IIT Madras & Qualcomm®
present
Shaastra 2006
Main Quiz – Prelims
Rules
Please write your team name, SHAASTRA ID No.s, names and contact numbers on the
Answer Sheet. For IITM participants, the ID no is their Roll No. Answer sheets
without ID no.s will not be corrected. Ties will be decided on the starred questions.
0. “I’d like to thank the academy” – Who’s quote, and on what occasion?
1. If the gas leaks out of the capsule, it goes flat. Therefore, the ________ design uses a dense gas,
so the gas stays inside the capsule. In US Patent 4219945, Mr. Rudy mentions a large number of
possible gases, which he describes as "supergases." Generally, the "supergases" are
halogenated hydrocarbons, with the exception of sulfur hexafluoride. The patent mentions ethane
hexafluoride and sulfur hexafluoride as being the best two choices. Since "denseness" is
proportional to molecular weight, calculations with a periodic table would suggest that the gas is
sulfur hexafluoride.
Fill in the blank
2. The following are the earlier forms of something:
CQD - used by the Marconi company- Feb 1904
NC - adopted from International Visual flag codes
_______ - introduced by the Germans, 1905
Incidentally, ___________ is mistaken for VTB, IJS & SMB. Simple - fill in the blank. Both blanks
are the same thing.
3. DADVSI (pronounced dah-dsee) is a bill reforming French copyright law, mostly in order to
implement the 2001 European directive on copyright. The law was highly controversial within
France for it could significantly hamper free software, and also may significantly restrict the right to
make copies of copyrighted works for private use.
Because of this, a controversy arose with _______ and associated US industry groups, who loudly
protested in the US press; therefore, the DADVSI bill was sometimes referred to as the ________
law or _______ law
Fill in the blanks (all blanks are different, the 2nd and 3rd being similar)
4. * X was one of the geniuses of the 60s. He worked at National Semiconductor Company, Santa
Clara,CA. He was a soft-spoken man and was notorious for doing extreme things to get rid of
noise - like a 'hassler' which would beam back your voice at a horrible pitch and volume if you
screamed.
He came up with a major breakthrough in his field for which he is remembered.
After doing so, he didn't bother much and started doing all kinds of things, like bringing sheep to
mow the lawns at National (see image). Name X and his invention
5. The origin of the word __________ comes from the Greek word meaning "twig," and the first use
of the word was in the field of botany in the early 20th century, to describe the process of growing
one plant from a cutting or graft from another. Although _________ soon came to be applied to
microorganisms as well as plants, the first use of __________ in its current sense was fairly
recent, dating to 1970. The first non-scientific use of ________ was in 1979 to describe Elvis
impersonators.
What’s the good word?
6. ______ (from the German word for warrior) is a first-person shooter computer game created by
the German demo group theprodukkt (a former subdivision of Farbrausch) and won first place in a
game competition at Breakpoint, the world’s biggest demoscene party, in April 2004. The game
has graphics comparable to Unreal tournament, and it has an important distinction from
mainstream games. What’s so special about it?
7. Denise Darvall was very seriously injured in a car accident in Observatory, Cape Town. Denise's
mother, who was also involved in the crash, died immediately. Denise sustained a skull fracture
and severe head injuries.
X was a Lithuanian Jew, who immigrated with his family to South Africa in 1922, aged nine, and
became a grocer in Cape Town. X saw active service in World War II in East and North Africa and
Italy.
One person and a major event connect these people. Name the person and the event.
8. The first evidence that Western scientists had of a _______ was when Marjorie Courtenay-
Latimer, curator of a museum in East London, South Africa, discovered a specimen while
inspecting local fish catches for unusual marine life in 1938. She was looking at the catch of a
fishing boat that had been fishing for sharks near the Chalumna River and saw an odd blue fish fin
in the catch. She pulled the fish out of the pile and brought it to the museum to find out what kind
of fish it was. Failing to find it in any of her books, she attempted to contact her friend, Professor
James Leonard Brierley Smith, but he was away. Unable to preserve the fish, she sent it to a
taxidermist. When Smith returned, he immediately recognized it as a ________, known only from
fossils. Fill in the blank.
9. The _____ X is remarkable for its great thickness, and is the shortest of the Xs. The body is
strong, and of well-marked prismoid form. The base presents, as a rule, no articular facets on its
sides, but occasionally on the lateral side there is an oval facet, by which it articulates with the ___
X.
