History Of Ideas Quiz : February 2014

1. Bill McKibben, a prominent environmentalist and part of a
question in the 1st HoI quiz, has started an organisation
350.org to raise awareness and force action on a particular
issue. Why is it called 350.org? (1 point)

1A. It is based on the analysis by NASA that 350 ppm of CO2 in
the atmosphere is the safe upper limit to prevent climate
tipping point.

2. The Wolfram Code is a way of naming/numbering something invented by Stephen Wolfram and discussed extensively
in, among other places, his books “A New Kind of Science”.
Number / Rule 90A produces a variation of the Pascal’s
triangle. Discovered by Stanislaw Ulam and John von
Neumann, they are useful in Mathematics, Physics and
Theoretical Biology modeling. They were made popular
beyond academia by a 1970 game.
Rule 110 has been proved to be an Universal Turning Machine.
When scientists referenced the proof of a certain Rule in a
paper, Wolfram filed a case against them on the grounds that
even the existence of a proof of the Rule was a trade secret
of Wolfram Research Inc.
What does the Wolfram Code ennumerate or what are these the

2A. Cellular Automate - Rule 34 is supposed to be a Turing
machine...

3. X Y is a phrase coined by Henry Luce in a 1941 editorial in Life
magazine. Arguing for the US to enter the 2nd World War, Luce
wrote
“Throughout ... this continent teemed with manifold projects
and magnificent purposes. Above them all and weaving them
all together into the most exciting flag of all the world and of
all history was the triumphal purpose of freedom.
It is in this spirit that all of us are called, each to his own
measure of capacity, and each in the widest horizon of his
vision, to create the first great X Y”.
Z later titled his autobiography - "Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome
Secrets of a star crossed child in the Last Days of the X Y".

3A. XY = American Century; Z = Hunter S Thompson

4. Patrick Geddes was a Scottish
polymath, who among other
things was a
biologist, sociologist, wrote a
biography of JC Bose, coined
the term conurbation. As an
urban planner, his Geddes
Design/Plan from 1925 was the
basis for the development of
city X. The plan was based on
Geddes’s plans for Balrampur in
India etc. X (whose name
means “Spring
Mound”, signifying a renewal)
is the home to many foreign
embassies because the UN and
all countries do not recognize Y
as the official capital of the

4A. X = Tel Aviv, Y =- Jerusalem.

5. The term X in an Economics sense was coined by David
Ricardo who defined it as “the portion of the produce of the
earth which is paid to a landlord on account of the original
and indestructible powers of the soil”. It is used in a more
generic sense now.
XY is a concept 1st identified by Gordon Tullock in 1967 and
given the name XY by Anne Krueger in 1974 - XY “is an
attempt to obtain X by manipulating the social or political
environment in which economic activities occur, rather than
by creating new wealth”.

X and XY? (2 points)

5A. X = Rent; XY = Rent Seeking

6. This greek phrase X Y (English phrase is A of B) is the name
given to Euclid’s 5th proposition in book 1 that “angles
opposite the equal sides of an isoceles triangle are equal” the popular explanation for the name is that the proposition is
the 1st real test of a reader’s intelligence and serves as a B to
the harder propositions that follow.
The phrase is now used a metaphor for a problem or challenge
that separates the mind of the sure from the simple - i.e. it
represents a test of ability to understand.
Give the Greek or the equivalent English Phrase. (1 point)

6A. Pons Asinorum or the Bridge of Fools.

7. Charles McKay wrote the book “Extraordinary Popular
Delusion and the X Y Z” - it detailed many of the popular
delusions in history including the Crusades, Tulip Mania and
the South Sea Bubble.
This inspired the title W Y Z of a mid-2000s popular book by a
New Yorker writer. W Y Z starts of with an early 20th century
story about guessing the weight of an ox at a county fair and
Francis Galton’s analysis of it.
Give XYZ and WYZ. (2 points)

7A. XYZ = Madness of Crowds; WYZ = Wisdom of Crowds

8. Which award winning book X from 1997 starts of with a
question from a local politician Yali - “"Why is that you white
people developed much cargo and brought it to YZ, but
we black people had little cargo of our own”. This sets the
author of on an answering the question which forms the title
of the book. Adam Smith had considered a similar question
stressed on the geography of waterways rather than the ease
of crossing Eurasia.
Just give the name of the book, Y. (1 point)

8A. Y = Guns, Germs and Steel.

