The Freshers' Science Quiz held with Takneek.

1. Fresher’s Science Quiz
Takneek ‘14

2. Prelims Round

3. 1. To infinity and beyond!
Who was the second man on the moon?

4. 2. I wouldn’t hurt a...

5. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic.
The Three Laws of Xics are a set of rules devised by Y.
The Three Laws are:
1. A X may not injure a human being or, through inaction,
allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A X must obey the orders given to it by human beings,
except where such orders would conflict with the First
Law.
3. A X must protect its own existence as long as such
protection does not conflict with the First or Second
Law.

6. 4. It’s all Greek to me

7. 5. The cake is a lie...
A famous conversation between a “king” X, and the
mathematician Laplace.
X says, "Laplace, you wrote this whole book on astronomy,
and you didn't once mention God."
Laplace replies, "I had no need of that hypothesis."
ID.

8. 6. That is not an ordinary star, it is
the tear of a warrior...

9. 7. My very educated mother...
A mnemonic describing a mathematical “device” :
Sift the Twos and Sift the Threes,
The ____ of ______.
When the multiples sublime,
The numbers that remain are xxxx.

10. 8. To alcohol! The cause of and
solution to all of life’s problems!

11. 9. Full House
Connect (Non-Exhaustive):
i) Leon -- Doctor
ii) Jacob -- Mathematician
iii) Nicolaus -- Painter
iv) Johann -- Mathematician
v) Daniel -- Physicist
vi) Johann II -- Astronomer
vii) Hans -- Architect

12. 10. There are places I remember, all my
life...

13. 11. Get some air.
Sealed Air: What is this company’s most famous product?

14. 12.Oh, the Humanity!
A CAPTCHA is a challenge-response test used to prevent
bots from using certain online services, or accessing
sensitive data. CAPTCHA is also (sort of) an acronym.
What does the ‘T’ in CAPTCHA stand for?

15. 13. Unlucky numbers everywhere
What is Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia?

16. 14. A fly on the wall!
A very famous philosopher X lay in bed one night. As he
lay there, he looked up at the ceiling in his bedroom. He
noticed a fly was asleep on the ceiling. X wondered if he
could figure out a way of stating where exactly the fly was
on the ceiling. Obviously it has to be a precise description
he thought. I can’t really say, “To the left” or “Near the right
“or “In the middle”.
So, what did X come up with?

17. 15. Rubbit, Rubbit...
What is project “Backrub” better known as now?

18. 16. I heard it through the grapevine...
Following graduation, X became an assistant professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his early years as a
professor, Bose bought a high-end stereo speaker system in 1956 and
he was disappointed to find that speakers with impressive technical
specifications failed to reproduce the realism of a live performance.
This would eventually motivate his extensive speaker technology
research, concentrating on key weaknesses in the high-end speaker
systems available at the time. His research on acoustics led him to
invent a stereo loudspeaker that would reproduce, in a domestic
setting, the dominantly reflected sound field that characterizes the
listening space of the audience in a concert hall. His focus on
psychoacoustics later became a hallmark of his company's audio
products.

19. 17. Graphic question
The following graph tracks a prediction made some 50
years ago. What was the prediction?

20. 18. Elementary, my dear Watson.
W is a laboratory, in a university X, in a state Y, of a
country Z. X, Y, Z and W all have elements named after
them. What are the names of the elements?

21. 19. Say my name
X is a computer programming jargon term for a software
bug that seems to disappear or alter its behavior when one
attempts to study it. What?

22. 20. **** me
The game was developed primarily by a young Namco
employee named Tōru Iwatani over the course of a year,
beginning in April 1979. Although Iwatani has repeatedly
stated that the character design was inspired by a pizza
missing a slice, he admitted in a 1986 interview that this
was a half-truth and the design also came from simplifying
and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi.
What game?