The ___ X is the longest of the Xs. Its base is broad above, narrow and rough below. It presents
four articular surfaces.
The ___ X articulates proximally, by means of a triangular smooth surface, medially, by two
facets, and laterally, by a single facet.
The ___ X is smaller in size than the preceding; its base presents an oblique quadrilateral surface
for articulation with the cuboid; a smooth facet on the medial side, divided by a ridge into an
anterior portion for articulation, and a posterior portion, on the lateral side a single facet.
The last in the series (of X) is also called the __________ _____, by journalists of a nation whose
fate depended on it; not once but recurring in 2006.
What is X? Also fill in the last blank (All blanks are different)
10. In some sites, the Hyperlink tag has a clause <a rel=”nofollow”> for a specific purpose. What?
11. In the early ’70s, a stoned hippie called X arrived in Benares looking for nirvana. But when he
asked a sadhu about the Big N, the savant dragged him to the top of a hillock, shaved his head
and let him go. This weird experience convinced X - don’t ask us why - that the N way lay in
making the Y as ubiquitous and user-friendly as a bicycle.
Identify X?
12. This legend circulates swiftly, on the Indiana University campus and beyond, and that makes it
particularly tough to debunk. Lou Malcomb, head of the Government Publications Department,
believes the rumor may be spreading more rapidly because of the increasing popularity of e-mail
and the Internet. Known for her love of IU history and IUB Libraries lore, Moira Smith (a
bibliographer) has received at least one query a month for the past year and a half. The IU Alumni
Association heard from an alumnus who read the information on an Internet site. And Lois Hesier,
head of the Geology Library, received an e-mail from someone who read the falsehood in a list of
"interesting facts" circulated on a Caribbean cruise! Jan H. Brunvand, IU alumnus says, "In my
next book I will just quote two or three [libraries] and then say that it seems to be told about most
college and university libraries in the United States." What is the urban legend?
13. What is celebrated on either July 22nd, November 9th/10th, or at 1:13 PM on December 20th/21st?
14. A particular certificate's owner is said to have competence in "sound editing, graphic editing,
musical understanding, html-programming, rapid learning of new programs, efficient online
research techniques and insight into the complex workings of a computer". What is this the
certificate for? Visual is of the person who issues the certificates.
15. In July 2005, a team of Caltech astronomers announced the discovery of an icy, rocky object
larger than Pluto in the Kuiper belt, a disc of icy bodies beyond Neptune. They labeled this object
a planet and nicknamed it X. In September 2005, the astronomers found that this “10th planet” has
a moon, which was nicknamed Y. What are X and Y?
16. X is a 1982 film, directed and produced by and starring Clint Eastwood. Named after a fictitious
Soviet jet fighter, capable of speeds up to Mach 6, invisible to radar, and carrying weapons
controlled by thought. The movie was also made into a laserdisc game by Atari. The fighter in the
movie is strikingly similar to another Russian fighter by the same Code but different name,
Foxhunt. A new technique was used for shooting the flying sequences. The title of the movie, X, is
used in a totally different connotation today. What is X?
17. ‘All algorithms that search for an extremum of a cost function perform exactly the same, when averaged
over all possible cost functions’
This theorem explains why, over the set of all mathematically possible problems, each search
algorithm will do on average as well as any other. This is due to the bias in each search algorithm,
because sometimes the assumptions that the algorithm makes are not the correct ones. It takes
its name from a common phrase. What?
18. X, a Russian, invented a unique musical instrument named after him. It was so good, it convinced
Lenin to order the manufacture of many of those; apparently because of the way it was played.
Sound technical reasons behind its working meant Stalin used X for espionage research. He in
fact, ended up doing a very innovative form of espionage which took the Americans years to trace.
The instrument began a new genre of music. Who is X and what is the genre of music it started?
19. Connect the sentences. They form a nearly exhaustive list.
a. In deo speramus (In God we hope)
b. Vox clamantis in deserto (A voice crying in the wilderness)
c. Veritas (Truth)
d. In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen (In Thy light shall we see the light)
e. Leges sine moribus vanae (Laws without morals are useless)
f. Dei sub numine viget (Under God's power she flourishes)
g. Lux et veritas (Light and truth)
20. This programming guru, famous for his witty geeky quotations and deeds, has done many
interesting things like
* He pays a finder's fee of $2.56 for any typos/mistakes discovered in his books, because "256
pennies is one hexadecimal dollar".
* Version numbers of his software approach 'pi' and 'e' progressively.
