The Sci-Tech filler Quiz at the NSIT Quiz Fest 2014, conducted by the NSIT Quiz Club from 21st-23rd Feb.

1. Sci-Tech Quiz
NSIT Quiz Fest 2014

2. 1
Werner Herzog shot his 2009 film My Son, My Son, What Have
Ye Done? with the ______ camera. He was disappointed with the
camera's long reboot times, saying "It drove me insane, because
sometimes something is happening and you can't just push the
button and record it".
Others have praised the camera for its quality, versatility and
compactness, allowing greater freedom for movie directors.
Other famous movies shot with this camera are The Hobbit, The
Social Network and Prometheus.
FITB.

3. Red One/ Red Digital Cinema Camera

4. 2
X was founded in 1996. The company's name was a homage to
the Library of Y, drawing a parallel between the largest
repository of knowledge in the ancient world and the potential
of the Internet to become a similar store of knowledge.
The company’s toolbar gave users suggestions on browsing
based on traffic patterns, context for each site visited, how many
pages it had, how many other sites pointed to it, and how
frequently it was updated.
In 1999, X was acquired by Amazon for about $250 million.
X & Y? No part points.

5. X – Alexa
Y - Alexandria

6. 3
The material used to make X is an alloy of 2 rare Earth elements.
The estimated cost of the most advanced version of X is a few
hundred million dollars. Some of the many “unbelievable”
features of X are the User Interface and the computer providing
offline support to the person using X, and the manner in which
the energy from the power source is converted to a stabilized
electricity supply to allow the various components of X to
function in the less than ideal situation in which an X may be
used.
X?

7. Iron Man’s suit.

8. 4
1. __ Jarvis
2. Make me a sandwich -- What? Make it yourself
BUT,
Sudo, make me a sandwich -- OK
3. Beam me up Scotty
I cannot do it captain, I don't have the power
4. When am I?
The present, of course. TARDIS functionality is still undergoing
development, sorry.
5. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck
could chuck wood?
A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could if a
woodchuck could chuck wood.”
6. What is the answer to life, the universe and everything?
The answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.
Connect.

9. Google Now Easter Eggs

10. 5
X will hold a contest called Y in March, in which hackers
can put their skills to the test by trying to hack into either
the HP or the Acer device running Y’s OS.
The company will pay USD 2.71828 million in prize money
in total.
To earn the $US110,000 payouts, hackers will have to
compromise the OS through a web page. For the
$US150,000 prize, hackers will have to compromise the
computers so thoroughly that the machine is still under
their control even after it has been rebooted.
X and Y? Part points.

11. X : Google
Y : Pwnium 4

12. 6
X began his career at Boeing, where he developed
a hydraulic pressure resonance suppressor still used
in the 747.
X began his professional entertainment career as an
actor on a comedy TV show, “Almost Live!”.
He tried to correct the show host's pronunciation of
"gigawatt”. The host responded, "Who do you think
you are — X the ___Y__ ___?" and X was
thereafter known as Y on the program.
X was recently in news, living up to the title Y. X?

13. X - Bill Nye
Bill Nye The Science Guy

14. 7
"Do these people have no consideration? It is OK to
take pride in the event, but why bother me? All
sorts of people from ____ have been writing to
me, clogging up my email box. It takes me an hour
or two to just remove their mails. There are also
people who have never bothered to be in touch
with me for decades who suddenly feel the urge to
connect. I find this strange”
Whose reaction in an interview in 2009?

15. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, on being flooded
with emails after winning the Nobel Prize for
Chemistry in 2009.
“Person of Indian origin”

16. 8
X(1731-1810) is known for his experiment to determine Y. X was
a shy man who was uncomfortable in society and avoided it
when he could. He conversed little, and developed no known
deep personal attachments outside his family.
Because of his asocial and secretive behaviour, X often avoided
publishing his work. J.C. Maxwell looked through X's papers and
found discoveries/considerations for which others had been
given credit, including Richter's law of reciprocal
proportions, Ohm's law, Dalton's law of partial
pressures, principles of electrical conductivity and Charles's law
of gases.
X?

