5. 1. King Ptolemy I was, to put not too fine a point on
it, a bit put out. When he was having difficulty
studying "Geometry from the Elements", and had
requested X for some easier way for a monarch to
learn the subject, he received the answer, "Sire, there
is no royal road to Geometry."
Who was X who delivered this royal rebuff, who has
been called by ancient writers of history, "a gentle
and kindly old man"?
5
6. Answer:
Euclid
On one occasion, a pupil of Euclid's complained because he saw
no practical knowledge in having to know geometry. Euclid
turned to one of his servants, and replied: "Give this pupil a
piece of money, for he must have profit from what he learns."
In his book, the Elements, which in reality contains 13 books, he
set forth the geometry that is still taught to children all over the
world, setting forth definitions and axioms that remain
unchallenged even today.
6
7. 2.The beautiful velvet knee breeches, the glossy buckled shoes, and the
gleaming sword were all laid out for him to wear. He was to be presented to
King George IV in a traditional ceremony in which the King honoured his most
distinguished subjects. But he was a Quaker, and his beliefs forbade him from
wearing such garments or wearing a sword. The Lord Chamberlain was in a
fury over his stubbornness, but he would not listen. At long length, a bright
young groom saved the day. He was told that he could cover himself with a
robe that he had recently been awarded when accepting an honourary degree
from Oxford. The flaming red cloth was draped over his frail shoulders and he
was ushered into the impatient King's presence. A number of Quakers in the
audience gasped when they saw him bedecked in scarlet, a colour that no true
Quaker would be permitted to wear. However he was colour-blind and was
hence unaware of the faux pas he was commiting.
Who was he?
7
8. Answer:
John Dalton.
Subsequent to this, Dalton became the first person to
conduct a number of experiments on colour-blindness, and
to this day, the phenomenon is also known as Daltonism.
He, unlike most other scientists of his day and age, lived to
enjoy the plaudits of his countrymen. He was presented
with the key to Paris and was given the Medal of the Royal
Society of England. He was the first person to formulate the
atomic theory of matter, and on his death, more than forty
thousand people filed by his coffin as he lay in state. A
fitting tribute to one of the greatest scientists that this
world has known.
8
9. 3.On the sixth of April, 1846, an group of eminent scientists had
just begun their regular meeting. It featured the reading of a
scientific paper on the production of ovals and refraction.
The unique feature about this meeting was the fact that the
original author of this noteworthy paper had been barred from
appearing and publicly reporting on his work for "it was not
thought proper for a boy in a round jacket to mount the rostrum
there."
Who was this young genius who was fourteen years old at the
time?
9
10. CLUE !
When X entered Cambridge, he was a propounder of some
strange theories, such as one on the economy of sleep. He
would sleep from 5:00pm. to 9:30pm, study from 10:00pm to
2:00am, excercise by running up and down the stairs from
2:00am to 2:30am, and then sleep until 7:00am. However, he
was soon forced to abandon this experiment as he was
greeted with a barrage of shoes and other flying objects
wherever he went.
10
11. Answer:
James Clerk Maxwell.
In the paper maxwell generalised the definition of an ellipse
by defining the locus of a point where the sum of m times the
distance from one fixed point plus n times the distance from a
second fixed point is constant. If m = n = 1 then the curve is an
ellipse. Maxwell also defined curves where there were more
than two foci. This became his first paper On the description of
oval curves, and those having a plurality of foci which was
read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 6 April 1846
11
12. 4.In a small town near Bologna in Italy, a young man sat reading
Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". He was deeply touched by
the story as it reflected his own life. His family had been for an
age feuding with the Sbaragalias, a neighbouring family. After a
lifetime of work in the field of medicine, for which he is now
immortalised forever, when he returned home, he found his villa
ransacked, his instruments burnt, and his life's work destroyed
by those very same rivals whose touch he had not been able to
escape even in far off Messina. He died at last in the Vatican, the
personal physician of Pope Innocent XII, a man persecuted in
life, but at last able to find peace in death.
Who is this man, who with his microscope forever changed the
field of biology with his keen observations?
12
13. Answer:
Malpighi.
Malpighi's name lives on even today. He has been
immortalized in the Malpighian layer of the skin, the
Malpighian corpuscles of the kidney and the
spleen, and also, and most importantly in the annals of
science, as a man who continued to fight on regardless
of the odds.
13
14. 5. X was arrested , charges were trumped up against
him and was executed by the guillotine in 1794. Marat
had denounced that very same scientist as a "champion
of tyrants and a pupil of scoundrels. Lagrange, the great
French mathematician once said of X's tragic death: "It
took but a moment to cut off his head, but it will take a
century to produce another like it."
14
18. 7.The crowd gathered at the dock openly ridiculed the
young upstart who called himself a scientist. How could a
mortal man lift a ship weighing thousands of pounds? King
Hieron stepped towards the ship and the crowd fell silent.
The King pulled on a rope. "Pull harder, Your
Majesty", urged the young scientist standing by his
side, who would in the future, change the world of physics
for all time. The King grasped the rope and pulled. As if by
magic the stern of the ship rose out of the sea. A roar of
acclaim rose up, and the King turned to congratulate the
young man standing by his side. "You have indeed
triumphed again. It is true, the wonders of science are
without limit."
Who was this young man?
18
21. Robert Chesebrough of Brooklyn, New York
owned a failing kerosene business when he
accidentally discovered a waxy residue that
clung to oil rigs in Pennsylvania in 1879.
What did he eventually unleash upon the
world?
21
22. Vaseline.
Chesebrough discovered that when applied to
cuts and abrasions (many of which he inflicted on
himself as a guinea pig), the petroleum jelly sped
up the healing process. He reportedly gave the
famous name from the German word
'vasser‘(water) and the Greek word 'elaion'(olive
oil). When a massive fire destroyed a New York
business in 1912, many of the victims had their
burns treated with Vaseline, which then became a
staple in hospitals everywhere.
