TORQUEST 2015

QM- Aman Shaikh

FINALS

a.k.a Questions of science, science and progress

Rules• Two rounds IR1 and IR2• Infinite bounce, finite pounce• One incorrect pounce per round• +10 on direct, +15 on pounce• Pouncing on your own direct is allowed

INFINITE REBOUND 1Clocks-wise

Q1.X is a protein present in mammalian retinas and is considered key in the physiology of vision. It was identified by Shigeru et al. in 2008 who named it X due to its "lightning fast, nimble movement in the extracellular matrix" which resembled its fictitious namesake. ID X.

Ans:Pikachurin

Q2.Considered one of the most tragic physicists, X was a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Munich. The reason for his tragedy is that he served as PhD supervisor for more Nobel prize winners than any academician, but he himself never won a Nobel. Some of his students include Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Peter Debye, Linus Pauling and Max von Laue. His personal contribution to theoretical physics includes the azimuthal quantum number and the spin quantum number. ID X

Arnold Sommerfeld

Q3.X is a computer language invented by Ben Olmstead in 1998. It is a public domain esoteric programming language, and derives its name from the name given by Dante to the eighth circle of hell in Inferno as part of The Divine Comedy, possibly because programming in it was extremely difficult. In fact, it was so difficult to understand when it arrived that it took two years for the first X program to appear. Indeed, the author himself has never written a single X program. The first program was not written by a human being: it was generated by a beam search algorithm designed by Andrew Cooke and implemented in Lisp. What language is being talked about?

Malbolge

Q4._______ is a term used to describe a word which occurs only once in any context, be it the written records of an entire language, in the works of an author or a single text. It is a Greek term which literally translates to 'something said only once'. Some examples include "zanjabil" the Arabic term for ginger, which occurs only once in the Quran, and Honorificabilitudinitatibus which occurs once in all of Shakespeare's work. __________ are often significant in history and archaeology as their meaning cannot be inferred from multiple contexts. FITB

Hapax legomenon

Q5.X is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to utilize. Under this Type 1 civilizations refer to civilizations which can only harness the energy present on the planet. Type 2 civilizations refers to civilizations capable of harnessing the energy of its own star and Type 3 refers to a civilization capable of harnessing the energy of the galaxy. While X is only hypothetical it put energy consumption in a cosmic perspective. It is named after a Russian astrophysicist who first proposed the idea, while working on the Soviet efforts on SETI. Give X

Kardashev scale

Q6.The Kenbak-1 is considered as the world’s first of its kind. Only 40 machines were ever built and sold. Designed by John Blankebaker of Kenbak Corporation in 1970 which was first sold for USD $750. 10 machines are sold to exist and production of Kenbak-1 has stopped as Kenbak Corporation has folded. What are we talking about?

Personal computers

Q7.The X was the name given to software, mostly browsers, distributed by the Debian project. The matter was embroiled in controversy as X was merely a rebranding of Mozilla's Firefox, to which Mozilla Foundation owns the copyright, and X seemed like a good parody of the Firefox brand. The name X comes from a fictional quote which Matt Groening attributed to Friedrich Nietzche which goes "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the X come." Give X

Iceweasel

Q8.Theseus was a magnetic mouse controlled by a relay circuit that enabled it to move around a maze of 25 squares of variable configuration. It was designed to search through the corridors to find its target and in subsequent trials could map out the maze and successfully clear it. It was designed by X in 1950. X was an American electronic engineer and mathematician who is regarded as the father of information technology. He is credited with founding digital computer and digital circuit design theory when in 1937, as a 21 year old in MIT, he wrote his master's thesis demonstrating that the electrical applications of Boolean algebra could construct any logical or numerical relationship. Give X