17. X : Henry Cavendish
Y : Gravitational Constant

18. 9
The X syndrome is a condition exclusive to Japanese tourists to
the city X, which causes them to have a mental breakdown
while visiting X.
The condition is a severe form of ‘culture shock’. Polite
Japanese tourists who come to the city are unable to come to
terms with views seen in films such as ____, with the reality of
a modern, bustling metropolis. Japanese tourists who come
into contact with, say, a rude ___ waiter, will be unable to
argue back and be forced to bottle up their anger which
eventually leads to a mental breakdown.
X?

19. X – Paris
The Paris Syndrome

20. 10
In 2007, pharmacies across New Zealand began dispensing a new
formulation of Eltroxin - a thyroid hormone replacement. Initial reports
of side effects of the drug, included eye pain, itching, and nausea. In
the 18 months following the release of the new tablet, the rate of
adverse event reporting rose nearly 2,000-fold.
The strange thing was, the active ingredient in the drug was exactly the
same. Laboratory testing proved that the new formulation was
equivalent to the old one. The only change was that the drug-maker
had altered the tablets’ size, color, and markings.
What is the scientific phenomenon associated with the reason for why
people were getting sick?

21. The Nocebo Effect
(opposite of the Placebo Effect)

22. 11
The star on the left is about twice as
massive as the Sun and has an
absolute visual magnitude of 1.42.
Its 25 times more luminous than the
Sun but is significantly less luminous
than other stars such as Canopus or
Rigel. The system is between 200
and 300 million years old and was
originally composed of two bluish
stars. The more massive of these (on
the right), consumed its resources
and became a red giant before
collapsing into its current state as a
white dwarf around 120 million
years ago. What is the name of the
binary star system?

23. Sirius star system.

24. 12
The mascot of the BSD OSs, the BSD X, is named
after a software X, a computer program found
on Unix-like operating systems, which through a
play on words takes the cartoon shape of a
mythical demon. The BSD X's nickname Y is a
slurred phonetic pronunciation of BSD. Y
customarily carries a trident to symbolize a
software X's forking of processes.

25. X - Daemon
Y – Beastie

26. 13
Dr. Mukopadhyay(M) is credited as having created the world's
second and India's first __________________. He was harassed
and not allowed to share his achievements with the international
scientific community. Dejected, he committed suicide in 1981.
Ek Doctor Ki Maut is an award winning film based on the life of
Dr. M, in which Pankaj Kapoor played the role of the protaganist.
Dr. M eventually received recognition for his work when T.C
Anand Kumar who was given credit for the first official
__________________ of India, scrutinised Dr. M’s work and
became certain that Dr. M was the architect of the first
__________________ in India.
FITB/ funda.

27. Human test-tube baby

28. X is a phenomenon that represents a pronounced reduction in the size of
the biota associated with the aftermath of mass extinctions. Although there
is empirical evidence that suggests that it may be a common pattern during
the recoveries from various mass extinction events, it remains to be
analyzed in more detail to understand how pervasive the trend is.
X could represent dynamics associated with or important diversions from a
variety of biologic „rules‟governing size changes.
Finally, an interdisciplinary approach, involving
stratigraphy, phylogenetics, and sclerochronology, is necessary to better
understand the ecologic and evolutionary underpinnings of X. This
approach needs to be more uniformly applied to different extinctions and
taxonomic groups, allowing a more effective comparison and resulting in a
more holistic perspective on X.
14

29. The Lilliput Effect.

30. 15
In a recent interview X revealed that he was at a science meeting where physicists
discussed a "theory of _______”. But the discussion went on late into the night, and X
went to bed early, thus failing to make a key connection between his work and that of
others.
X missed its true significance at the time and his colleagues received the Nobel prize in
1979 for ideas that lie at the heart of the ____ ___, and X might have been among
them. Others received credit for formulating a theory in which the X’s ____ plays an
important role.
On (eventually) receiving recognition for his work, X said: "I really rather hoped before
the announcement that they would make the number up to three, and there was
certainly an obvious candidate - Tom Kibble.”

