Quiz for a college audience conducted in IIT-Delhi, on science and technology

1. Evolution
College Sci-Tech Quiz Prelims
Jyotesh Singh
Rendezvous 2019 IIT Delhii

2.  25 Q
 Multiples of 5 are star-marked (5, 10, 15, 20, 25)
 No negative marking, so feel free to guess
 In case of tie on stars, sudden death
 Part points (and stars) where applicable

3. Usually, such endeavours use advance carbon fibre composites and
Aluminium. However, in this case we see a return to a “dated” material.
This much-cheaper, old classic material has been chosen as it has
high ductility and fracture toughness even at cryogenic temperatures,
where it provides excellent strength. Although it is heavier than other
materials, it has excellent thermal properties, which means that it makes
up for the weight disadvantage by requiring far lesser amounts of
thermal protection.
What gleaming proposal is this, that is in the news this week?

4. SpaceX’ Starship (or BFR) is made
using stainless steel

5. This gendered practice is seen across the world. Evolutionary biologists
suggest it was seen as a sign of fertility, nutrition and youth.
However, one of the supposed social-cultural reasons for its existence in
India is that the lower chakras of the body are most vulnerable, especially
so in Women. As a result, it is necessary for them to have an added layer
of protection over these, as compared to men.
What practice?

6. Women having long hair

7. University of Leicester scientists used Boltzmann’s law and convection to
conclude in a 2014 paper that a popular memetic activity would actually
not be possible.
They reasoned that any reasonable location for this activity would have
temperatures approaching 1500K and also have dangerous quantities of
SO2, H2S and CO2
What activity?

9. Tardigrades, or water bears, are known for being able to survive some
extremely harsh condition. This is because they are able to enter a
dormant, dehydrated "tun" state whereby the ageing process itself grinds
to a halt. A tardigrade that enters a tun state at one month old emerges
with the same biological age when it is revived by exposure to water a
decade later.
After which 17th Century pop culture narrative is this process
nicknamed?

11. Sleeping beauty

12. When arcade games came about, there was an incentive to ensure that
players played multiple short sessions instead of a single long session.
That way earnings could be maximized.
However, at the same time, it was necessary that the majority of
gameplay should be entertaining, non-frustrating and easy enough to be
rewarding.
What compromise was thus born, first seen as a golden dragon in a
videogame encoding of dnd in the 1970s?

13. Boss battles

14. The Apple III computer was launched in 1980 and was a massive disaster.
One of the big reasons for this was its failure in terms of reliability.
One such problem involved overheating of the motherboard causing the
ICs to “pop” out of their traces, leading to disconnects and/or short
circuits.
What was Apple’s official advice to take care of this issue, which involved
people tipping the heavy Apple III computer by 6 inches?

15. Drop it (accept Percussive maintenance/hitting it)

16. As an April Fools 2003 joke, the Network Working Group requested that
the reserved bit in a header in a popular protocol be redesignated as
follows:
"Firewalls, packet filters, intrusion detection systems, and the like often
have difficulty distinguishing between packets that have malicious intent
and those that are merely unusual... To solve this problem, we define a
security flag, known as the "____" bit, in the ____ header. Benign packets
have this bit set to 0; those that are used for an attack will have the bit set
to 1."
What protocol and what is this bit's designation (which would indicate
its malicious intent)? (Hint: Both blanks are 4 letters)

17. IPv4, evil

18. An increasing seasonal fad in the 1880s led to a supply issue for a
certain product. Goose feathers, split and secured to wooden rods, began
to come up as replacements, but were flimsy and unable to hold weight.
Addis Houseware, a big name in the toilet brush manufacturing business
in the 1930s stepped in with their expertise. Using their biggest brushes
and dying them an appropriate colour, their product became much
popular as it was sturdier and lasted much longer - being reused for
years.
What product is this?

