Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[sejpdw]

# Given Passage #
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The sensible way to boil an egg is in a pot of water on a hot stove. Dr. Irving Rudnick of the University of California, however, thought he could boil an egg just by talking to a pot of water. He figured he would have to keep on saying, ꡒBoil, boil, boil!ꡓ for the next twenty thousand years.
Since he wouldn't be around quite that long, he did some more thinking. This time he came up with another idea. He thought he could make the water boil if he had thirty-five million people all say, ꡒBoil!ꡓ at the same time through a telephone receiver pointed at the water. But, of course, this wouldn't work either. Next, the scientist had a steel siren made. Its sound was like thirty-five million voices all saying, ꡒBoil!ꡓ at the same time. And it worked.
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# Gvien Sentence #
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" He thought the ultrasonic waves could make the water [u]boil[/u] in two minutes. "
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1. In the previous sentence, can "boiled" be used instead of " boil" when we consider the given passage?

2. In the previous sentence, can "boiled" be used instead of "boil" when we ignore the given passage? What I mean is if "boiled" can be used in another contenxt.

3. If #2 is true, what's the difference between them?

[Bob S.]