24. Le Grand Finale

25. Infinite Pounce
Pounce: +20/-10
Bounce: +10/0

26. Heil Hitler??
It was a brisk April morning in 1940, and George was in a fix. In his hands were two
Nobel Prizes illegally smuggled from Germany, while outside the lab Nazi’s
swarmed the streets of Copenhagen. Denmark was now occupied by the Germans,
and it was only a matter of time before they entered the Institute of Theoretical
Physics and searched the building.
The medals belonged to Max von Laue and James Franck, Germans who had won
Nobel Prizes in Physics some years ago. Their names were on the medals, and
taking gold out of Germany was almost a capital offense, carrying a punishment not
to be sneezed at. George was certainly not sneezing, but his palms were sweating
as if he had a fever and his heart was pounding like a drum. There might be only
hours until Nazis found the medals, and his neck would certainly be on the
chopping block along with theirs.
What to do? Hide it in a hollowed out book as children hide sweets? No, there was
no guarantee the books would stay put, they could be sent away or burned for all he
knew. Bury it then? There simply wasn’t time, a freshly dug grave would only attract
attention. No, it had to be changed, made unrecognisable, hidden in plain sight.
Somehow. Think George, think. To every problem there must be a solution. Keep at
it until a solution appears.
A solution! Of course!

27. One in a ?
Only about 0.274% of all human beings that ever lived had this property. The
following is a non-exhaustive list of notable personalities that shared this
property:
i) Ingrid Bergman
ii) William Shakespeare
iii) George Washington Carver
iv) Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.
v) Kamehameha V
vi) Jean Felix Picard
vii) My grandmother
What property?

28. Don’t count stars, you might stumble.
Beta Persei was the first eclipsing binary star to be
discovered. This is a variable system 28.5 pc distant, with 2
periods – 2.87 days and 680.05 days which are caused by
eclipses.
The star has been associated from ancient times with
creatures like Gorgon in Greek tradition and the demonic
xxxxx in the Arabic tradition.
Its English name (also the name of a pathbreaking
programming language) derives from its Arabic name
which means “head of the ogre”.
Arabic name, please.

29. The theme’s stuck in your head now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SXXCQhb_kQ
Identify the principle.

30. Na na na na na na na...
The unique properties of the Desmos rotunus' saliva have
found some positive use in medicine. A study in the
January 10, 2003, issue of Stroke: Journal of the American
Heart Association tested a genetically engineered drug
called desmoteplase, which uses the anticoagulant
properties of the saliva of Desmodus rotundus, and was
shown to increase blood flow in stroke patients.

31. Better an ant's head than a lion's
tail.

32. Yo mama’s so old.
What two-word alliterative term is often used by the popular
press to denote Cosmic Microwave Background waves,
which are considered the gold standard proof of the Big
Bang model of the universe?
The words mean “ancient”, and “waves” respectively.

33. Chop Chop!
This famous scientist began his research career in a
subject far removed from what he became the founder of.
In 1876, he worked as an assistant to Carl Claus, a marine
zoologist in Trieste, Italy, studying the life cycle of a
European Eel.
However, after dissecting hundreds of specimens of eels
over four weeks in a search of the male reproductive tract,
he gave up and decided to focus on another system of the
eel. This eventually led him to be interested in the subject
for which he is famous.
Which scientist?

34. I can’t quit you, babe.

35. Sometimes, stupidity pays.
The origin of the X Awards can be traced back to posts on
Usenet group discussions as early as 1985.An early post cites
an example of a person who pulled a vending machine over their
head and was crushed to death trying to break into it. Another
widely distributed early story mentioning the X Awards is the
JATO Rocket Car, which describes a man who strapped a JATO
(Jet-Assisted Take-Off) unit to his Chevrolet Impala in the
Arizona desert and who died gloriously on the side of a cliff as
his car achieved speeds of 250 to 300 miles per hour. This story
was later confirmed to be an urban legend by the Arizona
Department of Public Safety. The official X Awards website run
by Northcutt does its best to confirm all stories submitted, listing
them as, "confirmed true by X." Many of the viral emails
circulating the Internet, however, are hoaxes and urban legends.