19. Artificial Christmas trees

20. While the oil pitch drop experiment is famous for being one of the longest
running experiments in scientific history, the actual honour belongs to a
botany experiment started in 1879. The originator buried 20 bottles of
sand and seeds, with 50 seeds from 21 species in each bottle. The
bottles were buried upside down to avoid any intake of water.
The seeds are supposed to be extracted at periodic intervals and planted,
to see which would sprout, with the next one to be dug up in 2020, and
the last in 2100.
Simply – who’s claim to fame is this experiment?

21. William James Beal

22. In 1896, a prominent Indian Polymath published "Palatak Toofan"
("Runaway Cyclone"), one of the first Bengali science-fiction stories,
about how a cyclone did not make an appearance in Calcutta because a
spilled bottle of hair oil on the sea calmed the ocean. The reason behind
the use of a hair oil was that this was submitted for a short story
competition sponsored by the "Kuntal Keshari" hair oil brand.
Who is the author, otherwise famous for being one of the fathers of Radio
science and his invention of a crystal microwave detector?

23. JC Bose

24. This is an image from the Hathor temple in the Dendera complex in Egpyt.
It shows a stone relief of a djed pillar (a symbol of stability) and a snake
being spawned from a lotus flower (symbolizing the Nile and fertility)
supported by outstretched human arms.
However, imaginative folks have instead spun up a conspiracy theory
around the same, one which might remind you of a History channel
meme. What does the theory say?
HINT: It is NOT identical to the meme

26. Electric lighting in Ancient Egypt (Dendera light)

27. Commercially available refined sugar is obtained from two sources –
sugarcane and sugar beets. Sugar beet based sugar is refined by
extracting the juice via a diffuser and then mixing additives to get the
sugar to crystallize.
Sugarcane based sugar is obtained by crystallization from crushed sugar
cane juice. However, this adds a lot of impurities and discolourations,
which must be removed in the final product.
As a result, sugarcane sugar cannot be classified as vegan. Why?

28. Its decolourised using bone charcoal – from animal bones

29. This German general, Ferdinand, was Count of a
region near the Baltic coast of Germany in
Mecklenberg. He served as official observer in the
American Civil War, and was especially struck by
the efforts of balloonist Thaddeus Lowe in
providing advanced reconnaissance. He also
participated in an ascent with John Steiner in
1863 in Minnesota.
What invention, named for his title, did he go on to
create nearly four decades later?

30. Zeppelin

31. _______, P., & Meguro, K. (1975). Description of a new gobiid fish, Glossogobius aureus,
with notes on related species of the genus. Japanese Journal of Ichthyology, 22(3), 127-142.
The above citation is one of many by an ichthyological “researcher”. This
man has also managed to be published in Nature (Linnaeus and
Taxonomy in Japan, 2007) and Science (Early cultivators of Science in
Japan, 1992). The Science paper is cited with just his surname, having
dropped the P. for obvious reasons.
Who is this person, not known to us as a scientist?

32. Akihito, Prince, and Katsusuke Meguro. "Description of a new gobiid
fish, Glossogobius aureus, with notes on related species of the
genus." Japanese Journal of Ichthyology 22.3 (1975): 127-142.

33. Siberia, rich in many natural resources, has recently seen increased trade
in one rather weird “resource”, worth ~$300/kg in Moscow and $1600/kg
internationally.
The collection of this material is seasonal, after the spring thaw or heavy
rains washes it along river banks. It can also be found as a byproduct of
oil and gas drilling and digging operations.
While one would think that trade in this material would be illegal, it is
actually encouraged by activists in the field, as it helps protect other, more
“valuable” sources elsewhere in the world.
What is the precise source of this material? Why has its availability
increased in Siberia?

34. Mammoth Ivory
From melting permafrost due to global warming

35. These items acquired their names from the hairstyle shown in the image.
Famously in crime fiction, they are used for purposes other than intended
- i.e. lockpicking.
A disastrous tech release from last year featured these unrealistically,
showing them to be weighing 60x their actual weight. This prompted fans
to send boxes of the same to the creator, requesting that he “weigh them”
What item? What disastrous release?

