't go abstract on me. I would have studied art if I wanted to play with imaginary numbers."

(Laughter)

"This is Extension Maths, let's get back with our program!" She didn't, and over the next couple of weeks, I reluctantly performed meaningless calculations,

(Laughter)

finding imaginary solutions to _________ _________.

(________)

But then something amazing happened. We _____ finding elegant solutions to real-world problems we previously had no answers to, starting with the complex world of _________ numbers. So some _____________ 500 years ago decides to have some fun and make up these imaginary numbers, and because of that we can now derive these _______ identities with applications in the real world, in fields like electrical engineering. Wow! I gained a whole new _____ of ____________ for mathematics. And after my brief mistrust, I was now in love with the subject more than ever.

Solution


  1. quadratic
  2. began
  3. source
  4. appreciation
  5. entire
  6. laughter
  7. amazing
  8. equations
  9. imaginary
  10. level
  11. mathematician

Original Text


(Laughter)

That day, my entire mathematical world came crashing down on me.

(Laughter)

"Imaginary numbers? Seriously? But mathematics is a source of truth, please don't go abstract on me. I would have studied art if I wanted to play with imaginary numbers."

(Laughter)

"This is Extension Maths, let's get back with our program!" She didn't, and over the next couple of weeks, I reluctantly performed meaningless calculations,

(Laughter)

finding imaginary solutions to quadratic equations.

(Laughter)

But then something amazing happened. We began finding elegant solutions to real-world problems we previously had no answers to, starting with the complex world of imaginary numbers. So some mathematician 500 years ago decides to have some fun and make up these imaginary numbers, and because of that we can now derive these amazing identities with applications in the real world, in fields like electrical engineering. Wow! I gained a whole new level of appreciation for mathematics. And after my brief mistrust, I was now in love with the subject more than ever.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
high school 3
square root 3
student outcomes 3
weekly maths 3
loved mathematics 2
study mathematics 2
improve student 2
program regularly 2
biggest challenge 2
test scores 2
weekly subscription 2
subscription fee 2
business model 2
user base 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
weekly subscription fee 2

Important Words


  1. abstract
  2. amazing
  3. answers
  4. applications
  5. appreciation
  6. art
  7. began
  8. calculations
  9. complex
  10. couple
  11. crashing
  12. day
  13. decides
  14. derive
  15. electrical
  16. elegant
  17. engineering
  18. entire
  19. equations
  20. extension
  21. fields
  22. finding
  23. fun
  24. gained
  25. happened
  26. identities
  27. imaginary
  28. laughter
  29. level
  30. love
  31. mathematical
  32. mathematician
  33. mathematics
  34. maths
  35. meaningless
  36. mistrust
  37. numbers
  38. performed
  39. play
  40. previously
  41. problems
  42. quadratic
  43. real
  44. reluctantly
  45. solutions
  46. source
  47. starting
  48. studied
  49. subject
  50. truth
  51. wanted
  52. weeks
  53. world
  54. years