Question for Sept. 30, 2009

The name of this scientific field was coined by Hungarian physicist Nicholas Kurti and French physical chemist Hervé This.
This science is not new. Several 18th century chemists (mainly French) were interested in this field. Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier is perhaps the most famous among them—in 1783, he studied the processes of stock preparation by measuring density to evaluate quality. In reporting the results of his experiments, Lavoisier wrote, "Whenever one considers the most familiar objects, the simplest things, it's impossible not to be surprised to see how our ideas are vague and uncertain, and how, as a consequence, it is important to fix them by experiments and facts".
Another important figure was Benjamin Thompson, later knighted Count Rumford, who studied this field and made many proposals and inventions to improve them, for example by inventing a special coffee pot for better brewing.

Reader Question

This question is courtesy Kavita and Anuj.

1,2 and 3 are hints for three movies by the same director. Idenity the three movies and the director.

What's the word

The arabic word is derived from a Sanskrit word, which means four arms. In Persian folk etymology the word is at times decomposed in such a way that it means hundred worries.

The word and what it refers to (say Z) travelled Asia, Africa and Europe. The currently famous and most known version of Z is its English version. What Z is called in English has it roots in a French word which derives from the Arabic word "shah".

What is the word? What is Z? Any guesses on what the four arms are?

Question for Monday, September 28, 2009

Sorry for the delay. Here's today's question:

The following people have appeared on a popular show, X. The list is not exhaustive, is non-chronological and has other members as well. Identify the show, X, in question.

-Pratik

Question for Sep 27 - PS

Connect the following places:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Question for Sep 25

In January 1952, a 23 year old medical student (X) and his 29 year old biochemist friend embarked on a journey (see visual) on the back of La Poderosa ("The Mighty One"). This journey would transform the life of X.

Here are some quotes relating to that journey and X.

A historian
"His political and social awakening has very much to do with this face-to-face contact with poverty, exploitation, illness, and suffering"

The biochemist friend
"I got the impression that X was saying goodbye to institutional medicine and becoming a doctor of the people."

X himself
"I knew that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I will be with the people."

Identify X.

Quiz question for September 24th

This was a very controversial statement in its time:

"Christianity will go.. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. ____________; I don't know which will go first — rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.".

Who said it and what are the missing words? Please mention in the comments if you figure this out *without* using Google :).

Quiz question for September 22nd

Identify X and Y.

X is one of the central and seminal figures of his field of study. His more well-known concepts — including the collective unconscious and the thought that personalities have both male and female components (animus and anima) — have their roots in Y. He worked on Y on and off for about 16 years, long after a personal crisis that led him to start it had passed, but he never managed to finish it.

Y is a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault . The book is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold letters that say “Liber Novus,” which is Latin for “New Book.” Between Y’s heavy covers, the story unfolds as follows: Man skids into midlife and loses his soul. Man goes looking for soul. After a lot of instructive hardship and adventure — taking place entirely in his head — he finds it again.

From the time Y was begun to be written, it seems that only about two dozen people have managed to read or even have much of a look at it. Of those who did see it, opinions of it vary from being a font of infinite wisdom to being deemed both fascinating and worrisome and as the work of a psychotic. An edition of Y with english translation is finally slated to be published in october 2009.

The first picture below is of X, taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson and the second picture shows some scanned pictures from Y.

Fig: 1

Fig: 2

Quiz question for Sep 22, 2009

What does this chart represent? (The time on the right starts at 11:43 pm and ends at 12:00 am.)

Reader Question

This term, which means a polymath, developed from the notion expressed by one of its most accomplished representatives, Leon Battista Alberti that “a man can do all things if he will".
Name the term.

Pinakin

Question for Sept. 20 - Dev

What action can you link to the following image?

We all perform this action on the blog!

Update: Hints: (1) Try to identify the person in the picture.
(2) There is a reason why I modified the picture in such a way.