Claude Shannon

Q9.X is phenomenological law about the frequency of significant digits in many real life sets of numerical data. Due to this law, in sets which obey the law the number 1 will occur about 30% of the time while 9 occurs only about 5% of the time. The law has been found to be applicable over a wide range of data sets including electricity bills, stock prices, population numbers etc. The law is so widely accepted, it is routinely used to check for fraud in cases of accounting fraud and is even admissible as evidence in US federal, state and local courts. Give X

Benford’s Law

Q10.Omni Processors is a programme funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates, which aims at _____________. Currently prominent research groups and NGOs such as Climate Foundation, Janicki Bioenergy and Unilever are developing cost efficient Omni Processors. In early 2015, as part of a publicity stunt, Bill Gates appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and demonstrated the Janicki Foundation's Omni Processor. What is the function of an Omni Processor?

Converting fecal sludge into drinkable water

Q11.____________ is the first domain name to be registered on the Internet. It was registered on March 15th 1985 by ___________ Computer Corporation, which pioneered in making workstations optimised to run LISP. The company also had a graphics division which provided graphic design software used in movies like the 1984 Star Trek 3, and the 1990 Jetsons: The Movie. While the company is now defunct, the domain name is owned by a group of private investors called XF.com Investments which use the website to generate ad revenue. FITB

Symbolics

Q12.In medicinal terms, it is defined as a partial loss of vision or blind spot in an otherwise normal visual field. "The mind sees what it wants to see" - This is what Robert Langdon said upon Sophie's surprise on discovering Mary Magdalene in the Last Supper. What is being talked about?

Scotoma

Q13.Connect: William Grey Walter and Karel Capek

Robot. Karel Capek coined the term in his play while William Grey Walter is credited with creating the first autonomous robot.

Q14.The Internet's Own Boy is a documentary by Brian Knappenberger which tells the story of American computer programmer, writer, and political activist X. The documentary covers every aspect of this precocious person's life, from his childhood days to his relationships and his ultimate suicide. X committed suicide after he was charged with wire fraud and data theft, after he broke into the MIT network and downloaded academic journals, in 2011. In 2013, he was posthumously inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame, for his contribution to the movement for a free internet and curbing of online piracy. ID X

Aaron Swartz

Q15.X is a legendary being in Gulliver's Travels. It is described as being filthy and with unpleasant habits. The term has come to mean a crude, brutish or obscenely coarse person. However you may know X in an entirely different context altogether, especially if you were around on the internet in the late 90s. Give X

Yahoo

Q16.This is a recently discovered species named "Euglossa ____". According to the biologist who discovered it, the blank was a tribute to a popular sitcom character because the bee had tricked other scientists with its similarities to other bees. An EP for the sitcom remarked, "X (the character) would be honored to know that Euglossa ____ was inspired by him. In fact, bees are his third favorite flying creatures after 'Mothra' and griffins." FITB

Bazinga

Q17.ID and give claim to fame

Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd

Q18.The Sleeper Awakes is a dystopian novel by H.G Wells about who a man who falls asleep for 230 years and wakes up to find himself in futuristic London. The novel was published in serialised form between 1898 and 1899, and predicted the invention of _________. __________ was actually invented in 1954 by Lee Hewitt and Dee Horton. Today ________ finds widespread use in a lot of buildings and establishments. FITB

Automatic door

Q19.X states that given the corpus of natural language utterances, the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank on the frequency table. It is named after an American linguist, who popularised it. However the regularity was first noticed by the French stenographer Jean-Baptiste Estoup and the German physicist Felix Auerbach. While the original law was formulated in the context of linguistics, it has been found to hold true for population distributions, with the largest city in a country having twice the population of the second largest city in the country. Give X

Zipf’s law

Q20.OSnap is an app developed by Harvard professor David Edwards and his students. On June 17th 2014, he sent the first oNote from Paris to New York. While the app was developed for iPhones, it needs a separate device called the oPhone to run it. Currently this device is available only at the American Museum of Natural History and Le Laboratoire in Paris. What does oSnap do?