36. Oh! the huge manatee!

37. Am I the only one around here?
In Y’s own judgment, of his many achievements the most important was to establish the wave
theory of light.
Others include:
In 1793 he explained the mode in which the eye accommodates itself to vision at different
distances as depending on change of the curvature of the crystalline lens; in 1801 he was the
first to describe astigmatism
In 1804, Y developed the theory of capillary phenomena on the principle of surface tension. He
also observed the constancy of the angle of contact of a liquid surface with a solid, and showed
how from these two principles to deduce the phenomena of capillary action.
Describing the characterization of elasticity that came to be known as Y's constant, denoted as
E, in 1807, and further described it in his Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the
Mechanical Arts.
In physiology Y made an important contribution to haemodynamics in the Croonian lecture for
1808 on the "Functions of the Heart and Arteries," where he derived a formula for the wave
speed of the pulse
In his Encyclopædia Britannica article "Languages", Y compared the grammar and vocabulary
of 400 languages.
Y was also one of the first who tried to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the help of a
demotic alphabet of 29 letters.
He also developed Y temperament, a method of tuning musical instruments.

38. Frankly, my dear...

39. Water, Water everywhere...
Here is how X works:
1. When water evaporates from the fuzz on the X's head, the head is cooled.
2. The temperature decrease in the head condenses the methylene chloride
vapor, decreasing the vapor pressure in the head relative to the vapor
pressure in the abdomen.
3. The greater vapor pressure in the abdomen forces fluid up through the
neck and into the head.
4. As fluid enters the head, it makes X top-heavy.
5. X tips. Liquid travels to the head. The bottom of the tube is no longer
submerged in liquid.
6. Vapor bubbles travel through the tube and into the head. Liquid drains
from the head, displaced by the bubbles.
7. Fluid drains back into the abdomen, making X bottom-heavy.
8. X tips back up.

40. As easy as pie?
X Co., Inc. is a Japanese food and chemical corporation which
produces seasonings, cooking oils, TV dinners, sweeteners,
amino acids, and pharmaceuticals. In particular it is the world's
largest producer of aspartame, with a 40% global market share.
The literal translation of X is “Essence of Taste,” used as a
trademark for the company’s original monosodium glutamate
product.
In normal conditions, humans have the ability to metabolize
glutamate that has a very low acute toxicity. The oral lethal dose
to 50% of subjects (LD50) is five times greater than the LD50 of
salt (3 g/kg in rats). Therefore, the intake of X as a food additive
and the natural level of glutamic acid in foods is not a
toxicological concern in humans.
What?

41. Pink is the new blue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ithViBMF1k
Id the voice.

42. Webcomic Round

51. Infinite Pounce
Pounce: +20/-10
Bounce: +10/0

52. Mischmasch
An apocryphal but well known story tell how Queen
Victoria, charmed by X, expressed a desire to receive the
author's next work, and was presented, in due course, with
a loyally inscribed copy of An Elementary Treatise on
Determinants.
X also wrote a pamphlet "Lawn Tennis Tournaments -- The
true method of assigning prizes, with proof of the fallacy of
the present method.

53. Why they call me Mr. Fahrenheit.

54. Itchy and Scratchy.
De Mestral first conceptualized X after returning from a
hunting trip with his dog in the Alps in 1941. After
removing several of the burdock burrs (seeds) that kept
sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur, he became curious
as to how it worked. He examined them under a
microscope, and noted hundreds of "hooks" that caught on
anything with a loop, such as clothing, animal fur, or hair.
He saw the possibility of binding two materials reversibly
in a simple fashion, if he could figure out how to
duplicate the hooks and loops.

55. To be a rock and not to roll.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poZCINzx
zrQ
Id the song.

56. What question does this question ask?
(8!)*(3^7)*(12!/2)*(2^11)
This number is the answer to a question. What is the
question?

57. So much data, so little time.
The stuff in X includes 116 images and a variety of natural
sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and
animals (including the songs of birds and whales), musical
selections from different cultures and eras, spoken
greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, and printed
messages from US president Jimmy Carter and U.N.
Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.
The 116 images are encoded in analogue form and
composed of 512 vertical lines. The remainder is audio,
designed to be played at 16⅔ revolutions per minute.

