Science Quiz Mains

MAINS
Science Quiz
14th March SYNAPSE
2018

Round 1
 Dry round.
 Pounce and bounce.
 Marks: +20,0 on direct and pass
+30,-15 on pounce
Self pounce applicable.

Q1
 Rx= 2MG/c^2
For an object of the mass M, the given equation represents
the minimum radius it requires to prevent the escape of
light from its gravitational pull.
Any object whose radius is smaller than X is called a black
hole.
ID X

Q2
Deep inside a mountain on a remote
island in the Svalbard archipelago,
halfway between mainland Norway
and the North Pole, lies X.
It is an ideal location for ___ for several
reasons.
 It is the farthest north a person can fly
on a scheduled flight offering a remote
yet accessible location.
 It is over 100m into the mountain.
 Geologically stable with low humidity.
 Well above sea level, protected from
flooding.
 Permafrost offers it a natural freezing
providing a failsafe method for
conservation.

A2
 Svalbard global seed vault.
Contains seeds of different plant species to conserve
genetic material in case of any natural disaster.

Q3
2 weeks ago on 28th February, controversy was created
when Satyapal Singh was invited as the chief guest on
Annual National Science Day event held by INSA and IAS,
New Delhi.
The reason being Satyapal Singh, in Jan 2018 said that
Darwin’s theory of evolution deserved to be binned.
On an unrelated note, why is National Science Day
celebrated on 28th February?

A3
 It was on this day that CV Raman discovered the Raman
effect which refers to the wavelength change that occurs
when light is scattered by molecules.

Q4
 X’s alternate proposed names were “auditory induced head
orgasm", "attention induced euphoria" and "attention induced
observant euphoria", whilst colloquial terms in usage
included "brain massage", "head tingle", "brain tingle", "spine
tingle" and "brain orgasm”.
 X is a term used to describe a sensory experience
characterized by a pleasant tingling sensation in the head
and scalp, which can be triggered by sounds like whispering
or brushing, and visual stimulus like painting or drawing.
 On YouTube, the phenomenon inspired the creation of
“whisperer” videos, in which people attempt to trigger the
viewer’s X by speaking in a soft voice.
ID X

A4
ASMR (Autonomous sensory meridian response)

Q5
 X (given in the photo) have been recorded
surviving the vacuum of space, high doses
of radiation and pressure.
 These water dwelling creatures can also
survive dry environments in a shrivelled-up,
dormant state for as long as a decade,
reviving within an hour when exposed to
water.
 To pull off this remarkable trick, the animals
rely on proteins unique to them, called X-
specific intrinsically disordered proteins
(TDPs).
 When the animal completely desiccates, the
TDPs vitrify, turning the cytoplasmic fluid of
cells into glass. It is thought that this glassy
mixture is trapping desiccation-sensitive
proteins and other biological molecules and
locking them in place, physically preventing

Q6
 Wallace Hume Carothers-remember the name.
A brilliant chemist, so brilliant, in fact, that he was made the
head of the chemistry department of his college before the
graduated. However, he’s better known for the invention of
a fabric.
ID the fabric.
Hint?

Q1
“I had a test today. I think I faled it. and I think that maybe now they
wont use me. What happind is a nice young man was in the room and
he had some 19 white cards with ink spillled all over them. He sed
Charlie what do you see ton this card……I dint see nuthing in the ink
but he said there was picturs there other pepul saw some picturs. …..
He said pepul see things in the ink. I said show me where. He said
think. I told him I think a inkblot but that wasnt rite eather. He said what
does it remind you-pretend something. 1 closd my eyes for a long time
to pretend. I told him I pretend a fowntan pen with ink leeking all over
a table cloth. Then he got up and went out. 1 dont think I passd the
______test.”
Given above is an excerpt from Flowers for Algernon, a brilliant story
about a mentally disabled man, whose life is turned around when a
group of scientists make him intelligent with an operation. Before the
operation, they perform a series of psychoanalytic tests on him.
What is the test being mentioned above?

A1
 Rorschach inkblot test.

