Shadowing Practice: 13 Unreleased Videos I Thought Would Go Viral - Learn English Speaking with Video
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If you poured a giant bucket of water onto the sun,
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would it actually extinguish it,
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causing the Earth to become dark and frozen?
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What water puts out normal fires because it cools the fuel and helps block oxygen.
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But the sun isn't a normal fire.
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It runs because hydrogen nuclei are smashing together in a powerful reaction called fusion.
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So, if you flooded it with an enormous amount of water,
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you'd be giving it more hydrogen to fuse.
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And this amount of water would also increase the sun's mass,
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causing Earth to be pulled in closer because of gravity.
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Meaning, eventually, everyone on the planet would be cooked.
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If you jumped out of a plane with a helium tank and a balloon,
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could you fill it up on the way down and survive the fall?
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Well, a single helium tank wouldn't have enough gas to slow you down.
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Instead, you would need one bigger than yourself,
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and your balloon would need to be over 16 feet wide.
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But this would take way too long to inflate,
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and since the weight of the tank would make you fall faster,
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you'd only start floating once you dropped it.
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This means you would need thousands of miles of fall time just to pull it all off.
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But this is far beyond any plane's limit,
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and at that height, you would actually just suffocate in space.
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He was keeping score of the baseball game in 1902,
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sitting next to two other guys.
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Now, he was using a pencil to write down the information,
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but after a while, it got too dull.
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He knew Leroy had a small knife,
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and asked if he could borrow it to sharpen his pencil.
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He agreed, and as he pulled it out,
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he opened it and began to hand it over.
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But just as he did,
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the player up to bat hit a foul ball that flew back towards the three men.
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It struck the knife while it was still being passed over the man in the middle.
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This forced the blade straight into his chest,
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in between two ribs and just over his heart.
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And within minutes, the 19-year-old bled to death.
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right there on the spot.
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Imagine you were picked up,
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plopped into a glass coffin,
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and forced to the bottom of the ocean.
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You start freaking out because you have no idea why you're here.
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And everything happens so fast that you don't know how deep you are.
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As you feel around, you find a hammer.
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Maybe it's to smash the coffin and escape?
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But what if you're really deep and the coffin is pressurized?
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This means smashing it could get you crushed instantly.
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But you also could be shallow,
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meaning you would just float up and survive.
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The worst part is, you don't know how much oxygen you have left.
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Could be an hour, could be minutes.
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There's no timer, just your own panic making you breathe harder.
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You grip the hammer just to hold something.
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Maybe it's a dream, but the hammer feels real.
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The cold sweat feels real.
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You raise it up, take one final breath, and you swing.
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Two mirrors were mounted to the rifle,
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which allowed the image of the enemy to bounce from mirror to mirror and into the shooter's view.
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Another stock was attached to a frame for stability.
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Then they would pull on a cable that was attached to the trigger, eliminating the enemy.
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You see, as soldiers popped out of trenches,
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they would get shot almost instantly.
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But this World War I device let them shoot without ever sticking their heads out.
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Over time, the mirrors were swapped with cameras,
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and they mounted a pistol on a hinge that could flip in either direction.
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A screen on the back showed what the camera saw,
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and the trigger cable was replaced with a second trigger on the grip,
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neutralizing threats while keeping the shooter safe.
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He was placed inside a plastic chamber just seconds after he was born,
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and he lived this way for years,
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unable to touch anyone or anything.
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Even the air that went in had to be sterilized in a gas chamber.
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You see, he was born with a rare disease that could kill him if a single germ got into his body.
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When he was 12, doctors tried to cure him with a transplant of his sister's bone marrow,
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and he was able to touch his family for the first time but the marrow contained an undetected virus.
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And just weeks later, he tragically died.
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His story has helped doctors spot the illness earlier in others,
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which has ended up saving hundreds of lives.
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The plane hit the tower,
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and just an hour and 42 minutes later, it began to collapse.
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Deep in the core, a small group of rescuers were carrying a woman down a stairwell as they felt the tower crumbling.
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Now as each floor above them crashed into each other, everyone inside perished.
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But the collapse actually didn't fall perfectly vertical.
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The floors appear to have shifted unevenly,
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tilting some of the weight outward and away from the center.
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As they heard it crash down above them,
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they knew they were doomed.
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But the central position and the way the rubble fell somehow left a pocket of space protected.
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A huge gust of wind pushed them down the stairs as the outer structure was stripped off
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and the stairwell was literally exposed.
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Everything else was obliterated, but part of stairwell B stood in the rubble and the 14 people inside survived.
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The caper is placed inside an anchovy,
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which is shoved inside an olive,
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which is then stuffed into a tiny wild bird.
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And that bird is stuffed into one that's slightly bigger,
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which is shoved inside a third,
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which is shoved inside a fourth,
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and this is then stuffed into a quail,
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meaning five birds in and it's still only the size of your hand.
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But it keeps going, with each bird bigger than the last.
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The gaps in between are filled with stuffing,
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until finally the duck is shoved inside a chicken,
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a pheasant, a goose and a turkey.
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The last step is to shove it inside a bustard.
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And the whole thing is cooked for 24 hours.
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When it's done, it's sliced open to reveal all 20 layers.
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But some of these birds are now illegal to eat.
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So it's impossible to make this dish today.
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They packed the tube with gunpowder,
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drilled a hole for the fuse,
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and secured the top with tape.
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Then they loaded it with colored powder.