* One of his books has an index entry Royalties, use of - page 405.
The page, however, has no direct mention of royalty but has a diagram of an 'organ pipe
arrangement'. Apparently he bought the organ from the royalties he earned from the book.
Whoitis? (See visual)
21. This person's first book was called "Social Statics or the Conditions Essential to Human
Happiness". In this work, he presents an account of the development of human freedom and a
defense of individual liberties, based on a Lamarckian style evolutionary theory. He was strongly
influenced by the anti-establishment and anti-clerical views of his father, and the Benthamite
radical views of his uncle. He borrowed the term "Social Statics" from the works of Auguste Comte
but a term coined by him in the book was later immortalised by a great scientist. Who is this
person and what was the term coined in his work?
22. "Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, 'Let X Be!' and all was light." - Alexander Pope
"It did not last; the Devil howling 'Ho!
Let Y Be!' restored the status quo." - John Collings Squire
"God ___________, to Y's great dismay:
'Let Z Be!' and all was clear as day." - Jagdish Mehra
Identify X, Y, Z and fill in the blank.
23. Alfred Wegener was a German interdisciplinary scientist. He had early training in Astronomy.
Later, he learnt meteorology and pioneered the usage of weather balloons. He died in Greenland
of hypothermia while studying polar air circulation and proving the existence of jet streams. He is
remembered for a different reason. What?
24. X and Y, both pioneers in their field, were traveling in a cab, down Park Avenue, NY. They had an
agreement and decided to call it the Treaty of Park Avenue.
Who are X and Y and what is the Treaty of Park Avenue?
25. ______ was an event scheduled for July 20, 2006 at 11:39.13 UTC, at which time the
organization claimed to have 600 million people from the western hemisphere ______
simultaneously. They claimed this would move the Earth out of its orbit, and into a new one, one
that would not cause global warming. What is the event?
25. On July 19, 2001, about a dozen early employees met to mull over the founders' directive... The
meeting soon became cluttered with the kind of easy and safe corporate clichés that everyone can
support, but that carry little impact: Treat Everyone with Respect, for example, or Be on Time for
Meetings.
The engineers in the room were rolling their eyes. [Amit] Patel recalls: "Some of us were very anti-
corporate, and we didn't like the idea of all these specific rules. And engineers in general like
efficiency - there had to be a way to say all these things in one statement, as opposed to being so
specific."
That's when Paul Buchheit, another engineer in the group, blurted out what would become the
most important three words in _____'s corporate history. "Paul said, 'All of these things can be
covered by just saying, __________,'" Patel recalls. "And it just kind of stuck."
... In the months after the meeting, Patel scribbled "__________" in the corner of every whiteboard
in the company... The message spread, and it was embraced, especially by ____ and ______... "I
think it's much better than Be Good or something," one of them jokes. "When you are making
decisions, it causes you to think. I think that's good."
The big blank is the motto of a company. The company is the first blank. Fill in all blanks.
26. a. ________ X: The most common form of X. It causes immediate physical pain and debilitation
and kills within hours. Has no short-term effects on humans.
b. _______ X: inflicts random effects, typically creating an initial "tingling effect" in those affected.
Effects typically last 24-48 hours.
c. ________ X: Kills all plant life. Induces decay immediately upon exposure, with a range of about
25 yards.
d. ________ X: Can be created by superheating a.
What is X? (The list is non-exhaustive)
27. Josiah Stinkney Carberry is a professor. He is said to have taught at Brown University, and to be
known for his work in "psychoceramics," the supposed study of "cracked pots."
Administratium, the heaviest known element, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic
number of 0. However, it does have one neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice-neutrons, and
111 assistant vice-neutrons; giving it a mass of 312.
Paul DeFanti invented the "Buckybonnet," a Buckminster-Fulleresque geodesic fashion structure
that pedestrians wear to protect their heads and preserve their composure.
This is an exhaustive list of something. Give a very specific connect.
28. (Visual) Identify/Put fundaes.
29. (Visual) Identify the canine.
30. (Visuals) Connect the 4 people (they make an exhaustive list).
31. * (Visual) Name the structure in the picture and put fundaes.
32. (Visual) Connect the four visuals. They are all web pages.
33. (Visual) Identify
34. (Visual) The picture was used by an organization for supporting the Moon Hoax theory; in a very
special way. Which organization?
35. (Visual) The visual shows a page from a book. What is its claim to fame?