58. Nostalgia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umEDct4BoGc
Id the tune.

59. Scienception?
“I was sitting writing at my textbook but the work did not progress;
my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and
dozed. Again the atoms were gambolling before my eyes. This time
the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental
eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could
now distinguish larger structures of manifold confirmation: long
rows, sometimes more closely fitted together all twining and twisting
in snake like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes
had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly
before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time
also I spent the rest of the night in working out the rest of the
hypothesis. Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, then perhaps we
shall find the truth... But let us beware of publishing our dreams till
they have been tested by waking understanding.”
ID.

60. Mandatory Shoutout
P, Q and R are all alumni of X. In 2002, they solved an
important number theoretic problem, that had been raised
by Gauss and had been open for more than 300 years.
Unsurprisingly, P, Q and R were catapulted to worldwide
fame for their result, and in 2006, they were awarded the
Godel prize, one of the highest honors of the field.
Give me P, Q, R and X.

61. What’s in a number?
Name X Y Z
Natalie Portman 5 2 7
Carl Sagan 4 2 6
Noam Chomsky 4 3 7
David Dalrymple 3 2 5
Wendelin Werner 3 3 6
Jonathan Pritchard 4 2 6

62. Cat got your tongue?

63. Not Nicholas Cage.
A moral man, X
Tamping powder down holes for his wage
Blew his special-made probe
Through his left frontal lobe
Now he drinks, swears, and flies in a rage.

64. Art attack.
This slide, and the next,
contains sketches made by an
artist under the pseudonym
Ofey. Why are these images
on this quiz?

66. To be or not to be?
Francis Galton was convinced that hereditary factors
dominated the behaviour of mankind and coined this
phrase by borrowing from Tempest. What was the phrase?
A devil, a born devil, on whose ______
_____ can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost,
And as with age his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers. I will plague them all,
Even to roaring.

67. Coda.
METAFONT is a font description language used to define
vector fonts. It was designed and mostly written by Donald
Knuth. Since version 2.0, METAFONT has used an
idiosyncratic version numbering system, in order to reflect
the fact that it is now very stable, and only minor changes
are anticipated.
Knuth has stated that upon his death, one final change will
be made to METAFONT, at which point all remaining bugs
will become features. What is the change?

68. What’s in a name
Homage to ______ ____ (1986) is a collection of essays by
Anthony Burgess. The title of the collection is a reference
to the urban legend of a Hungarian man named ______
____, who supposedly invented the modern English
keyboard layout and left his name hidden in it. Fill in the
blanks

69. Connect round

70. +40/-20
Auguste Antoine Picard
was a Swiss scientist,
inventor and explorer.
What did he inspire the
creation of?

71. +30/-15
Certain historians claim that in ancient Rome,
some hired vehicles had a primitive taxi
meter. A compartmented wheel driven by a
road wheel dropped pebbles from a hopper
into a box. Counted at the end of the ride,
these set the fare. The same historians point
to this practice of counting the pebbles as the
etymological origin of a certain English word.
Give the word/etymological funda.

72. +20/-10
The following is an excerpt from 'Down the Rabbit-Hole' - the first chapter of
Alice in Wonderland :
And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face
brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going
through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for
a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little
nervous about this; 'for it might end, you know,' said Alice to herself, 'in my
going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?' And
she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown
out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.
The author, Lewis Carroll, makes a subtle mathematical reference in the
above, as also at several other places throughout the book. What is he
referring to?

73. +10/5
Whose tombstone bears the following
inscription?

74. +5/0
Various X's are claimed to be "the" X which Y describes.
The King's School, Grantham, claims that the X was
purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the
headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the
now National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute
this, and claim that a X present in their gardens is the one
described by Y. A descendant of the original X can be
seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College,
Cambridge, below the room Y lived in when he studied
there.
Who is Y?

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