The document summarizes the instructions and questions for the SAMASYA 2017 physics quiz competition held by Pondicherry University. It thanks those involved in organizing the event and outlines that the prelims quiz will consist of 20 single-point questions, with part points possible. Questions 11-20 will be used to resolve ties. The top 6 scoring teams will advance to the finals. Sample questions are provided on various physics concepts like continents, space stations, diseases, characters in fiction, famous scientists and their works, natural phenomena like tides, and Neil Armstrong's description of walking on the moon.

1. SAMASYA 2017
REFLECTIONS 2017
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
PONDICHERRY UNIVERSITY

2. SPECIAL THANKS
• Sreejesh SK and Sudev NM for their helpful contributions
• Anurag Panicker for Guinnea Pigging the whole quiz
• Thomas Augustin and Archana Aravindan for help with the logistics

3. INSTRUCTIONS:
• The prelims consists of 20 questions
• Each question is for one point, no negatives. Part points will be given at the quizmaster’s
discretion
• Write down your answers on the paper. For questions with two parts mention the parts
clearly.
• Questions 11-20 are star marked. These will be used to resolve a tie if necessary
• 6 Highest scoring teams will be selected for the finals
• All the Best!

4. 1
• Experts say that the following are the criteria for a land mass to be classified
as X:
o elevation above the surrounding area
o distinctive geology
o a well-defined area
o a crust thicker than the regular ocean floor
• According to these criteria a new landmass termed Zealandia, which
neighbours New Zealand and is mostly submerged in the ocean, might
qualify to be the 8th X
• What is X?

5. ANSWER
• Continent

6. 2
• “In microgravity you have to rely on capillary action, pumps or fans. That’s
what the larger waste disposal systems [on the spacecraft] use. Part of the
design takes elements of that and miniaturizes it.”
• This is one of the winning entries to NASA’s Space____ challenge.
• The challenge asked for designs for a system that would be essential in
emergency situations where astronauts would have to remain in their space
suit for several days
• FIB with a four letter word.
• (Image follows)

8. ANSWER

9. 3
• What historic disease has recently been making headlines with outbreaks
being reported in Zimbabwe and Sydney is being talked about here?
• We forget about it - deliberately perhaps. And we seem to forget as well just
how simple it is to cure and prevent. It is prevented if we don’t boil
vegetables to a paste, and as for the cure: “It’s so easily treated with one
vitamin tablet a day” or by fresh vegetables and fruit.
• When the rules for eating properly are neglected by a significant sector of
the population, and their forgetfulness is allied with government cutbacks for
social services, the outlook for outbreaks gets a lot grimmer.

10. ANSWER
• Scurvy

11. 4
• ID the character
whose shoes this
actor stepped
into for this
twitter exchange.

12. ANSWER
• Captain Kirk from Star Trek

13. 5
• ID the two personalities

15. 6
• Pluto’s _____ —also known as the Tombaugh Regio, after the man who first
spotted it—is a wide, smooth swath that covers about 990 miles of the dwarf
planet’s surface.
• We Earthlings first saw it clearly in July of 2015, when NASA’s New Horizons
spacecraft beamed back a set of up-close Pluto portraits.
• As interplanetary messaging, this was nearly as romantic as Saturn’s rings.
“Pluto has sent a ‘love note’ back to Earth,” NASA reported. Memes
proliferated, showing the planet holding its _____ out to Earth, begging for
acceptance back into the planetary ranks. (Image Follows)
• FIB

17. ANSWER
• Its “Icy” Heart

18. 7
• A first edition of this work could become the most expensive print sold of the
revolutionary text when it goes under the hammer with a guide price of at
least $1m (£790,000) this month.
• Written in Latin, and published in 1687, it laid out ground breaking theories,
and introduced a more rigorous mathematical method to physical science.
• ID the seminal work

19. ANSWER
• Newton’s Principia Mathematica

20. 8
• At the Award Ceremonies on 10 December the winners receive three things: a
Diploma, a Medal and a document confirming the prize amount.
• Each Diploma is a unique work of art, created by foremost Swedish and
Norwegian artists and calligraphers.
• Medals are handmade with careful precision and in 18 carat recycled gold.
• ID this honour.

