1st Annual STEM Quiz - Gonit Sora

QMs: Salik M. Borbora, Ashutosh Das & Dr. Manjil P. Saikia

1st Annual STEM QuizGonit Sora+Knowit

Rules of the Quiz• There are 28 questions in total, out of which 24 questions will follow normal

pattern and 4 will be written. There will be a warm-up question to get familiarised with the rules.

• The quiz will follow pounce+infinite bounce format. This will be explained by the QM shortly.

• Each correct answer gets you 10 points (part questions will be divided equally for points).

• No negative marks on direct and pass questions.

• Negative points (-5) if you get any answer wrong on pounce.

• All parts required in pounce to get points, part answers will give you -5.

Pounce Format Explanation

Infinite Bounce Explanation

Warm-up QuestionCarl-Johan Haster published a preprint on 11th May, 2020 where he calculated X using gravitational waves. The work began with Haster's observation that X appears in several terms of an equation describing propagation of waves. He treated X as a variable instead of as a constant and perturbed the quantities in the equations to see how well he could approximate X, and it came out to be 3.115. What is X?

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Pi

Main Quiz Starts Now

Question 1Americium is a synthetic radioactive chemical element. It is deemed safe for widespread usage in a safety device. The device uses its Americium for ionising the air to raise an alarm and thus provides safety.

Which project saw Americium’s discovery?

Which device uses it for safety?

(5+5 points)

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Manhattan Project, Smoke Detectors

Question 2First used in relation to the spread of HIV in the US in the 1980's, what two word term was given to Gaetan Dugas, whom the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified as the primary or index case of the virus?It is also widely used in the media to refer to the originator of computer viruses.

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Patient Zero

Question 3What is being done here by Microsoft?

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Experimental underwater data center

Question 4

The presence of which group of algae in the body is of paramount forensic importance to help differentiate a death by submersion (drowning) from a post-mortem immersion of a body in water?A unique feature of these cells is that they are enclosed within a cell wall made of silica (hydrated silicon dioxide) called a frustule.

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Diatoms

Question 5

The Clock of the Long Now is under construction & is designed to keep time for 10,000 years.

Many options were considered for powering this clock like nuclear, solar power etc, but most were rejected. The designer Danny Hillis decided for regular human winding. However the clock is designed to keep time even when not being wound. How will then it be powered?

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Temperature difference between day and night

Question 6

A canister in a particular entity contains Sodium Chlorate pellet. This pellet is ignited when a person pulls on the plug of the dispensing component of the canister. A chemical reaction starts next discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1773 and Joseph Priestley in 1774, though Priestley is given credit for this major discovery.

Where can we find this reaction happening?

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Oxygen masks in Aeroplanes

Question 7This protocol combines two different cryptographic algorithms to give end-to-end encryption for a certain type of communication channel.It uses the widely popular Diffie–Hellman key agreement protocol with a Double Ratchet Algorithm, which after an initial key exchange maintains several short sessional keys.Ratchet is a mechanical term, which is a ‘device’ that allows movement in only one direction, similarly the above algorithm allows generation of keys from previous keys. This is one reason why we see a certain phenomenon whenever someone changes her cellphone/number or updates their software.Where is this protocol used? What phenomenon do we see often?(5+5 points)

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Voice/Video Calls, IMs

Question 8The Ductile-Brittle Transition Temperature (DBTT) is the temperature at which a material loses its ductile nature, and becomes brittle, lowering its fracture toughness.

Steel (0.2%C) has a DBTT of around -20⁰ C. This is very important part in material science. This might have been one of the reason of a catastrophe which occurred more than a century ago.

Which incident is this?

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Sinking of Titanic

Question 9The region between the two bones marked by arrows (in the image) causes the formation of a dimple or indentation in the hand, which is commonly known by a two-word phrase.

This phrase is derived majorly from a practice which would not be generally encouraged in the interest of promoting better health and well-being.

Give me the two-word term used to denote this region in your hand.

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Anatomical Snuffbox

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Question 10While most of us are acquainted with the idea of identifying a more elaborate version of symbols that are relatively abstract and require some level of basic education, the following four “simpler” symbols (below) are used specifically for the same purpose.

Thus, the symbols have been proven to be useful in the assessment of individuals with mental and/or physical disabilities as well. What do these symbols aid in?

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Symbols used in paediatric vision tests when the child is yet to understand the alphabets or numbers (LEA test)

Question 11In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2 , the protagonist mentions that God controls everything, including trivial events such as the death of a sparrow, and that everything works out in a fashion it was destined to be. Albeit, unscientific and irrational, one can draw analogies between the statement in the fictional world with that of the life of a pioneering individual who also happened to be a distant cousin of one of the presidents of Pakistan.

Name the individual and how a trivial event as described above shape his destiny.

