The Math and Tech Quiz 2015 (Prelim+Final+Answers)

Math and Tech Quiz 2015
by Naman Dhanuka
(namand@outlook.com)
Prelims

meh
• 20 questions in all
• No negative marking
• Star marked questions to serve as tie breakers
• Top 6 teams from here will qualify for the final
• Quiz master’s decision final and binding

*1. This law has often been illustrated using the
example of fax machines:
A single fax machine is useless, but the value of
every fax machine increases with the total
number of fax machines in the network, because
the total number of people with whom each
user may send and receive documents increases.
Which is the law being talked about?

4. Born and raised in Iran, as a child she wanted
to get into literature. The first time she
enjoyed a beautiful solution (sic) was when
her brother told her how Gauss worked out in
seconds how to sum all the numbers from 1 to
100.
Which accomplished mathematician am I
talking about?

5. The _______ problem is a major unsolved
problem in computer science. Informally, it
asks whether every problem whose solution
can be quickly verified by a computer can also
be quickly solved by a computer. It was
essentially first mentioned in a 1956 letter
written by Kurt Goodel to John von Neumann.
FITB

*6. X is a flower fly found only in Costa Rican
forests. Another fly found in similar habitats
was named Y; according to Chris Thompson,
the describer of these species, both names
were in "recognition of [their] great
contributions to the science of Dipterology“.
Give me either X and Y or the people after
whom X and Y were named.

Eristalis Gatesi and Eristali Alleni/ Bill Gates and
Paul Allen

7. He was an English poet and a leading figure
in the Romantic movement. Among his best-
known works are the lengthy narrative
poems Don Juan, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,
the short lyric She Walks in Beauty and his
erudite daughter!
Name of his daughter?

*9. What does this Google doodle
depict?

Phone sold online on select portals exclusively.

12. Identify the Indian IT giant.

13. Which company was earlier called Chinese
Academy of Sciences Computer Technology
Research Institute New Technology
Development Company?

*14. This was invented by Ted Selker at PARC
only because of the fact that it took 0.75
seconds to shift your hands from keyboard to
the mouse. What?

TrackPoint/pointing stick/tracker

17. What are these?
(5,11), (7,13), (11,17), (13,19),
(17,23), (23,29), (31,37),
(37,43)

*18. The number Y, was given by 9
year old X, nephew of the
American mathematician Edward
Kasner.
ID X and Y.

19. ZipDial acquired by X for $45 million, lets
users engage with a brand, celebrity or
organisation by simply making a 'missed call'
to a designated number. This was X's first
acquisition in India.
ID X.

20. Name the only CEO to have featured on a
Vogue magazine cover. Workable..

1. How to we better know the group of
these companies?
UNIVAC

IBMS/Snow white and the Seven Dwarves

2. Specs of what?
• 5 inch (127 mm) 52-column display
• two floppy-disk drives
• a Z80 microprocessor
• 64k of RAM
• could fit under an airplane seat
• It could survive being accidentally dropped
• included a bundled software package that included
the CP/M operating system, the BASIC programming
language, the WordStar word processing package, and
the SuperCalc spreadsheet program.

4. What is being depicted here?

Mr. Hedelson invented the Segway and he fell
off the cliff while riding a segway.

5. What made YouTube increase it’s view
counter from 32 bit to 64 bit?

Gangnam Style views surpassed the 32 bit limit

6. “Exploding Kittens is a highly strategic kitty-
powered version of Russian Roulette. Players
take turns drawing cards until someone draws an
exploding kitten and loses the game. The deck is
made up of cards that let you avoid exploding by
peeking at cards before you draw, forcing
your opponent to draw multiple cards, or
shuffling the deck.”
Exploding Kittens is a card game by which..
Company?

7. From a 1995 “book of 101 Un-Useless
Japenese Inventions” to making to the Best 25
inventions of 2014. What?
Hint: It has often been dubbed as the Wand of
Narcissus

8. Coined by Nick Pelling, it is the use of game
thinking and game mechanics in non game
contexts to engage users in the said domain,
what term?

9. She has often been called the following:
• The most important person in advertising
• The mom of Google
• The most important Googler you’ve ever
heard of
Who?

10. Bought over by Google in 2011, created by
Tim and Nina as a way to collect and correlate
ratings.
Itrates hotels, nightlife, shopping, zoos, music,
movies, golf courses, and airlines. The guides
are sold in book form, and formerly as a paid
subscription on its web site. Which online
guide?

Steve Ballmer (developers, developers)

14. “______ ______” is about understanding our
users’ root problems and making the best
product decisions to solve them. It’s not about
tipping the scale towards one extreme end,
but rather finding how to create the best day
to day experience.
FITB.

15. What connects Facebook,
Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Microsoft, Opera
Software, and Qualcomm?

16. Voice and name of the song he’s
singing.

Richard Stallman, Free Software Song

17. The first known ____ was taken by Robert
Cornelius in 1839 and recorded it as the “First
light picture ever”. It’s a part of most people’s
daily lives now.
FITB.

19. Born as Multitech International in 1976,
the company changed its name to what
we know it as today in 1987. The Latin
word for “sharp, acute, able and facile”.
Which company?

22. “It was telling us how English was spoken,
instead of reflecting how English was actually
spoken.”
This thought lead to development of what in
Peckham’s dorm room?

Bertrand Russel, it’s a scene from a 1967 Hindi
movie “Aman”

24. Elements of whose vocab?
• Children were referred to as "epsilons"
• People who stopped doing mathematics had
"died"
• Music (except classical music) was "noise"
• People who had married were "captured"
• People who had divorced were "liberated"
• To give a mathematical lecture was "to preach"
• To give an oral exam to a student was "to torture"
him/her.

26. Who discovered the constant e by studying a
question about compound interest which
required him to find the value of the following
expression (which is in fact e) ?

27. Which ground-breaking algorithm
was introduced by this book?

Descartes Rule of Signs, Rene Descartes

30. "A lot of people have been asking how I've
stirred up so much publicity around the
project, and my simple answer is: 'I have
no idea‘” – Kyle McDonald
Explain the project he is talking about.

From “One Red Paperclip” to buying a house

** Significance of the song “Tom’s Diner” by
Suzane Vega?
** Who authored the book Neuromancer?
**Who runs Mashable.com?

The Math and Tech Quiz 2015 (Prelim+Final+Answers)

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