Question for September 19th 2009

Since tennis is the flavour of the month, I have used it as the subject of my question today.
Winning all the 4 majors during a career, is termed in tennis as a Career Grand Slam, and, is a spin-off of the original phrase first coined by New York Times columnist John Kieran, used to describe the same feat achieved in a calendar year. Six men and nine women have achieved this in singles play. Although Jimmy 'Jimbo' Connors, considered to be one of the greatest tennis players of all time, never won the French Open, but is one of only five men (Mats Wilander, Jimmy Connors,Andre Agassi Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are the others) to have won a Grand Slam singles title on grass courts, hard courts, and clay courts.
He also holds another distinction and is the only man ever to do so. What is it ?

Pinakin

Question for Sept 18th, 2009

The usual, connect the above images.

Name the invention.

1 correct answer and 43 quintillion wrong ones. The inventor of the invention became the first self-made millionaire from the communist block. One eighth of the world's population has laid hands on it. Still considered to be the world's best selling of its kind.

Name the invention.

Question for September 16

Connect the three images below:

1.2.

3.

Bonus : what is the significance of the following image with the above answer ?

Hint:

Reader Question

This question is courtesy Anuj.

Connect Pic 1 to Pics 2,3 and 4.

Hint: Pics 3 and 4 are at the same venue at Forest Hills.

Question for Sep 15

X was introduced in 1927, when Y signed a new contract with Universal Studios (US). The first version, Poor Papa, was rejected by the US heads due to poor production quality,sloppiness and age of X. After this, Y, together with Ub Iwerks, created a second version called Trolley Troubles featuring a much younger, neater X. In 1928, due to a budget dispute, Y would disassociate himself from X (giving US full rights to X). As a result of this fallout, Y (along with Ub Iwerks) created Z, who would go on to be Y's lasting symbol and effectively launch his empire (company). In 1932, Y recieved a special Oscar for the creation of Z.

Recently, in 2006, Y's company acquired the rights to X from US, as part of a deal that sent sportscaster Al Michaels from ABC and ESPN (owned by Y's company) to NBC Sports (US is a subsidary of NBC Universal). Referring to this trade, Michaels said: “X is definitely worth more than a fourth-round draft choice. I’m going to be a trivia answer someday.”.

While not quite the answer, Mr Michaels is certainly part of today's question. Identify X,Y,Z.

Hint for X: See Visual

Question for Sep 14-Gaurav Kane

Identify 'X'

Samuel Wilson (September 13, 1766 - July 31, 1854) was a meat-packer in Troy, New York whose name is purportedly the source of the term 'X'.
At the time of the War of 1812, Samuel Wilson was a prosperous middle-aged meat-packer in Troy. He obtained a contract to supply beef to the Army in its campaign further north, which he shipped in barrels. The barrels, being government property, were branded with the initials "U.S.", but the teamsters and soldiers would joke that the initials referred to "X", who supplied the product. Over time, it is believed, anything marked with the same initials (as much Army property was) also became linked with his name.

Question for September 12, 2009

Geometrically, X can be regarded as an irregular icosagon or 20-sided polygon. Also characteristic is the 90° rotational symmetry and chirality, i.e. the absence of reflectional symmetry.

The ubiquity of X is easily explained by its being a very simple shape that will arise independently in any basket-weaving society. It is a repeating design, created by the edges of the reeds in a square basket-weave. Other theories attempt to establish a connection via cultural diffusion or an explanation along the lines of Carl Jung's collective unconscious.

Another explanation is suggested by Carl Sagan in his book Comet. Sagan reproduces an ancient Chinese manuscript (the Book of Silk) that shows comet tail varieties. Sagan suggests that in antiquity a comet could have approached so close to Earth that the jets of gas streaming from it, bent by the comet's rotation, became visible, leading to the adoption of X as a symbol across the world.

X, in it's original language means any lucky or auspicious object, and in particular a mark made on persons and things to denote good luck.

What's X?

