UTPT 2019 Sci-Biz-Tech Prelims

1. Sci Biz Tech -
Answers
PRELIMS

2. Rules
Rules
•25 Questions
•30 points
•Top 8 teams qualify
•QM is God

3. SAFETY SLIDE

4. 1
The following slide shows an
advertisement that showed up
in London during the previous
election cycle.
Who was the “candidate”
behind this controversial
political ad campaign?

5. ANSWER
Party run by AI

6. 2
The Center for Disease Control earlier this year has released the side effects of a
certain class of drugs in an attempt to raise awareness among people about the
possible effects of the drug.
Topping the list were symptoms such as grey hair and old age. Drug users were
even prone to diseases like dementia and arthritis.
What class of drugs?

7. ANSWER
Vaccines

8. 3
What recent online phenomenon
are these memes about?
Considering the source of the
phenomenon, what is the hidden
agenda that some have claimed is
behind this?

9. ANSWER
• 10 year challenge
• Neural net, facial
recognition, AI

10. 4
Which popular
company was
behind this ad,
highlighting
the
generalization
of its product
over the last
few decades?

11. ANSWER
Xerox

12. 5
True to the DIY nature of
the company’s products, the
“Self-Assembly Milk
Chocolate Bunny” was
released by the company
during Easter.
ID the company behind this
popular (edible) product.

13. ANSWER
IKEA

14. 6
The Scientific American published a rather controversial article, that had the
entire country in a row. The article touted the benefits of “Cardiac Coherence
Breathing” and modulating ones breath for “better health” etc.
Why did Indians immediately dismiss this article’s findings, stating that it was a
fancier way to phrase X?

15. ANSWER
Pranayama

16. 7
In the screengrab shown, one beta tester for the company Ubisoft, received a
promotional email for the game Tom Clancy’s The Division 2. The subject matter of
the email that read “Come see what a real __________ ________ looks like” has
received equal measure of bouquets and brickbats.
The email, has since been modified to strike a more politically correct tone and
Ubisoft has issued an apology for the same.
FITB by looking at the poster for the game and by connecting it with a politico-
economic situation that arose earlier this year.

17. 7

18. ANSWER
Government
Shutdown

19. 8
The number 137 is considered a magic number in Physics. It is believed that 1/137
might hold answers to the Grand Unified Theory and X once called it "one of the
greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no
understanding by man".
X also predicted that 137 would be the last element in the periodic table, a claim
that was supported at the time. However, better approximations have now placed
the end of the periodic table around the number 176. The scientific community is
adamant to name element 137 after X, to immortalise one of his rare mistakes.
Who is X?

20. ANSWER
Richard Feynman

21. 9
RateMyProfessor.com is a popular forum where students belonging to a university
can rate the different faculties that take classes.
Scores are assigned on a variety of criteria, including class sizes, assignments
allotted, and their ability to clear doubts and queries.
Seen here (bigger pic in the following slide), are ratings of faculties from the
School of Computer Science at Harvard University. Which “professor” has been
blanked out in the list, who has received 4.8 stars out of a possible 5?

22. 9

23. ANSWER
StackOverflow

24. 10
"That’s not how physics works. The fact that he was attached to someone holding
onto a solid object meant that he would have stopped drifting. In fact, he could
have been pulled back easily. No sacrifice required.
Instead, the hero should have just yanked the tether and saved his life. The two
would have been able to work together to get back home, and we would have
been saved from one of the most annoying dream sequences in modern cinema."
What scientific inaccuracy are we talking about?

25. ANSWER
The sequence from Gravity

26. 11
Element X was obtained from the mineral columbite by Anders Ekeberg a Swedish
chemist in 1802.
In his diary, he wrote This metal I call X partly in allusion to its incapacity, when
immersed in acid, to absorb any and be saturated. The allusion he is making is to a
character in Greek mythology who was punished to stand in a pool of knee deep
water but would not be allowed to drink it despite being constantly tantalised by
it.
ID X.

27. ANSWER
Tantalum

28. 12
In order to make up for the delay of more than 12 hours in its transatlantic flight, X
had to pass through a weather front of high humidity and high electrical charge.
And then, during landing time, the landing gear was made to drop in moist and
damp soil that caused the outer shell to be grounded while the inner metallic
framework was still charged. This lead to a large potential difference between the
inside and the outside, which sparked and lead to the tragedy.
The aforementioned excerpt is from a book titled LZ-129 X. Where X is the subject
of the book.
Identify.

29. ANSWER
Hindenburg

30. 13
Doctors and medical researchers alike have concluded after a series of debates
and discussions that X suffered from a muscle degeneration disorder called Bell’s
Palsy which meant that X suffered from a crooked smile due to asymmetric muscle
strengths.
While science tells us that what X had was a malady, the general public is still
nonetheless mesmerized by X’s face and say that the crooked smile adds a touch
of enigma to the persona of X.
People who visit X often comment on how the crooked smile seems to rise and
fade as they view X from different angles making X appear sombre, sad, elated all
from different perspectives.
ID X.

31. ANSWER
Mona Lisa

32. 14
Just like how humans have built stadiums for sports over hundreds of years,
______ believes it’s building a virtual stadium, aptly dubbed X, for the future of
games to be played anywhere.
You won’t need an expensive gaming PC or a dedicated game console. Instead,
you’ll just need access to ______ ______ browser to instantly play games on a
phone, tablet, PC, or TV.
What recently teased service are we talking about?

33. ANSWER
Google Stadia

34. 15
Which two products got mixed up here?