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Salim Ali, he became interested in ornithology or birding after he had shot down a yellow throated sparrow

Question 12During its manufacture, it is toughened by ion exchange. The material is immersed in a molten alkaline potassium salt at a temperature of approximately 400 °C (750 °F), wherein smaller sodium ions in the glass are replaced by larger potassium ions from the salt bath. The larger ions occupy more volume and thereby create a surface layer of high residual compressive stress at the surface, giving its surface increased strength, ability to contain flaws, and overall crack resistance, making it resistant to damage from everyday use.

What common product used worldwide am I talking about?

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Gorilla Glass

Written Round

Rules

Question W1A right-angled triangle with edge lengths in geometric progression is named after a key scientific figure who was famously described by an esteemed science communicator as "the first astrophysicist and the last scientific astrologer”,

The ratio of the edges of such a triangle is linked to the golden ratio, the squares of the edges of it are in geometric progression according to the golden ratio.

For an exact such triangle, the inclination of the sides should be oriented at specific angles. Certain reports mention that this angle have been used by the Egyptians in the construction of the Great Pyramid of Cheops.

After whom are these triangles named?

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Question W2Although, it is being used as a doping agent in certain semiconductors, this element is majorly used in the production of flame retardants which are then added to different materials to prevent or slow down the development of fire ignition. Give me the name of the element of which China has the worlds largest reserves.

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Question W3This game (game interface image attached) offered in Playstore by a Finnish developer is inspired from events that unfolded after a Facebook event, was created in mid-2019. The Facebook event page garnered a sizeable number of responses that amounted to more than 2 million people responding as "going" and 1.5 million being "interested“.  The game involves gathering an army of stone throwers, runners etc. in order to enter a famous place to discover the secrets that lie within it.

What was the Facebook event about?

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Question W4Sir John Randall was a famous physicist who is known for his efforts in contributing to the Allied victory in the Second World war as he supervised the radical improvement of the cavity magnetron, an essential component of centimetric wavelength radar.

In May, 1952, Randall’s student, while working with another scientist X, took an image of a paracristaline gel which has gone down in history as a seminal finding in the elucidation of the specific structure of a molecule. The picture has also been central to various debates and controversies that concentrated on sexism and prejudices prevalent in the scientific circles. Name the scientist X.

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Question W1A right-angled triangle with edge lengths in geometric progression is named after a key scientific figure who was famously described by an esteemed science communicator as "the first astrophysicist and the last scientific astrologer”,

The ratio of the edges of such a triangle is linked to the golden ratio, the squares of the edges of it are in geometric progression according to the golden ratio.

For an exact such triangle, the inclination of the sides should be oriented at specific angles. Certain reports mention that this angle have been used by the Egyptians in the construction of the Great Pyramid of Cheops.

After whom are these triangles named?

Johannes Kepler

Question W2Although, it is being used as a doping agent in certain semiconductors, this element is majorly used in the production of flame retardants which are then added to different materials to prevent or slow down the development of fire ignition. Give me the name of the element of which China has the worlds largest reserves.

Antimony

Question W3This game (game interface image attached) offered in Playstore by a Finnish developer is inspired from events that unfolded after a Facebook event, was created in mid-2019. The Facebook event page garnered a sizeable number of responses that amounted to more than 2 million people responding as "going" and 1.5 million being "interested“.  The game involves gathering an army of stone throwers, runners etc. in order to enter a famous place to discover the secrets that lie within it.

What was the Facebook event about?

Storm Area 51, They can’t stop all of us

Question W4Sir John Randall was a famous physicist who is known for his efforts in contributing to the Allied victory in the Second World war as he supervised the radical improvement of the cavity magnetron, an essential component of centimetric wavelength radar.

In May, 1952, Randall’s student, while working with another scientist X, took an image of a paracristaline gel which has gone down in history as a seminal finding in the elucidation of the specific structure of a molecule. The picture has also been central to various debates and controversies that concentrated on sexism and prejudices prevalent in the scientific circles. Name the scientist X.

Rosalind Franklin

End of Written Round

Theme?

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Connection: 51

1. For an exact Kepler triangle, the angle should be about 51° 49′.

2. Antimony atomic number is 51.

3. The game is based on Area 51, the famous US secret research centre.

4. The image was the X-ray diffraction image of the DNA which is also known as Photograph 51 (also name of the movie starring Nicole Kidman).

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Question 13To the most distrait of observers, ___________, would appear as three zones. Essentially, the innermost region would consist of unconsumed materials, while the intermediate region would consist of incomplete consumption of the materials. The outermost region would be the region wherein there is complete consumption of the materials, depending on which ________________ would get its characteristic hue.What is described here?

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Bunsen flame

Question 14The subject matter in the adjoining piece of art, specifically the noun/ name, can also be used to refer to a part of a human organ wherein its major function is to regulate a subpart of the organ. The name attributed to the subpart can also be used to describe an individual who is engaged in any form of learning (art, education craft etc.).