Q2
 The term Y was coined in Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The
Selfish Gene, but Dawkins later distanced himself from the
resulting field of study, X.
 X is the study of information and culture based on an analogy
with Darwinian evolution. Proponents describe X as an approach
to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer.
 According to X, analogous to a gene, the Y was conceived as a
"unit of culture" (an idea, belief, pattern of behaviour, etc.) which
is "hosted" in the minds of one or more individuals, and which
can reproduce itself in the sense of jumping from the mind of one
person to the mind of another. Thus what would otherwise be
regarded as one individual influencing another to adopt a belief
is seen as an idea-replicator reproducing itself in a new host. As
with genetics, Y's success may be due to its contribution to the
effectiveness of its host.
ID X or Y

Q3
 Godwin's law is an Internet adage that asserts that “As an online
discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
involving X approaches 1”, that is, if an online discussion
(regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or
later someone will compare someone or something to X.
 Reductio ad X is an attempt to invalidate someone else's
position on the basis that the same view was held by X.
ID X.

Q4
So the very afternoon I arrived in Princeton I'm going to the dean's
tea, and I didn't even know what a "tea" was, or why! I
had no social abilities whatsoever; I had no experience with this
sort of thing. So I come up to the door, and there's Dean
Eisenhart, greeting the new students: "Oh, you're X" he says.
"We're glad to have you." So that helped a little,
because he recognized me, somehow. I go through the door,
and there are some ladies, and some girls, too. It's all
very formal and I'm thinking about where to sit down
and should I sit next to this girl, or not, and how should I
behave, when I hear a voice behind me. "Would you like cream
or lemon in your tea, X?" It's Mrs. Eisenhart, pouring tea. "I'll
have both, thank you," I say, still looking for where I'm
going to sit, when suddenly I hear "Hehhehhehhehheh ______”
 Give the blanked out part.
 Hint?

A4
“Surely you’re joking Mr Feynman”

Q5
X was inspired by a 5,000-year-old toy, a spinning button on a
string (a whirligig). It works like a button on a string, and made of
simple household items like paper, string, and plastic, X is a
hand-powered centrifuge that spins blood samples in at 125,000
rpm, enough speed and power to separate plasma from a blood
sample in just 90 seconds. X is not only much lighter and much
faster than its expensive competitors, but also much more
versatile in terms of portability and accessibility for patients in
hard to reach areas.
Y is an optical microscope that can be assembled from simple
components, including a sheet of paper and a lens. Y costs less
than US$1 to build. It is part of the "frugal science" movement
which aims to make cheap and easy tools.
Both X and Y have been developed by Manu Prakash.
ID X and Y

A5
 X- Paperfuge
 Y- Foldscope

Q6
 Given the film making and lighting technologies at the time, it
wouldn’t have been possible.
 The light in the footage is actually parallel sun rays with no
diffusion.
 The only way to create a similar light effect would be to build a
wall of millions of laser lights so close together it would be like
pixels on a TV screen…but lasers then used to be so big and
costly that it would’ve required a large apparatus and a huge
amount of resources.
 The only lasers available were red which means that colour
photos would’ve been impossible.
 Explanations for what?

A6
Explanations against the allegations that the Apollo 11 moon
landing was faked

BIDDING
RULES
1. A teaser will be shown before each question.
2. Each team can bid x points.
3. Marking scheme - +2x, -x
4. Each team can bid a maximum of their total score at the
beginning of each question, minimum of 0.
5. Bids shall be taken before each question.
6. Bids should be in multiples of 5.

Q1 Teaser
Don’t believe everything you see on the internet
-Abraham Lincoln

Q1
 This site is not a joke.
 The simplest evidence is by relying on ones own senses to
discern the true nature of the world around us.
 The space agencies of the world are involved in
a conspiracy faking space travel and exploration. This likely
began during the Cold War's 'Space Race', in which the
USSR and USA were obsessed with beating each other into
space to the point that each faked their accomplishments in
an attempt to keep pace with the other's supposed
achievements. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the
conspiracy is most likely motivated by greed rather than
political gains, and using only some of their funding to
continue to fake space travel saves a lot of money to
embezzle for themselves.
 In general, we do not lend much credibility to photographic
evidence. It is too easily manipulated and altered.
 The sun moves in circles around the North Pole. When it is
over your head, it's day. When it's not, it's night.

A1
Explanations by the Flat Earth Society

Q2
 Being in love with the one parent and hating the other are among
the essential constituents of the stock of psychical impulses
which is formed at that time and which is of such importance in
determining the symptoms of the later neurosis... This discovery
is confirmed by a legend that has come down to us from
classical antiquity: a legend whose profound and universal power
to move can only be understood if the hypothesis I have put
forward in regard to the psychology of children has an equally
universal validity. What I have in mind is the legend of
_________ and Sophocles' drama which bears his name.
-X
FITB and ID X

A2
King Oedipus
X: Sigmund Freud

Q3
Shining eyes in response
to light in some
mammals is due to what
structure? What is its
function?