37. Bobby pins
Fallout 76

38. Sea level in different regions of the world is not identical, even if you
account for tides and seasonal variations by averaging.
This can lead to disastrous results, whereby Laufenberg Bridge between
Switzerland and Germany was vertically misaligned. Germany gets its sea
level reference from the North Sea in Amsterdam, while the Swiss use the
Mediterranean in Marseilles. Engineers making this bridge knew that they
needed to correct for this by 27cm, but misread the sign and accidentally
doubled the difference.
What is the scientific cause of this variation in average sea level?

39. Uneven curvature of the earth due to earth’s rotation/centrifugal force etc

40. This is Comet Hale-Bopp, independently
discovered by Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp
on July 23, 1995. They both contacted the
Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams,
which handles such discoveries.
However, Hale was quicker than Bopp as he
had contacted the bureau thrice with
updated co-ordinates by the time Bopp got
in touch. What advantage (which some may
attribute to his age) did the 36 year old Hale
enjoy over 45 year old Bopp?

41. He emailed instead of actually sending a telegram

42. The image on the left is a caltrop, and the image on the right is a Czech
hedgehog. Both were used as static defenses against mobile military
(cavalry and tanks respectively), as regardless of orientation, they could
always rest on a stable base and have a on end pointing upward/forward,
impeding the enemy.
What is the geometrical basis of this “orientation-free” symmetry? What
device, nearer to home uses these same principles to fight a more
“natural” enemy?

44. Tetrahedrons. Tetrapods in Bombay

45. IITD Alumnus and current Stanford professor Manu Prakash is noted for
his frugal engineering, having made a microscope out of paper. In 2014,
his lab took inspiration from the children’s whirligig toy, where string
twined through a paper disc is used to make it spin rapidly. His
subsequent invention can achieve angular velocities of 165,000 rpm,
becoming the “fastest spinning machine run by human power”.
What life-saving medical purpose does he put this invention to use, in
underserved regions of the world where expensive equipment is unused
because of fear that it might break?

47. Paperfuge - paper centrifuge

48. At the distances preferred, 1 arc minute of spatial resolution translates
into ~1.75mm between geometric shapes and curves. This is the
minimum requirement and hence gives rise to what frequently heard
terms (in both metric and imperial units)? (two possible answers
acceptable)
Note: please feel free to calculate and arrive at the answer

49. 6/6 or 20/20 (6m or 20ft)

50. Yes this is a lazy question.
No, I don’t care

52. Shor’s algorithm

53. While this activity is pleasurable to all, it rarely addresses the underlying
cause. It is believed that it actually activates pain receptors, which
override other receptors in the region and hence provide temporary
elimination of symptoms.
However, the activity also encourages release of serotonin, which
counteracts the pain receptors. As a result, in the long term it works to
negate its own reason for working, and is counter-productive.
What is being described by this long drawn out explanation?

54. Why scratching an itch feels good

55. “Ask for Jane” is a 2019 film about a 1969 Chicago organisation
known as the ‘Jane collective”. They helped people with one particular
issue, who were told to call a number and “Ask for Jane” to indicate
they needed help.
They primarily used “Nick” as their go-to expert, until 1971, when they
discovered he lied about his credentials. Instead of shutting down,
however, this inspired them into becoming “experts” themselves, and
the group functioned till 1973, when another “Jane” ensured that there
was no further need of the group. What did the Jane Collective do?
Who was the other “Jane” in 1973 who led to the ultimate shuttering of
this group?

57. Performed underground abortions
Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) of Roe v Wade

58. When the news about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy among NFL
players broke, people made the connection to other obvious candidates
for CTE: one from another profession, and one set of non-humans
Neuroscientists at Boston University subsequently examined brain slices
of 10 members of the non-human species thought to be at risk. They
found evidence of tau protein, associated with brain damage, in 8,
warranting further study.
In the case of other humans, a UNSW study concluded that the behaviour
was “acceptable” within a 75O arc at less than 140 times per minute. They
cited people like the Motley Crue as being the more dangerous causal
agents of such injury.
Identify both these CTE vulnerable groups

59. Woodpeckers
Headbangers