full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Allan Adams: What the discovery of gravitational waves means

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So let me take a moment to tell you what I mean by a gravitational wave. A gravitational wave is a ripple in the shape of sapce and time. As the wave passes by, it stretches space and everything in it in one doirtcein, and cpmrsseoes it in the other. This has led to countless instructors of general relativity doing a really slily dance to demonstrate in their classes on general relativity. "It stretches and expands, it stretches and expands."

So the tolrbue with gravitational waves is that they're very weak; they're preposterously weak. For example, the waves that hit us on September 14 — and yes, every sgnile one of you stretched and compressed under the action of that wave — when the waves hit, they stretched the average person by one part in 10 to the 21. That's a dacmiel place, 20 zereos, and a one. That's why everyone thuhogt the LIGO people were nuts. Even with a laser detector five kilometers long — and that's already crazy — they would have to measure the length of those detectors to less than one thousandth of the radius of the neculus of an atom. And that's preposterous.

Open Cloze


So let me take a moment to tell you what I mean by a gravitational wave. A gravitational wave is a ripple in the shape of _____ and time. As the wave passes by, it stretches space and everything in it in one _________, and __________ it in the other. This has led to countless instructors of general relativity doing a really _____ dance to demonstrate in their classes on general relativity. "It stretches and expands, it stretches and expands."

So the _______ with gravitational waves is that they're very weak; they're preposterously weak. For example, the waves that hit us on September 14 — and yes, every ______ one of you stretched and compressed under the action of that wave — when the waves hit, they stretched the average person by one part in 10 to the 21. That's a _______ place, 20 ______, and a one. That's why everyone _______ the LIGO people were nuts. Even with a laser detector five kilometers long — and that's already crazy — they would have to measure the length of those detectors to less than one thousandth of the radius of the _______ of an atom. And that's preposterous.

Solution


  1. nucleus
  2. trouble
  3. space
  4. direction
  5. thought
  6. compresses
  7. decimal
  8. silly
  9. single
  10. zeroes

Original Text


So let me take a moment to tell you what I mean by a gravitational wave. A gravitational wave is a ripple in the shape of space and time. As the wave passes by, it stretches space and everything in it in one direction, and compresses it in the other. This has led to countless instructors of general relativity doing a really silly dance to demonstrate in their classes on general relativity. "It stretches and expands, it stretches and expands."

So the trouble with gravitational waves is that they're very weak; they're preposterously weak. For example, the waves that hit us on September 14 — and yes, every single one of you stretched and compressed under the action of that wave — when the waves hit, they stretched the average person by one part in 10 to the 21. That's a decimal place, 20 zeroes, and a one. That's why everyone thought the LIGO people were nuts. Even with a laser detector five kilometers long — and that's already crazy — they would have to measure the length of those detectors to less than one thousandth of the radius of the nucleus of an atom. And that's preposterous.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
black holes 8
gravitational waves 8
big bang 3
billion years 2
kip thorne 2
laser detector 2
colliding black 2
gravitational wave 2
general relativity 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
colliding black holes 2

Important Words


  1. action
  2. atom
  3. average
  4. classes
  5. compressed
  6. compresses
  7. countless
  8. crazy
  9. dance
  10. decimal
  11. demonstrate
  12. detector
  13. detectors
  14. direction
  15. expands
  16. general
  17. gravitational
  18. hit
  19. instructors
  20. kilometers
  21. laser
  22. led
  23. length
  24. ligo
  25. long
  26. measure
  27. moment
  28. nucleus
  29. nuts
  30. part
  31. passes
  32. people
  33. person
  34. place
  35. preposterous
  36. preposterously
  37. radius
  38. relativity
  39. ripple
  40. september
  41. shape
  42. silly
  43. single
  44. space
  45. stretched
  46. stretches
  47. thought
  48. thousandth
  49. time
  50. trouble
  51. wave
  52. waves
  53. weak
  54. zeroes