Transmits scents over the Internet

Q21.Dead of Night was a film released in September 1945 by Ealing Studios. It earned its status as the first horror film to be made in Britain after the world war censorship. Starring Mervyn Johns, Michael Redgrave and Googie Withers, the movie was the tale of an architect called Walter Craig who wakes up one day and travels to the countryside to visit a farmhouse and discuss a new project. Upon his arrival, he tells the people at the farmhouse that he already knows them through a recurring and disturbing dream. The guests react with suspicion and curiosity, and one by one they reveal their own strange experiences creating a chain of 5 horror stories that range from a tale of a sibling homicide to a psychiatrist's account of a psychotic ventriloquist. Craig becomes increasingly agitated by these stories and at one point he wakes up and realises that it was all a nightmare. The next morning he scurries out of bed, gets dressed and travels to the countryside and visits a farmhouse to discuss a new project. Upon his arrival, he tells the people at the farmhouse that he is already familiar with them through a series of disturbing dreams..............This particular story-line inspired one of the greatest ideas in science. What idea ?

Fred Hoyle’s Steady state theory

SCORES

INFINITE REBOUND 2Stuck in reverse

Q22.__________ is a phantom settlement, which was seen on Google Maps and Google Earth but does not exist in real life. It was shown to be located off A59 road, in the civil parish of Aughton, West Lancashire, England. While no one knows the actual reason as to why this happened, explanations range from Google doing it as a copyright trap, to it being an honest mistake. The name is believed to have come from the echo of Google. Another explanation of the fictional town name is that it is an anagram of Not Large. What is the name of the town?

Argleton

Q23.Connect:1. Computer Graphics2. Peter Dinklage3. A winner of NASA's Lunar Lander Challenge4. Chromebook OS Operating System

Pixel

Q24.He is Ethan Zuckerman. In 2007, he joined the inaugural Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board. In 2008, he coined the cute cat theory of digital activism. Later in 2011 named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers, in which he stated the Best idea is "The world isn't flat and globalization is only beginning, which means we have time to change what we're doing and get it right". He apologised to the world for creating what is one of the world's most hated web tools. What was this creation/ Give his claim to infamy.

Creator of pop up ads

Q25.Touted as the most complex crop circle ever found in Britain, the pattern appeared earlier this month near Barbury Castle, an Iron Age hill fort above the village of Wroughton in Wiltshire. Initially, crop circle enthusiasts were stumped as to its meaning and even a number of experts said it was 'mind-boggling'. Dismissed in mid 2008 as being unsolvable, retired astrophysicist Mike Reed put 2 and 2 together to finally arrive upon the answer. Upon having solved it, he produced a fractal of the form as described:"The little dot near the centre is the decimal point. The code is based on ten angular segments, with the radial jumps being the indicator of each segment. Starting at the centre and counting the number of one-tenth segments in each section contained by the change in radius clearly shows the values of the first 10 of X"What is X?

Pi

Q26.1.Sewing Machine2. Fan3. Tea kettle4. Toaster5. XThis is a chronological sequence of household appliances to be electrified. What is X?

X- Vibrator

Q27.X and Y discovered avermectin, a treatment of roundworm parasites. Z discovered artemisinin, a treatment for malaria. For their contribution to controlling tropical illnesses which affect millions, the three scientists were awarded the Nobel prize in Medicine. Give X, Y and Z

X- William CampbellY- Satoshi OmuraZ- Youyou Tu

Q28.Connect:

Unagi. AOL Media Player was developed under the codename Unagi

Q29.Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a heart condition which results in a temporary weakening in the muscular portion of the heart. This type of cardiomyopathy is generally brought on by stress or constant anxiety and is a well recognized cause of acute heart failure, lethal ventricular arrhythmias and ventricular rupture. What is the more common name of this condition?