Question for September 11, 2009

100 years ago this month, Dr. Frederick A. Cook and Robert E. Peary each told his own version of a gripping tale. The first people to believe Cook and Peary had obvious motivations: scooping rival newspapers and increasing circulation. While Cook cabled his tale to The New York Herald, which promptly devoted its entire front page to it, Peary cabled his to the New York Times, his sponsor, several days later. The Times hailed his triumph, reporting that “the world accepts his word without a shadow of hesitation” and quoting Peary’s denunciation of Cook as a fraud who “has simply handed the public a gold brick.” The Times, the National Geographic Society and Peary’s other supporters were so busy denigrating Cook’s claim — “the most astonishing imposture since the human race came on earth,” according to The Times — that they overlooked flaws in their own hero.

A century later, these events may qualify as the most successful fraud in modern science, as well as the longest-running case study of a psychological phenomenon called “motivated reasoning.” Controversy continues to this day, as claims of more "evidence" emerge. Identify the context/central claim of Cook and Peary.

Hint: If you find help necessary, you may use the image at this link, but do say so in your answer!

Question for Sep 10, 2009

X can mean one of several different groups. The original X were a group of street urchins who helped out Y from time to time, and were paid one shilling plus expenses per day for their work. The name for X was derived from the address of Y, which, today, is the site of a museum of Y. During world war II, the Special Operations Executive was set up by Winston Churchill to "to go everywhere, see everything and overhear everyone," similar to the street urchins who spied about London as they helped out Y. For this reason, and also because of the address of their headquarters (down the street from where Y lived), they were also known as X. The modern organization, X, was founded in 1934 by Christopher Morley for enthusiasts of Y, and included FDR, Harry Truman, Issac Asimov and Neil Gaiman, among others, as members.

Identify X and Y.

Question of the day - 9th September 2009 by Hari

Connect

1.

2.

3. Code words - "Prayer Hall", "White House", "Taj Mahal", and "Khumbhkaran"

Question for Sept. 08 - Dev

Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (c 780 - c 850) was a famous Persian mathematician, astronomer and geographer. He is perhaps most famous for his book, "Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabala", which provided the first systematic solutions of linear and quadratic equations. In the twelfth century, Latin translations of his work on the Indian numerals, introduced the decimal positional number system to the Western world.

Can you think of two ubiquitous words in mathematics/computer science which have their origin traced back to him?

Question for September 06, 2009

Here are some of the common theories that explain this practice/standard.

1. To commemorate Lincoln's assassination.
2. To commemorate the first atomic bomb dropped during second World War.
3. It is aesthetically pleasing/symmetrical.

None of the above theories have been confirmed. What is this practice/standard?

Aam Aadmi

For over half a century, on a daily basis, the character represented the quintessential average Indian, the aam aadmi, through the not so common genius of X. X once said about his creation:

"He's been with me throughout my career. I didn't find him. He found me... I would say he symbolises the mute millions of India, or perhaps the whole world, a silent spectator of marching time."

Laloo Prasad and Atal Behari Vajpayee are amongst his favorites to work with. Who is X and what is his creation called?

Question for Thursday, September 3, 2009

Connect the following pictures : They have 1 commonality ..

Edit: If too difficult, you could consult google .. but please state so in your comment.

Question for Sep 2

The 1966 World Cup quarter final between England and Argentina was littered with controversy. The game is controversially remembered for being referred to as 'el robo del siglo' (the steal of the century) in Argentina.

However this question is regarding another controversy (concerning the above mentioned game), that resulted in one of the most significant developments in modern football. This controversy, involved the German man in Visual 1 and the man (left one) in Visual 2. As a result of this controversy, the man in Visual 3 (boss of the German man at that time), devised X, which was subsequently first used in the 1970 World Cup.

Identify X. Bonus point for solving the hint (below).

Hint: Visual 4 represents a list, add one more to complete the list.

Question for September 1, 2009 - Nikhil

"A New Zealander who was cooking, provided team members with mousse au chocolat and fresh strawberries flown in from ___ by helicopter. In the evenings they watched films on a flat-screen TV in the cinema tent. The Russians had liters of vodka on hand and a wireless Internet connection for which the leader paid $5,000 a month".
This is from a German journalist, who was shocked at what a soft touch the once-forbidding place had become. What place (be specific)?