22
23. Easy one this time.
As early as 1820, a French metallurgist named
L. Bertheier worked on a type of metal that
would be the savior in kitchens world wide, but
it wasn't until 1920 that the first type of this
cutlery was commercially sold in
Meridian, Connecticut. What was it?
23
25. X, derived from the bark of the willow
tree, was first discovered at the University of
Montpellier in 1853, then forgotten for the
next 40 years. In 1893, German chemist Felix
Hoffman discovered this product could
relieve body aches and pains.
Clue:
A vital key to Baeyer’s riches.
25
26. Answer:
Aspirin.
Hoffman had been looking for something to cure his
father's rheumatoid arthritis when he hit upon the
overlooked product. The Bayer pharmaceutical
company of Dusseldorf, where Hoffman worked, knew
he had hit on an important discovery. They came up
with the name by taking the 'a 'from acetyl, 'spir 'from
the Latin spiraea and 'in', which was a popular suffix
for drugs at the time...aspirin.
26
27. The first patent issued for this item, found in
stores worldwide, was back in 1952, when this
item looked more like a bull's eye with
concentric circles than its present-day shape.
Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver are
credited with inventing what item?
27
28. Answer:
Bar codes.
Bernard Silver was a graduate student at Drexel
Institute of Technology in Pennsylvania back in
1948, when a local food chain store owner asked him
about looking into a way to automatically read
product information during checkout. Silver got
together with fellow student Woodland to create the
'bar code'.
28
29. The story of X begins with a hike in the Swiss woods in 1948.
Inventor George de Mestral noticed that he and his dog were
coated with cockleburr seed casings. Under a microscope, de
Mestral discovered that the seed casings contained numerous
tips with hook-shaped ends. It was these natural hooks which
clung so stubbornly to the loose weave of his pants and the
dog's fur. George de Mestral believed that a fastening device
made from a similar hook and loop design could rival the
metal zipper in popularity and versatility . What is X?
29
30. Answer:
VELCRO
The name VELCRO was formed from the French
words VELour(velvet) and CROchet(hook). De
Mestral officially formed the Velcro™ company in
Switzerland in the early 1950s and received patents
from virtually every industrialized country in the
world.
30
36. Another connect this time.
But a harder one!
Lou gehrig - Cambridge “I have noticed even people who claim everything is
predestined, and that we can do nothing to change
it, look before they cross the road.”
36
39. Answer:
A crescograph is a device for measuring growth
in plants.
It was invented in the early 20th century by
Jagdish Chandra Bose.
39
40. The setting was Manchester. It was late in the
day, small girl went in search of her grandfather
whom she saw working hard in the light of a table
lamp. She asked,
”Grandpa , Why do you have to work so hard?”
to which X replied
“I am afraid, little girl that they will find out how
little I know”.
Profound words from a Nobel laureate and a
founder of one of the most important tools to
analyse crystals.
Name X.
40
43. After getting a fever on a trip that was supposed
to restore his health, this man died. His last words
were: "Men die but their works endure," which is
an easy thing to say when you have written 789
full-length works. As a Catholic and a royalist he
was often persecuted and disliked, and he was
exiled for a number of years.
Clue:
This guy gave one of the first good definitions of a
limit.
43
45. This man was both a philosopher and a
mathematician. He was employed as a diplomat by
the elector of Mainz, who once sent him to persuade
King Louis XIV to attack Egypt. His philosophical work
had a major impact on Kant. After his death, a
dispute arose as to whether he or Sir Isaac Newton
was the true creator of calculus. Give the full name
of the person!
45
47. Shortly after accepting an invitation by Queen
Christina of Sweden to visit her country, this man
died there due to the rigorous climate. He is known
for his contributions to the field of philosophy as well
as mathematics. In algebra he added knowledge to
the treatment of negative roots. Identify this
mathematician who thought, and therefore he was!
47
49. This Frenchman was not one of the most prolific
mathematicians. Indeed, he published almost nothing
during his lifetime. His amazing feats of genius were
only discovered from his notes and on the margins of
his pages. He came up with many theorems, but did
not always leave rigorous proofs of those theorems.
He also proposed many questions that left the vast
majority of mathematicians baffled. Before his death
he published a theorem by which he is known today.
Name him.
49
51. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a famous British
mathematician who worked mainly in the field of
logic. He is much better known by his pen name that
he used to write children's books, of which many
included logic puzzles. Name him.
51
59. Answer:
‘The RNA TIE CLUB’
George Gamow, Physicist, ALA
Alexander Rich, Biochemist, ARG
Richard Feynman, Theoretical Physicist, GLY
Edward Teller, Physicist, LEU
Erwin Chargaff, Biochemist, LYS
James Watson, Biologist, PRO
Harold Gordon, Biologist, SER
Leslie Orgel, Theoretical Chemist, THR
Francis Crick, Biologist, TYR
In the photo(from left to right):
Francis Crick, Alexander Rich, Leslie E. Orgel, James
Watson
59
60. Identify the mathematical prodigy who was considered among his
peers to be the fastest mathematician they had known.
60
66. Last Question:
X received the Nobel prize in a record time of two
years after the prize- winning discovery. There was
controversy regarding X’s reception of the Nobel
prize because two Russian scientists ,Landsberg
and Mandelstam had published similar results
around the same time - to be exact X ‘s letter to
Nature was published 31 March while the
Russian scientists had published their results first
on 13 July. The Russian scientists were not able to
give a definite interpretation of the phenomenon
in question while X was able to give a very clear
explanation of the phenomenon. Name X
66