31. Professor Peter Higgs.

32. 16
The Patent Claim description includes:
• A hearing device
• Monitoring system including sensor to detect head motion
• Biometric sensor for receiving the head motion data from the activity
sensor; determining whether
• Matching head motion data to predetermined head gesture
• Identifying action associated with the head gesture
• Receiving biometric data from sensor; determining if biometric data
matches a predetermined physical characteristic
• Identifying action associated with matching physical characteristic;
performing the identified action on a portable electronic device in
communication with the hearing device.
(Pic on next slide)
What?

33. 17 (continued)

34. Apple sensor-packed health monitoring
headphones

35. 17
X is a gesture recognition technology startup. Founded by
Navneet Dalal and Mehul Nariyawala, the company received
early-stage funding from Y Combinator. The valuation of X, as
of October 2013, is approximately $40 million.
The company's first product ”X App" allowed users to control
apps such as iTunes, Spotify, VLC, and QuickTime using hand
gestures. It utilizes gesture recognition technology that works
with the webcam on a user's computer. X recognizes the
gestures of a person's hands between one and six feet
away, based on an algorithm Dalal worked on during his PhD.
X?

36. Flutter

37. 18
These are some of the tips released by X for its users of Y.
DO’S
• Explore the world around you
• Take advantage of the Y voice commands.
• Ask for permission
• Use screen lock
• Be an active and vocal member of the Y _____ Community
DON’TS:
• Y-out
• Wear it and expect to be ignored
• Be creepy or rude (aka, a “Y-hole”).
Y?

38. X : Google
Y : Glass

39. 19
What is the significance
of this vending machine?
The first _____ vending machine installed in New Mexico on 18th
February 2014. FITB.

40. Bitcoin

41. 20
What has been blanked out?

42. Baidu

43. 21
X is a room-temperature superconductor for energy, which
makes it very valuable; it is worth $40 million per kilogram. X has
an extremely strong magnetic field, reversing prior knowledge
that all superconductors repel magnetic fields.
Unlike the fragile crystals of human-created superconducting
compounds, the substance is a stable quasi-crystal. X has a
unique magnetic field and properties of
superconductivity, causing it to levitate in magnetic fields, aptly
called Thundering Rocks by the natives of the place where it is
found.
Originally, the term X was slang used in the aerospace
industry, to describe hard-to-access materials with mythical
properties.

44. Unobtainium

45. 22
The naming of
what in the tech
world has been
inspired by this
place?

46. Mavericks, California; in the honour of the inspiration
it provided to its engineers, Apple named its latest
OS (OS X) as Mavericks

47. 23
Rumored/ leaked details about X:
• Specifications : 4-inch WVGA display, 854 x 540
resolution, possibly dual-SIM, a dual-core Snapdragon 200
chipset, 512MB RAM, a 5MP camera, 4GB expandable
storage, and a 1,500 mAh battery.
• The company(Y) will be developing its own applications for X.
The Applications Store is code-named ___ on Linux and Y has
already negotiated most of the top 100 Play Store
applications.
• Pricing of X is suggested to be €80.
• The codename for this product is intrinsically related to the
end of World War II.
What is X?

48. Nokia Normandy or Nokia X.

49. 24
X is the theoretical process of modifying the
atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a
planet or moon to make it habitable by Earth-like life. The term
was coined by Jack Williamson in a science-fiction story "Collision
Orbit”, in 1942.
The concept X precedes the use of the word itself. H.G. Wells
described a reverse-X, in The War of the Worlds. In Man of
Steel, General Zod attempts to use reverse-X to revive the
environment of planet Krypton on Earth. A crew member in
Prometheus bets another that the purpose of their visit is X.
X?

50. Terra-forming

51. 25
Leaders of the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and
Endowment (GAIAE) in the UAE issued a fatwa against this
program as they consider it tantamount to suicide, which is
strictly forbidden in Islam. So far 500 Saudis and Arabs have
volunteered to take part in it, including over 2000 from other
countries.
Which program is being talked about?

52. Mars One Mission