What is being portrayed in the painting?

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Iris

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Question 15

X

Apart from being outstanding scientists, a common thread connects all the five individuals (X, without the image) to Sir CV Raman. It would be safe to assert that, amongst the five (X, included), Sir CV Raman was the closest to X, given their professional association. However, X, missed out on this illustrious list. What is the common thread and who is X? (It is an exhaustive list.)

(5 points for common thread + 5 points for X)

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GN Ramachandran, Sir CV Raman nominated five scientists for the Nobel Prize in his lifetime

Question 16Arguably, the illustration on the right would be a perfect metaphor for the scientific phrase that is used to describe actions that results in an incessant cascade of events. Off late, this two-word term/phrase has come to the fore in a subtle manner owing to its intricate association with COVID-19 diagnostic techniques.

Give me the scientific phrase and the COVID-19 association.

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Chain reaction/RT PCR based detection kits.

Question 17

John Tyndall was an Irish scientist whose best known work is in physics. He was the first person to prove X that was proposed in 1824. He was an excellent Alpine mountaineer which stemed from his work on glacial motions. His work with glaciers inspired him to look at X. What is X?

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Greenhouse Effect

Question 18He started out as a painter but then shifted to dabbling with science in his middle ages after his painting career did not go off as planned. Primarily known as the inventor of X, however studies have shown that he did not actually invent X, rather he just put together the machine X from knowledge that was mostly already available.An off shot of this was that he filed numerous patent suits, one of which is now considered landmark because it helped to determine patent eligibility with regards to software related patents, among others.Which invention? Which inventor?(5+5 points)

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Samuel Morse, telegraph

Question 19Several websites serve an error in Europe after the introduction of stringent Data Protection Laws were introduced in 2016. One such website is indiatimes.com. What is the code for this error, which was named after a book due to certain similar reasons depicted in the book? Id book also. (5+5 points)

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HTTP Error 451, after Fahrenheit 451.

Question 20Considered to be the last man who knew everything, X was a polymath and polyglot and is best known for a theory which proved Newton wrong (in some sense). Among other things, X was also the first person to make progress towards solving the Rosetta Stone but is usually not credited as much. X became a Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 21; one of the most famous articles in Encyclopaedia Britannica was authored by him about the Rosetta Stone. Who is X?

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Thomas Young

Question 21Widely regarded as the greatest American scientist of the 19th century, X's career paralleled to a large extend to that of Michael Faraday. Numerous fundamental discoveries in the study of electricity and magnetism were made by the either of the two, Faraday edging out on priority many times. A SI derived unit is named after X. Who is X?

(Only naming unit gets 5 point)

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Joseph Henry

Question 22In 2019, researchers at the University of Copenhagen successfully extracted a complete human genome of a 5700 year old female from a piece of X. This was the first time that such a genome had been extracted from something other than human bones. X was made of birch pitch, which was used for glueing stone tools since the Palaeolithic era. Competing theories suggest that one use of birch pitch was as a X. Ancient X is a new untapped source of DNA which may also help understand how bacteria and viruses evolve. What is X?

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Chewing Gum

Question 23Urbain Le Verrier is best known for predicting the existence of Neptune using only mathematics. But that is not the only planet predicted by Le Verrier. To explain some aberrations of the orbit of Mercury, he proposed that a planet, named X lay even nearer to the Sun than Mercury. The name was chosen in honour of a Roman God, due to its apparent proximity to the Sun. X was later discarded when a new theory explained the orbit of Mercury. X is probably the most famous fictional planet. What is X? And, which new theory?

(5+5 points)

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Vulcan, general relativity

Question 24Now primarily remembered as a composer, X was actually a chemist in his lifetime. Music was not his primary focus, only practising it when he had spare time. One of his most famous contributions to chemistry is being the co-discoverer of one of the ways of forming a carbon-carbon bond. The other discoverer being Y, who has a reaction named after him which reacts alkyl halides with sodium to form higher alkanes. Id X and Y.

(5+5 points)

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X=Alexander Borodin Y=Charles Adolphe Wurtz

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Question 25If X denotes ionizing radiation, Z denotes Biological hazard; what does the symbol Y represent?

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Fallout shelter (An enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion)

Question 26X Y is a small Danish company which provides a virtual X service. The company has become very popular in the times of the current pandemic because of the huge number of people opting for online shopping, causing a bottleneck. So several big supermarket and grocery chains have starting using X Y like they would do in an in person store if things became unmanageable. Id the company.

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Queue-It

Question 27

• Google’s virtual reality (VR) platform shares its name with what was interpreted in Freudian psychology as an expression of the repressed instincts similarly to those revealing themselves during night-time. What is it called?

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Daydream

Question 28• This is the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento. Why it is named

so?

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Carbon fibre was extensively used to make this car

The End