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You see, the plan was to fire it,
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and the color of the powder would reveal the gender of their baby.
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But they decided to add extra gunpowder,
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thinking it would make the reveal more impressive.
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Now when they lit the fuse,
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it ignited, but the force of the blast shattered the metal casing,
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sending shrapnel flying through the air.
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They all dove for cover,
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but one piece of metal flew too fast and struck the grandma in the head.
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Now they called 911, but it was too late.
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By the time the powder cleared,
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the only color left was red,
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and she died without ever learning gender of her grandchild.
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If you dropped the steak from really high up,
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could the air resistance actually cook it,
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leaving you with a perfectly seared filet?
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Well, if you dropped it at the same height as the world record for skydiving,
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the air up there is incredibly cold,
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but the steak would be smashing into air molecules so fast
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that the surface would get a tiny bit of heat from the shockwave.
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the icy winds would still be freezing it over.
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So when it finally lands,
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you might have to thaw it out.
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Now if we dropped it from 155 miles up,
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the outside of the steak might get nicely seared,
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but that heat only clings to the very surface.
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The moment the steak drops lower,
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it's slammed by icy cold air.
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The inside never has time to warm,
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so you would end up with a steak that's seared on the outside,
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but still raw in the middle.
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If we went even higher,
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the air in front of the steak gets squashed so hard it would be thousands of degrees hot.
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That heat burns the very outside layer until it flakes away in the wind.
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Then the next layer is exposed.
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And the same thing happens again and again,
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like peeling layers off an onion,
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which could leave you with a plate of char.
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She dropped a potato into the first pot,
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an egg in the second,
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and coffee beans in the third.
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Then she boiled them all for 20 minutes.
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The potatoes started out hard,
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but after being boiled, it's soft and limp.
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The egg used to be delicate and fragile,
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but boiling it has hardened it inside.
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Now the coffee beans actually changed the water itself,
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transforming it into something richer and different.
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Each one faced the same adversity,
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the boiling water, but each one responded differently.
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One broke down, one toughened up,
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and one completely transformed its environment.
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So when the heat rises,
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ask yourself, will you be the potato,
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the egg, or the coffee beans?
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If you swapped all the balls with human bodies on a Newton's Cradle,
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would it still work?
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Well normally this device works because the metal balls are so stiff.
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So when one of them is hit,
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it briefly squashes and then springs back,
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sending that push all the way through to the last ball,
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which flies out because it gets that shove.
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But since human bodies are soft and squishy,
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this energy gets absorbed more and doesn't transfer well.
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The last person might swing out a bit,
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but so would everyone else.
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Even if you swung the first person as fast as possible,
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the middle humans would just crumple,
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getting bruised and squashed in the process.
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Now the energy would make it to the last person,
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but the bodies would be flung in the wrong directions.
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Even if they were wearing some sort of metal armor,
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and you swung it with a lot of force,
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You might transfer enough energy for a few back and forth swings,
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but you would still break some bones in the process.
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A football player drove right into him, knocking him unconscious.
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He eventually recovered and moved on.
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And over the next 10 years,
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he met his wife, had two kids,
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and landed a dream job.
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Life was normal for him.
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Until one night, while sitting in his living room,
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he noticed something odd about the lamp.
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Now it still looked like a lamp,
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but the perspective was off.
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It was somehow distorted.
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He was mesmerized by it, staying up all night.
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He stopped eating and wouldn't leave the couch,
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despite his wife begging him to.
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She eventually took the kids and left.
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And that's when reality hit him.
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The lamp wasn't real.
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His house, his wife and children,
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none of it was real.
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Suddenly everything collapsed inward, and he woke up on a sidewalk,
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ten years younger, having just been knocked down by a football player.
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will engage in challenging yet fascinating concepts discussed in a YouTube video titled "13 Unreleased Videos I Thought Would Go Viral." The transcript dives into various thought experiments and hypothetical scenarios, which will not only enrich your vocabulary but also help enhance your critical thinking. By practicing with this content, you'll improve your English speaking practice, specifically in discussing complex ideas and scenarios. This lesson is particularly beneficial for those preparing for IELTS speaking practice, as it encourages you to articulate your thoughts on unconventional topics.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Extinguish - to put out a fire or stop something from burning.
- Fusion - a nuclear reaction in which two atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus.
- Gravity - the force that attracts a body towards the center of the earth.
- Pressurized - to pressurize something means to increase the pressure within it.
- Suffocate - to die or lose consciousness due to lack of air.
- Hypothetical - based on an assumption or theory rather than on facts.
- Scenarios - imagined or hypothetical sequences of events.
- Coherent - logical and consistent, making sense.
Practice Tips
To maximize your learning, consider using a technique called shadowing with the video. This means listening to a short segment of the video and then repeating it out loud immediately, mimicking the speaker's tone, speed, and pronunciation. Since the transcript flows quickly, start with slower sections and gradually increase the challenge. Pay close attention to natural pauses and emphases, which will help you sound more fluent. This practice can be particularly effective if you're looking to learn English with YouTube content. By incorporating the shadowing site approach, you will cultivate your speaking skills while engaging with interesting material. Each time you repeat a phrase, focus on clarity and try to incorporate the new vocabulary into your own sentences. This can significantly enhance both your vocabulary retention and your ability to discuss complex topics in English.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be pulled · would be cooked · being passed |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have left · has helped · has ended |
| Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past | was keeping · was using · was still being |
| Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain | might have · might get · might swing |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.