Broken heart syndrome

Q30.Connect:

Nintendo

Q31.Although the device is called a LASER which stands for Light Amplification through/by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, Stimulated Emission isn’t responsible for the amplification part, Hence LASER is a scientifically incorrect term. A component called an Optical Resonator (a pair of mirrors) is responsible for the amplification, whereas stimulated emissions just produce the vibrations required to form a standing wave pattern between the pair of mirrors. There exists a scientifically correct term, however the term LASER was chosen over this and is now widely used. What is the scientifically correct term (abbreviation will do) and for what obvious reason was it not used?

Light Oscillations through/by Stimulated Emissions of Radiation, which abbreviates to LOSER, which was not used because of its bad connotation

Q32.X is one of the five basic tastes. It was discovered in 1908 by Kikunae Ikeda and was accepted worldwide in 1985. X is first encountered by humans in their mothers' breast milk. What is X?

Umami

Q33.X was a German chemist while Y was a French one. Both received a Nobel for their work in the field of chemistry. But both of them were also the head of chemical warfare division of their respective countries during World War I .X was given the Nobel for the manufacturing process of ammonia while Y was given the Nobel for the formation of Y reagent. While X suggested chlorine as a weapon ,Y suggested phosgene. Identify X and Y?

X- Fritz Haber; Y- Victor Grignard

Q34.This is Susan Bennett. She is an American voice-over artist, having recorded messages for all Delta Airlines terminals worldwide, and several advertisements including Ford, Coca-Cola, Fisher-Price etc. What voice-over work is she best known for?

She is the voice of Siri

Q35.ID the blanked out person

Mayim Bialik

Q36.X was a computer, developed by Carnegie Mellon University and IBM, to play chess. While it won the North American Computer Chess Championship in 1988 and World Computer Chess Championship in 1989, it lost both games in a two game match against Gary Kasparov in 1989 and a correspondence match with Michael Valvo. It shares its name with a fictional computer with immense computational power, which supposedly was the reason Earth was created. Give X.

Deep Thought

Q37.Connect:

Sailing stones

Q38.Y is an impact crater on the surface of Mars. It is named after XY who first identified it. XY is also credited with extensively describing the surface of Mars and first gave the occurrence of canals and continents on Mars. Y crater is one of the locations in the story of The Martian. XY also has a lunar crater and and the 2016 ExoMars lander named after him. Give XY.

Giovanni Schiaparelli

Q39.Developed by Sheshanath Bhosale from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and his team, the intricate structures take shape when two organic chemicals, a phosphonic acid and melamine, are mixed in water. The structure of the reacting chemicals, and the hydrogen bonds they form between them, cause the petal-like arrangement to grow on its own, in just 3 hours.What am I talking about?

First artificial microflowers

Q40.This device is a linear injector ( particle accelerator) being developed in India by DRDO and BARC. It operating parameters are : 1MeV energy, 50-100ns pulse time, current of the order 10^3 A and 40GW Power Level. Although it is currently used for research purposes by DRDO, its potential as a weapon is being realized and there are plans to weaponize it to fry onboard circuits of incoming enemy missiles using powerful bursts of Relativistic Electron Beams. It can thus assume the role of a destroyer.What is this device called/ what rather apt (but coincidental) acronym, related to Mythology, is this device popularly known by?

Kilo Ampere Linear Injector (KALI)

Q41.A Throbber is an animated graphical control element, which most of us have seen (and most of us are annoyed by it)What is a Throbber?

The circular thing that comes up when a video is buffering

Q42.An X is a hypothetical structure which entirely surrounds a star in order to obtain the total energy output of the star to fulfill a civilisation's energy needs. While the idea was first described by Olaf Stapledon in his sci-fi novel Star Maker, and was also seen in the works of J.D. Bernal, Raymond Gallun and Edgar Rice Burroughs, it is named after Y, an English-American physicist and mathematician who proposed the idea. Y is also known for his contribution to pure mathematics, with his namesake series which is the formal solution of a time independent Schrodinger equation. Give X and Y

Dyson sphere named after Freeman Dyson

THANK YOU!!