full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Erika Hamden: What it takes to launch a telescope

Unscramble the Blue Letters


I'm an astronomer who bidlus telescopes. I build tecoselpes because, number one, they are awesome. But nmuebr two, I believe if you want to discover a new thing about the universe, you have to look at the universe in a new way. New technologies in astronomy — things like lenses, photographic plates, all the way up to space telescopes — each gave us new ways to see the universe and directly led to a new utnddaiernsng of our plcae in it.

But those discoveries come with a cost. It took thousands of people and 44 years to get the hbblue Space Telescope from an idea into orbit. It takes time, it tkeas a tolerance for failure, it takes individual people choosing every day not to give up. I know how hard that choice is because I live it. The reality of my job is that I fail almost all the time and still keep going, because that's how telescopes get built.

Open Cloze


I'm an astronomer who ______ telescopes. I build __________ because, number one, they are awesome. But ______ two, I believe if you want to discover a new thing about the universe, you have to look at the universe in a new way. New technologies in astronomy — things like lenses, photographic plates, all the way up to space telescopes — each gave us new ways to see the universe and directly led to a new _____________ of our _____ in it.

But those discoveries come with a cost. It took thousands of people and 44 years to get the ______ Space Telescope from an idea into orbit. It takes time, it _____ a tolerance for failure, it takes individual people choosing every day not to give up. I know how hard that choice is because I live it. The reality of my job is that I fail almost all the time and still keep going, because that's how telescopes get built.

Solution


  1. place
  2. builds
  3. telescopes
  4. number
  5. hubble
  6. understanding
  7. takes

Original Text


I'm an astronomer who builds telescopes. I build telescopes because, number one, they are awesome. But number two, I believe if you want to discover a new thing about the universe, you have to look at the universe in a new way. New technologies in astronomy — things like lenses, photographic plates, all the way up to space telescopes — each gave us new ways to see the universe and directly led to a new understanding of our place in it.

But those discoveries come with a cost. It took thousands of people and 44 years to get the Hubble Space Telescope from an idea into orbit. It takes time, it takes a tolerance for failure, it takes individual people choosing every day not to give up. I know how hard that choice is because I live it. The reality of my job is that I fail almost all the time and still keep going, because that's how telescopes get built.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
hydrogen gas 3
huge clouds 2


Important Words


  1. astronomer
  2. astronomy
  3. awesome
  4. build
  5. builds
  6. built
  7. choice
  8. choosing
  9. cost
  10. day
  11. discover
  12. discoveries
  13. fail
  14. failure
  15. gave
  16. give
  17. hard
  18. hubble
  19. idea
  20. individual
  21. job
  22. led
  23. lenses
  24. live
  25. number
  26. orbit
  27. people
  28. photographic
  29. place
  30. plates
  31. reality
  32. space
  33. takes
  34. technologies
  35. telescope
  36. telescopes
  37. thousands
  38. time
  39. tolerance
  40. understanding
  41. universe
  42. ways
  43. years