9. This term X Y was coined by Henry James in an 1886 novel
centred on a North East American city and was used for a
relationship between 2 women living together independent of
financial support from a man. Henry James’s sister Alice lived
in one such relationship. It also the name of a play by David
Mamet, who wrote it after being criticized that he could only
write for men.
What is X Y? (1 point)

10. X Y is a term used by Frederich Nietzsche in Thus Spake
Zarathustra to describe the anti-thesis of his imagined
superior being Übermensch. XY is tired of life, takes no
risks, and seeks only comfort and security.
After having unsuccessfully attempted to get the populace to
accept the Übermensch as the goal of society, Zarathustra
confronts them with a goal (XY) so disgusting that he assumes
that it will revolt them. What is XY? (1 point)

11. An example of a counting argument, this seemingly simple
intuitive idea was 1st formulated by Dirichlet in 1834 and was
called Schubfachprinzip and "principe des tiroirs" in French. It
can be used to show that "collisions" are inevitable in a hash
table or that any lossless compression scheme will have some
outputs larger than the input. What? (1 point)

12. British historian Herbert Butterfield coined the term "X
history" in his 1931 book The X Interpretation of History. It
takes its name from the X, who were advocates of the power
of Parliament. Butterfield wrote that “It is part and parcel of
the X interpretation of history that it studies the past with
reference to the present”.
It is also used in the field of History of Science - where the
Science is pictured as constantly advancing, with villains and
heroes and where ideas/novelties/revolutions in Science are
praised if they have been successful.

What is X? (1 point)

12A. X = Whig; Whiggism / Whiggishness

13. X was a French mathematician and with Denis Diderot was
co-editor of (and extensive contributor to) the Encyclopedie.
X formulated what is now called X Y in 1749 while working on a
Prize Problem of the BerlinAcademy. In the words of a Nobel
Laureate Cyril Hinshelwood, XY resulted in fluid mechanics
being discredited and lead to a split of the field into
Hydraulics (observing phenomena that could not be explained)
and Theoretical Fluid Mechanics (explaining things that could
not be observed).
The matter was resolved satisfactorily only in early 20th century
with Ludwig Prandtl’s discoevry and description of Boundary
Layers.
What is X Y? (1 point)

13A. X Y = D’Alembert’s Paradox (drag force on a body in an
incompressible inviscid flow is zero).

14. Id the Nobel Laureate in the video.
X introduced the concept Y in his 1960 book “Strategy of
Conflict” - he defined it as “a solution that people will tend
to use in the absence of communication because it seems
natural, special or relevant to them”.
“Tomorrow you have to meet a stranger in NYC. Where and when
do you meet them? This is a coordination game, where any
place in time in the city could be an equilibrium solution. X
asked a group of students this question, and found the most
common answer was "noon at (the information booth at)
Grand Central Station." ”
X and Y? (2 points)

14A. X = Thomas Schelling; Y = Focal Point

15. While cadavers had been used previously, “Sierra Sam” was
the 1st X, created by Samuel W. Alderson at his Alderson
Research Labs (ARL) and Sierra Engineering Co. in 1949 under
a contract with the US Air Force. Sierra Sam was much taller
and heavier than an average adult male. X?
(1 point)

16. Pierre Martel noticed the erratic distibution of boulders in
the Chamonix valley in the Swiss Alps and reported that the
inhabitants attributed the action of glaciers for it. James
Hutton, Goethe and Swiss-German geologist Jean de
Charpentier also had similar explanations. Karl Friedrich
Schimper called it Eiszeit.
Louis Agassiz is however considered to have given the 1st
scientific explanation. After his initial paper was rejected, he
embarked on fieldwork and wrote a book about. Currently
Huronian, Cryogenian, Andean-Saharan, Karoo and Quaternary
are currently accepted as 5 major occurences of what? (1
point)

17. The essence of what 19th century ideal is
● Order as most important necessity.
● Tricameral legislature with varied and broad powers
composed of
○ A hereditary and professional Senate.
○ A body of Censors composing the state's "moral authority".
○ A popularly elected legislative assembly.
● A hereditary and professional Senate.
● A body of Censors composing the state's "moral authority".
● A popularly elected legislative assembly.
● A life-term executive supported by a strong, active cabinet or
ministers.
● A judicial system stripped of legislative powers.
● A representative electoral system.

Guinea Pig: Vikram joshi
Cover Photo Credits: Chaitanya: Trick of The
Light

20

John Ruskin‘s Unto His Last opens with the following
passage
―Among the delusions which at different periods have
possessed themselves of the minds of large masses
of the human race, perhaps the most curious —
certainly the least creditable — is the modern soidisant science of political economy, based on the
idea that an advantageous code of social action may
be determined irrespectively of the influence of
social affection‖.
Ruskin‘s work is famous in India thanks to a 1908
translation. This is still revered by many who
consider their political philosophy as welfare for
all. Id the author and the name of the translation.