21. ANSWER
• The Nobel Prize

22. 9
• On the next slide is the google doodle for 23rd February 2017.
• ID the news making scientific event that inspired the doodle

24. ANSWER
• 7 exoplanets were discovered in a
compact solar system only 39 light
years away from us

25. 10
• X is a mechanically-interlocked molecule composed of five interlocking
macrocycles that resembles the _______ rings.
• The molecule is a linear pentacatenane or a [5]catenane. It was synthesized
and named by Fraser Stoddart and co-workers in 1994
• Give the inspiration for the X’s name, that was in the news around this time
last year. (Image follows)

27. ANSWER
• X- Olympiadane

28. 11
• ID this effect that is named after the Austrian Physicist who first proposed it.

29. ANSWER
• The Doppler Effect

30. 12
• Most people with X need to take antiretroviral drugs (ART) each day to stop
the virus from replicating and causing damage to their immune system.
• These have to be taken over a lifetime because the virus can hide away in
tissues such as lymphoid and gut cells; if ART is stopped, the virus quickly re-
emerges from these cells.
• But a new therapy that combines vaccines with an anti-cancer drug is
showing positive results wherein one of its patients has been virus free for
seven months now without regular use of ARTs.
• ID X

31. ANSWER
• HIV

32. 13
• This year’s edition of this annual natural event started on February 13, said
Ashish Kumar Behera, the divisional forest officer of Berhampur division.
• The Odisha Forest Department has set up observation camps and is
patrolling along the coast to ensure no outsiders enter the 4.5-km long
stretch of the beach that is witness to this event.
• The coasts have been fenced and speedboats have been deployed to
restrict the entry of fishing trawlers, Behera told IANS.
• The scale of this year’s occurrence is expected to break previous records.
• What is this annual occurrence?

33. ANSWER
• The large scale egg laying of Olive
Ridley turtles on the coast of
Ganjam district in Orissa
• About 4 lakh eggs are expected to
be laid this year.

34. 14
• ID the scientist
whose
gravestone this is

36. ANSWER
• Ludwig Boltzmann
• He is buried in the Viennese
Zentralfriedhof;
• His tombstone bears the inscription
of the entropy formula:

37. 15
• Marie Curie and Linus Pauling are the only two individuals to receive Nobel
Prizes in two different fields
• You probably know that Curie received it in Physics and Chemistry.
• Pauling received his first in Chemistry. What was unique about his second?

38. ANSWER
• He received the Nobel Peace Prize
for being a peace activist “who ever
since 1946 has campaigned
ceaselessly, not only against nuclear
weapons tests, not only against the
spread of these armaments, not
only against their very use, but
against all warfare as a means of
solving international conflicts."

39. 16
• When Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a balloon 24 miles above New
Mexico in 2012, he broke more than the world record for the highest-ever
freefall.
• About a third of the way down, Baumgartner reached 843.6 mph, and in
doing so became the first person to achieve something.
• What was this achievement?

40. ANSWER
• He became first ever person to
achieve supersonic speed in free
fall.
• 893mph is about 1343kmph or
Mach 1.24

41. 17
• The piece of wood you are about to see was taken to space aboard the
International Space Station in 2010.
• This was done as a kind of an ironic tribute to the importance the tree has in
today’s scientific world.
• What is so special about it?

43. ANSWER
• This is a piece of wood from
the same Apple tree that
Isaac Newton had credited
as his inspiration for his
theory of Gravitation

44. 18
• Created by artist Yayoyi Kusama,
this is one installation in the
series titled the Infinity ________
Rooms.
• FIB with the central material used
to create this kaleidoscopic
artwork

46. ANSWER
• Infinity Mirrored Rooms

47. 19
• The coordinated, marching-band-like motion of electrons in vanadium dioxide is
detrimental to X as it prohibits random motion with a large number of collisions that
generally produce X. But this motion helps Y.
• This makes the substance a rule breaker as according to the Wiedemann-Franz Law
these two phenomenon always go hand-in-hand.
• It shows a drastic breakdown of a textbook law that has been known to be robust for
conventional conductors
• Id X and Y

48. ANSWER
• X- Heat
• Y- Electricity

49. 20
• “Yes, the surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It
does adhere in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the sole and sides of my
boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I
can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine, sandy particles.”
• Who said these words and what is being described?

50. ANSWER
• Neil Armstrong
• About his first step onto the surface of the moon

51. SPECIAL MENTION