A3
 Tapetum lucidum
 It reflects visible light back through the retina, increasing
the light available to the photoreceptors (although slightly
blurring the image). The tapetum lucidum contributes to
the superior night vision of some animals.

Q4
 An X machine is a deliberately complex contraption in which a
series of devices that perform simple tasks are linked together
to produce a domino effect in which activating one device
triggers the next device in the sequence. The expression is
named after American cartoonist and inventor of such
contraptions, X.
 X’s cartoons became well known for depicting complicated
devices that performed simple tasks in indirect convoluted
ways. The example on the next slide is X’s "Professor Butts
and the Self-Operating Napkin“
 Tom is well known to make such contraptions to capture Jerry
in the cartoons, even inspiring an online game to make an X
machine.
 ID X

Which came first, the chicken or the
egg?
Well, the chicken has to come in
order for an egg to be made.

Q5
 "When I see equations, I see the letters in colors – I don't know
why. As I'm talking, I see vague pictures of Bessel functions from
Jahnke and Emde's book, with light-tan j's, slightly violet-bluish
n's, and dark brown x's flying around. And I wonder what the hell
it must look like to the students.”
-Richard Feynman
 "I see music in colours. I love music that's black, pink, purple or
red - but I hate music that's green, yellow or brown.”
-Charlie XCX
 "It's like he starts talking, [and] I have to score it. [I] just start
hearing colours, and he's a painter—he sees colours—I hear
colours.”
-Hans Zimmer
Name the condition these people are referring to.

Q6
 Sir Andre Geim is a well known Dutch-
British scientist who’s performed
groundbreaking research on condensed
matter physics.
 His scientific achievements include the
discovery of Graphene, diamagnetic
levitation and Gecko tape. His work has
been touted as groundbreaking,
opening up whole new fields of
discovery and research.
 For his research, Geim is highly
respected in the scientific community
and has been bestowed with multiple
awards. His awards have granted him a
position which is, as of yet, unmatched
in the scientific world.
 What is it?

A6
 Only person to win both the Nobel and the Ig Nobel prize.

Exponential round
Rules
Marks- +4 Q1
+8 Q2
+16 Q3
+32 Q4
+64 Q5
+128 Q6
on consecutive correct answers.

Q1
 X is a computer
vision programme created by
an Alphabet engineer which
uses a neural network to find
and enhance patterns
in images creating
a dreamy hallucinogenic appea
rance
 The software is designed
to detect faces and other
patterns in images, with the
aim of automatically classifying
images.
 For example, an existing image
can be altered so that it is
"more cat-like", and the
resulting image can be again
input to the procedure to get an
enhanced image. This usage

Q2
 X is developed in coordination
among NASA, the European space
agency and the Canadian space
agency.
 It has been described as the
successor to Y, due to its increased
capabilities. It will be able to
observe some of the most distant
events of the universe such as the
formation of the first galaxies, which
is beyond the reach of Y.
 It will also be able to search for the
light from the first stars and
galaxies, and to study planetary
systems and the origins of life. It will
have a much greater capacity for
infrared astronomy than Y.
X

A2
 X- James Webb Space Telescope
 Y- Hubble Space Telescope

Q3
•According to this map, the
size of Greenland is roughly
equal to the size of Africa.
•In reality, however,
Greenland is 14 times
smaller than Africa.
•This map preserves the
shape of the countries at the
cost of distortion of size due
to it being a cylindrical
projection of the globe.
•It is the most widely used
world map despite its
criticisms.
ID

Q4
 This is the theory that any person on the planet
can be connected to any other person on the
planet through a chain of acquaintances that has
no more than five intermediaries.
 In 1967, American sociologist Stanley Milgram
devised a new way to test the theory, which he
called "the small-world problem."
 He randomly selected people in the midwest to
send packages to a stranger located in Boston.
The senders knew the recipient's name,
occupation and general location. Each
participant was instructed to send the package to
a person he knew on a first-name basis who was
most likely, out of all the participant's friends, to
know the target personally. That person would
do the same, and so on until the package was
personally delivered to its target recipient. It was
expected that the chain would include at least a
hundred intermediaries, it only took between five
and seven intermediaries for each package to be

A4
 Six degrees of separation

Q5
 When a key is pressed, an
electrical current is sent
through the machine. The
current first passes through the
plug board, then through the
three rotors, through the
reflector which reverses the
current, back through the three
rotors, back through the plug
board and then the encrypted
letter is lot on the display. After
the display is lit up, the rotors
rotate similar to an odometer
where the rightmost rotor must
complete one revolution before
the middle rotor rotates one
position and so on.