21

A quote from Karl Marx‘s Economic and
Philosophy Manuscripts.
‖___a___ , ___b___and __g__ __ g ’__were the 3
great inventions which ushered in bourgeois
society. ___a___ blew up the knightly class, the
___b___ discovered the world market and
founded the colonies, and the __g__ __ g ’__
was the instrument of Protestantism and the
regeneration of science in general; the most
powerful lever for creating the intellectual
prerequisites.‖

a - Gunpowder
b - Compass
g g‘ -Printing Press

22

Scottish Highlanders, Punjabi Sikhs, and
Nepalese Gurkhas were identified as fiercest of
warriors in the British Indian Army. As ―____
_____―(7, 4) these men were believed to possess
a biological or cultural disposition to the qualities
necessary for the arts of war as opposed to the
―sedentary‖ lifestyles of other ―natives‖. The ____
____ were considered the best examples of
manhood, Britain and India had to offer. Id this
(rather shoddy) ―racist‖ term-- an unsaid
requirement, one had to ―possess‖, to get into
the army.

23

What thought experiment is the artist trying to
depict?

24

What ―parable‖ is depicted here?

The broken window fallacy or the glazier fallacy

25

IBM‘s ―Birth of a Trend‖ project is an effort
dedicated to understanding the science behind
predicting online trends. In 2013, they predicted
________ as a major trend that would take hold
of the retail industry.
Based on the data from 2009- 2012 they also
said that ―____ has evolved into a cultural ‗meme‘
via a series of leaps across cultural domains‖.

Steampunk.
Based on an analysis of more than a half million
public posts on message boards, blogs, social
media sites and news sources

26

William Paley, an 18th century philosopher was
the author of ―Natural Theology: or, Evidences of
the Existence and Attributes of the Deity‖. The
book proposed an analogy that was widely
accepted at the time. As with most things in
Biology, this changed after Charles Darwin‘s
Theory of Evolution.
The analogy was also used for the title of a
classic 1986 book by a scientist, although with a
minor modification.
Give the analogy, the title of the book and the
author of the 1986 book.

Watchmaker analogy
The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins

27

Shown in the image is a special type of train used
by Network Rail in the UK. The train is used for a
specific task, at a particular time of the year. What
is the task? What are these trains called as?

Leaf busters--used to remove fallen leaves from
the track, which cause slippery rail.

28

An excerpt from a paper titled ―On The Monstrosity
of _____s(6)‖ by Dr. D. Graham Burnet, a historian of
science at the Princeton University. Just fill in the
blank.
A/An ______ (6) is a bit of earth that has broken
faith with the terrestrial world. This quite naturally
gives rise to concern about the reliability and good
will of these landforms, which have so clearly
turned their back on geographical solidarity.
Creeping anxiety along these lines likely accounts in
some measure for the prominence of ______s (6)in
the robust literatures of
betrayal, solitude, madness, and despair.

29

The historic District Commission designated the
Savery Avenue, Carver MA(shown)under the
National Historic Preservation Act that lists all
types of architectural and cultural resources
deemed worthy of preservation in October 2007.
What „first‟ is often attributed to Savery Avenue
in the USA?

According to Carver history, Savery Avenue was
the first divided highway in the United States. It
was presented to the public in 1861 by William
Savery. T
The trees between the roads and on the outside
of them were to be left for ―shade and ornament
for man and beast.‖.

30

This is the ―head‖ of a particular musical
instrument. Id the instrument(generic name would
do) and the mythical creature depicted.

The Veena
Yali or Vidala or Sharabham

31

What is Paul Krugman talking about here.
―What we want from a monetary system isn‘t to
make people holding money rich; we want it to
facilitate transactions and make the economy
as a whole rich. And that‘s not at all what is
happening….‖
―…So to the extent that the experiment tells us
anything about monetary regimes, it reinforces
the case against anything like a new gold
standard – because it shows just how vulnerable
such a standard would be to moneyhoarding, deflation, and depression‖

32

___X___ may be more familiar than ___Y___ to
the average reader. Because of this, we readily
understand when, in Tidewater Tales, John Barth
says, what he says so, about Helen throughout
the Trojan War.
Nevertheless, the anachronistic substitution of
___X___ for ___Y___ should not be tolerated
despite its familiarity to modern
readers. Additionally, this misperception has
crept into reference works on ___X___; some
authors misdate the invention of ___X___ by
millennia because of the idea that Penelope was
___X___ .