35. ANSWER
Surf Excel
Micrsoft Excel

36. 16
In a new report by the Independent newspaper, criminal syndicates are said to be
using a novel way to launder money and dupe innocents.
The process involves using the dirty money to buy certain commodities that are
then sold at a discount to teens and children the largest demographic that uses
these commodities ever since its introduction some one year ago. Thereby
laundering the money.
The commodity in question however, seems to have no real value as its only use
seems to be in obtaining virtual assets that can be used to customise an online
battle persona.
What commodities are these?

37. ANSWER
Fortnite V-Bucks

38. 17
The Lamborghini Huracan, the company’s latest road legal vehicle launched by the
Italian company is an attempt at boosting sales by offering a relatively low cost
supercar experience.
In an attempt to drastically reduce the overall weight without reducing creature
comforts, Lamborghini decided to build pretty much the entire vehicle out of X, a
material long established to be stronger than steel, which was what supercars
used to be made of, but weighing nearly half as much as steel. In the end,
Lamborghini claims that nearly 80% of the car was made out of X; as evident by a
particular subtle design feature that appears all over the interior and the exterior
of the car.
With significant clues from the pictures that follow, what was this specific design
feature, and give me X.

39. 17

40. ANSWER
Hexagons are used in the design
Carbon fiber

41. 18
Jean-Paul Marat was born poor and worked his way into a scientific career. He
applied to the Academy of Sciences of which _______ was an exalted member,
owing to his accomplishments in Chemistry - specifically his work on combustion.
However, Marat failed to impress him with his theory of ‘Animal Magnetism’, felt
humiliated and carried a grudge for him ever since.
As Marat gained power in the French Revolution, he decried ______ in his political
speeches and pamphlets. After his murder at the hands of Charlotte Corday, his
supporters carried his grudge for him, arrested _______, and eventually executed
him (guillotined) and buried him in a mass grave.
ID this scientist who remains a symbol of the damage politics can do to science.

42. ANSWER
Antoine Lavoisier

43. 19
X used to work at the local branch of the Edison Electric Company as a mechanic
servicing steam engines.
However, X had an ulterior motive for working there, as he spent all his free time
in understanding the inner workings of spark plugs and constantly wrote to Otto in
Germany to send him insights into the working of the Gas engine that Otto had
built in the other side of the world.
Identify this pioneer in engine technology that spearheaded the fields of industrial
automation.

44. ANSWER
Henry Ford

45. 20
Uber launched its Uber A service in Mumbai, to help beat the traffic. Uber
customers can now book As between three destinations. Rides start at 5,700
rupees for a six or eight-seater A and go up to 9,500 rupees for larger ones that
can accommodate 10 riders. The company will only accept bookings for an entire
A, not individual seats.
Mumbai is the first city in India to get the service. Uber A already operates in
Croatia and Turkey, and the company has previously offered the service
temporarily in cities like Baltimore, Boston, Cairo, Kiev and for the Cannes film
festival in France.
While it might be easy to introduce Uber A in some places, it is near impossible to
do so in some obvious candidates, for example, the city of B mainly due to the
strict rules for the service of transport of people and the strong promotion of pre-
existing taxi unions which ply similar services. A and B?

46. ANSWER
A – Boats
B – Venice

47. 21
Scientists at NASA noticed that the harsh Martian terrain has brought the Curiosity
Rover to maintenance much sooner than expected and has halted the rover from
making much progress across the landscape.
As a result, NASA partnered with company ‘X’ to ensure that Curiosity had a great
year ahead, and came up with a shape memory alloy called nitinol to make tyres
for the rover, similar to the one used in the lunar rovers.
Given the fact that NASA has been notorious in rebuilding all its parts from scratch
for each rover and the field of business of company ‘X’ what apt headline was
given by newspapers when they heard of this alliance?

48. ANSWER
GoodYear
Reinventing the Wheel

49. 22
A describes the "collaborative distance" between mathematician and Y, as
measured by authorship of mathematical papers. To be assigned A, someone must
be a coauthor of a research paper with another person who has a finite A. Y has
an X of zero. Anybody else's X is k + 1 where k is the lowest X of any coauthor. (Pic
on the next slide)
A similar Concept is employed in Hollywood with the base node being the actor
_____ _____. (B number) Finally, along came the C number, connecting musicians
in the same way to the band C, who find nativity in their own color.
A new fad to categorize multi-talented individuals, who have acting, music and
mathematics in their portfolio, by the ABC number.
Expand ABC number.

50. 22

51. ANSWER
A – Erdos
B – Bacon
C – Sabbath

52. 23
X was one of the most renowned leaders in his field, now belonging to an elite
group of scientists to have appeared on coins.
The designer of X’s coin, Edwina Ellis said: “I wanted to fit a Y (two words) on the
tiny coin and wish he were still here, chortling at the thought”.
The commemorative coins can be purchased from the Royal Mint, with prices
starting at 10 points, all the way up to 796 points for a gold plated version.
From apparent clues from the following pictures, what are X and Y?

54. ANSWER
X – Stephen
Hawking
Y – Black hole

55. 24
The headline in the next slide is from an Economic Times edition from November
2011. The article followed a key appointment to one of India's biggest business
houses. The 2 blue blanks are homophones, with the second blank being the
appointee's name.
Give the 2 blanks.

56. 24

57. ANSWER
Mystery & Mistry
Tata Sons

58. 25
Coconet was recently trained to restore Y’s music from fragments: we take a piece
from Y, randomly erase some notes, and ask the model to guess the missing notes
from context. The result is a versatile model of counterpoint that accepts
arbitrarily incomplete scores as input and works out complete scores. This setup
covers a wide range of musical tasks, such as harmonizing melodies, creating
smooth transitions, rewriting and elaborating existing music, and composing from
scratch.
Where was Coconet recently used? Also identify Y.

59. ANSWER
Y - Johann Bach
It was used in yesterday's Google Doodle (22nd March 2019)