Q6
 On April 16th 19 43, Albert Hofmann was in the final stage
of synthesis of just a few centigrams of a material, when
he suddenly felt very strange to the point that he had to
leave work and go home. When he returned to the lab the
following Monday, he wrote a memo to his boss, Stoll,
explaining what had happened:
“I was forced to interrupt my work in the lab...At home I lay
down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like
condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated
imagination. In a dream like state...I perceived an
uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary
shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours.”
 After that he came to the conclusion that he must have
somehow ingested a trace of X. The only point of access
would have been the skin through his fingertips, and the
amount involved would have been so tiny that he could not
imagine it could produce such a significant reaction.

Mega Connect
 5 individual questions on pounce only.
 The clue given at the end of each answer forms a part of
the mega connect.
 Marking scheme for individual questions on mega-connect:
+60/-10
+50/-15
+40/-20
+30/-25
+20/-30
+10/-35

A1
 Tachyon
 Light goes into the megaconnect.

Q2
 The United States govt mandated that alcohol must be ‘natural’
for it to be certified fit for consumption. This means it should be
produced from fruit rather than petroleum. There is however no
difference between them chemically. Plants get their energy from
atmospheric CO2 which imparts plants with a property that is not
found in the alcohol produced from petroleum. Hence, to check
whether the alcohol is produced naturally, it is tested for
something.
 What is alcohol checked for?

A2
 Radioactivity
 Carbon goes in the megaconnect

Q3
 Explain the phenomenon/Give funda.

A3
 Triple point of water/ The temperature and pressure at
which the three phases (gas, liquid and solid) of water
exist at once.

Q4
 In 2016, seaborne radiation from Japan’s Fukushima
nuclear disaster had been detected on the West Coast of the
United States. Massive amounts of contaminated water were
released from the crippled nuclear plant following a 9.0
magnitude earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. More
radiation was released to the air, then fell to the sea.
 Outcry was created in the United States, because, “while
Americans may get exposed to X-rays, they don’t want to be
exposed to Japanese radiation.”
 "To put it in context, if you were to swim everyday for six hours a
day in those waters for a year, that additional radiation from the
addressed ______ from Japan ... is 1000 times smaller than
one dental x-ray.”
What is the leaked radioactive substance responsible for the above
controversy?

A4
 Cesium-134 (Cesium will be accepted)
 Cesium goes into mega-connect.

Q5
 X is a virtually indestructible steel alloy named after a metal in
Greek mythology. The metal has its origins in the work of
American metallurgist Dr. Myron MacLain during World War II
when the U.S. government assigned him to military research and
development.
 Extraordinarily expensive to produce, X is created through the
mixing of certain chemical resins whose exact composition is a
closely guarded government secret. For eight minutes after the
resins are mixed, X can be molded if kept at a temperature of
1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Its extremely stable molecular
structure prevents it from being molded further, even if the
temperature remains high enough to keep it in liquefied form.
Hardened X can only be altered by rearrangement of its cellular
structure. Given sufficient mass, X could survive a direct hit from
a nuclear weapon or a blow from the most powerful superhuman.
The only known substance able to pierce X is the compound
known as Antarctic Vibranium, also called "anti-metal".

A5
 Adamantium
 Alloy goes into mega-connect.

Q5 Hint
 The Japanese scientist Lord Dark Wind was the first to
propose a procedure by which X could be bonded to a
human skeleton. Dark Wind's theory was practiced by
the ClanDestine Weapon X Program who subjected their
former mutant operative, Wolverine, to the procedure.
Wolverine's mutant healing factor allowed him to survive
the process and induced a molecular change in the metal,
transforming it into a wholly new metal, named X Beta that
does not inhibit the biological processes of bone.
(back to Q5)

Final clues
 Light
 Carbon-12
 Triple point of water
 Cesium-133
 Platinum-Iridium alloy

Mega Connect Answer
 Modalities used as standards for SI units.
Speed of light: Metre
Carbon 12: Mole
Triple point of water: Kelvin
Atomic clock with Cesium-133: Second
Platinum-iridium alloy: Kilogram

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