X- Knitting
Y- Weaving
The excerpt from Lydia Hailie‘s essay Unravelling
Penelope‘s Knitting
―Saying that Penelope was
knitting, however, does more than introduce an
anachronism. It also destroys the symbolism of
what she is doing; weaving locks multiple threads
together into one piece of fabric, while knitting, in
its simplest form, just turns the yarn back on
itself. ‖

33

Founders of 2 ―secular‖ institutions. ID both and
the institutions

Madan Mohan Malaviya- Banaras Hindu
University
Syed Ahmed Khan- Aligarh Muslim University

34

The book Leviathan and the Air Pump by Steven
Shapin and Simon Schaffer, according to many
Historians of Science, is said to have changed
the discourse on the "History of Science"
because of its treatment of subjects like
"production of knowledge", "scientific
rationality―, "experimental culture" among other
things. The book explores the debates between
X and Y over Y's experiments. ID X & Y

Thomas Hobbes and Robert Boyle

35

This comic attempts to retell the tale of a certain
west bound journey.
The comic also aims to show us the true purpose
of the mission, that is, to hunt down and destroy
the monsters that infest this nation and make it
safe.
Images Follow. Identify the title of the comic and
the west bound journey that is fictionlised here?

36

From the comic: The expedition, fearing they may
never find anything, finally come upon something
that may seem familiar in our day and age,
although it is not covered in metal but made of
foliage; This version, looking like some crazy
topiary, is the first point of investigation for this
strange trip. While ____ begins sketching and
testing the arch, ___ sends out the troops to
secure the perimeter. Out of the treeline rides
what can only be described as a beast, a monster
like a Minotaur and a centaur, heading straight for
______ in hopes of cutting their investigation
short. What structure is referred to here?

37

From Ananda Coomaraswamy‘s collection of essays
―The Dance of Siva‖ .
… What is the essential element in poetry ?
According to some authors this consists in style or
figures, or in suggestion. But the greater writers
refute these views and are agreed that the one
essential element in poetry is what they term
___X____. With this term, which is the equivalent of
Beauty or Esthetic in the strict sense of the
philosopher, must be considered
the derivative adjective ___Q___ 'having __X__ '
applied to a work of art, and the derivative
substantive __Y__, one who
enjoys __X__, a connoisseur or lover, and finally
____Z___, the tasting of __X___, i.e., aesthetic
contemplation.

X- Rasa Q- Rasavanta
Y- Rasika
Z-Rasavadana

39

The following are the first few lines from the
introduction of a classic book. Id the book and the
author: (actual there are two authors, just name
the more famous author)
“Nothing appears more ancient, and linked to an
immemorial past, than the pageantry which
surrounds British monarchy in its public
ceremonial manifestations. Yet, as a chapter in
this book establishes, in its modern form it is the
product of the late nineteenth and twentieth
centuries”

The Invention of Traditions, edited by Eric
Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger
'Traditions' which appear or claim to be old are
often quite recent in origin and sometimes
invented.

40

Stuart Hall, professor of Sociology was
considered as the ―Godfather of Multiculturalism‖.
Hall was a prominent post-war Left voices of
Britain and in the 70s coined the phrase ______;
He attached this term to the rise of the ―New
Right‖. In 1979, he warned the left intellectuals
not to dismiss the appeal of the nascent ______
since it ―addresses real problems, real and lived
experiences, real contradictions‖.

41

K B Ganapathy, the editor of Star of Mysore (one
the most widely read evening newspapers in
English in Mysore) has a bungalow overlooking
the Lalith Mahal Palace Hotel. His house is
named ___ ____, a term taken from Edmund
Burke‘s famous speech at the House of
Commons in 1840.
―… in the Reporters‘ Gallery yonder, there sat
a ____ _____ more important far than they all. It
is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a
literal fact,—very momentous to us in these
times…‖

42

The fact that this avant-garde composer chose to omit
an important detail, has led to such discussions
―We, a group of
theologians, musicologists, philosophers, composers
and organists, met during a couple of years solely to
discuss this question. It was rather wonderful to have
one topic to discuss at length."
"We came up with the answer that the piece could last
for the duration of the organ - that is the lifetime of an
organ.―
"It's a sound that we give to the future to take care
of, and hopefully the aesthetics and the ideas of ___ ___
will manage to survive.― Who? What piece of music?
What detail?

John Cage‘s As Slow as Possible.
Cage did not mention as to how slow the piece
should be played. The performances over the
years have ranged from 20 minutes to 639
years(the theologians are actually discussing
about this 639 year project)!!!

Alex Wellerstein(@wellerstein), from the Center
for History of Physics at the American Institute of
Physics, authors a “nuclear secrecy”
blog, which has many interesting things like
NUKEMAP(a way of making the sublime horror of
nuclear weapons actually accessible). The blog
is titled ____ _____ and takes its name from legal
definition of American nuclear secrecy, as defined
by the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Identify the title
of the blog.
An excerpt follows:

The term ―___ ___‖ as used in this section means
all data concerning the manufacture or utilization
of atomic weapons, the production of fissionable
material, or the use of fissionable material in the
production of power, but shall not include any
data which the Commission from time to time
determines may be published without adversely
affecting the common defense and security.

History Of Ideas Quiz : February 2014

History Of Ideas Quiz : February 2014

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History Of Ideas Quiz : February 2014