Aqua Regia '13 — Hyderabad City Finals

Date -- 4 December 2013 (Wednesday).
Place -- Bhavans Hall, Bashir Bagh.
Age limit -- Classes 8 to 10.

Round 1

1. What do the elements with the atomic numbers 31, 32, 84, 87, and 95 have in common?

A. They are all named after countries.

2. In the context of sports, what does inducting a person into the Hall of Shame signify?

A. It means that they have been caught for drug abuse.

3. A thief enters a rich person's house at night, when no one is home. In the middle of the room, he stands still. He wants to move, he is completely capable of moving, but he can't move and doesn't move, and is caught by the police in this position six hours later. Why couldn't he move?

A. If he moves, he gets caught by the motion sensor's infrared rays.

4. A woman buys a bottle of Kissan jam and gives it to her daughter-in-law to open. The younger woman is unable to open, so she borrows a pin and opens it. How?

A. The bottle is sealed with a vacuum. When the pin is used to prick the lid of the bottle, air enters the bottle and the air pressure inside and outside equalises, making the bottle easier to open.

5. In rural India, Nathuram owns a shop. A bulb socket is kept inside the shop, which holds only one bulb at a time. However, he keeps two bulbs, and changes one bulb for the other at intervals. Explain.

A. [Due to it being rural India] there is an occasional fluctuation in voltage. So he changes the bulb according to the voltage available at the time.

6. ticketmaster.com is a website selling tickets to various events. It has recently developed an algorithm to reduce the number of bots, in order to ensure fair distribution of tickets. What are bots?

A. They are semi-automated computer programmes which perform a task in bulk.

7. Give the context -- "We come in peace for all mankind."

A. This was the message left by the Apollo 11 mission on the moon to extraterrestrial life, if it exists.

8. In a particular section of a hospital, a notice can be found, of which the last word is "illegal". What is the content of this notice, mandated by law?

A. Prenatal sex determination is illegal.

Round 2

1) Identify the study mentioned here.

A. Dendrochronology.

2) What is the object in this video?

A. The fuel tank of a space shuttle.

3) What are these people doing and what is it known as?

A. Searching for WI-Fi signals. The practice is known as wardriving.

4) <A video of a man being immobilized by a gun-like device.> What is the immobilizer device known as?
A. Taser.

5) When this video was taken, there was one person who was neither on the Earth nor on the Moon. Who was it?

A. Michael Collins.

6) What is this plane doing?

A. Fighting forest fires.

7) What are the full forms of these abbreviations?

 

 A. International Unit, microgram and milligram.

8) What is the name of this arrangement? It is abbreviated as RP.

A. Rack and Pinion.

 Round 3 - Rapid Fire

1. In what piece of naval equipment is light made to reflect 90° twice?

A. Periscope.

2. Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Dave Brubeck are only a few among those who are followers of this. Which scientific religious cult, created by sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard, proposes that human beings are immortal?

A. Scientology.

3. Which branch of science is used in English to say that two people have a good relationship with each other?

A. Chemistry.

4. Which 6-letter word is used to describe the process carried out when a 90° angle is divided into two?

A. Bisect.

5. Name the sportsperson who became the No. 1 in his sport just three months after he gave up eating bananas, because he was allergic to the gluten in them.

A. Novak Djokovic.

6. Give the four-letter nickname given by cricket commentators and broadcasters to a graphical comparison of the performance of two teams.

A. Worm chart.

7. Which SI unit of measurement shares its name with an informal English term for an insider spy system?

A. Mole.

8. Which is the 5-letter medical term given for a mentally abnormal state characterised by a flight of ideas and elevated mood?

A. Mania.

Aqua Regia '13 — Bangalore City Finals

Venue -- J.N. Tata Auditorium, IIS, Bangalore

Date -- 28 November 2013, Friday.

Age limit -- Classes 8 to 10.

 Prelims

1) Which nuclear disaster, which occurred in 1986, does this map depict?

2) Which company, founded by Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka, introduced the first commercially successful radio in 1952?

3) On which principle does the fountain pen work?

4) For what reason was this doodle used by Google on 22 April, 2007? 

 

5) Which medical field is Rabindranath Tagore connected to?



6) Which acid is used in car batteries?
7) Who is this person, who cloned the world's first sheep?

8) What is the common name for the disease which is technically known as methemoglobinaemia?
9) What is the name of the 2006 documentary which was subtitled "A Global Warning" and whose advertising poster is shown here?

10) What is the name of the instrument shown here, which is used to measure electric current?



11) How many chambers are present in the human heart?
12) What gas was responsible for the Bhopal gas tragedy?
13) Which compound makes toothpaste white in colour?
14) Which is the only continent on which giraffes are found?
15) What is the name of the disease which is commonly known as "The White Death"?
Hint: It can be cured using the treatment known as DOTS.
16) <A video clip was shown from the James Bond movie Skyfall, showing the Queen and Bond flying over London in a helicopter.> What is the name of the tourist attraction shown in this video which is known for being one of the largest of its kind, apart from being one of the most highly-paid tourist attractions in London?
17) In the film ఈగ (Fly), what is the name of the camera used to shoot scenes from the fly's point of view?
18) Which country is known as the Land of the Flying Fish?
Hint: +Rihanna comes from this country.
19) Who is the founder and chairman of the Virgin Group of Companies, who authored an autobiography titled Losing My Virginity?



20) What is the name of this phenomenon?

Answers

1) The Chernobyl disaster.

2) Sony.

3) Capillary action.

4) Earth Day.

5) Homoeopathy.

6) Sulphuric acid.

7) Ian Wilmut.

8) Blue baby syndrome.

9) An Inconvenient Truth (by +Al Gore).

10) Galvanometer.

11) 4.

12) Methyl isocyanate.

13) Titanium dioxide.

14) Africa.

15) Tuberculosis.

16) London Eye.

17) Scorpio.

18) Barbados.

19) +Richard Branson.

20) Recoil.

Bumper question: Fill in the blank.

Finals

Round 1 -- Blastoff

Round 2 -- Spectrum

Round 3 -- Orbital Velocity

Round 4 -- Salvo - The Rapid Fire

Round 1

1) A particular thing was developed in August 2013 by Maastricht University in the Netherlands, which had a backing of a quarter million euro by +Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google. What are we talking about?

A. The first artificial beefburger.

2) Before the first humans went to space, a wide variety of animals were sent to space. However, birds were never sent. Why?

A. Because the lack of gravity would adversely affect birds' ability to fly.

3) Compounds of this substance are used to cure inflammations caused by psoriatic arthritis and other such diseases. Recent studies have found that it also has the potential to cure certain types of cancer. Which element is this?

A. Gold.

4) What is mariculture?

A. The rearing of fish and other aquatic organisms in a saltwater environment.

5) Which was the first completely artificial fibre to be produced?

A. Nylon.

6) In the Roman era, this metal was obtained mainly from Cyprus, and got its name from this place. What is it known as today?

A. Copper.

Audience question: Who invented the equals (=) symbol?

A. Robert Recorde.

Round 2

1) To mark what medical milestone was this Amul ad created?
N.B. : This question was not asked because its answer was prematurely shown.



A. The first test-tube baby.

2) What is this?

A. The Google doodle created to represent Louis Braille's birthday.

3) To commemorate what was this stamp issued?

A. The anniversary of Edward Jenner's process of vaccination.

4) What does this picture show?

A. The aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

5) What does this picture show?

A. Laika the dog.

6) The blue circle shows the Large Hadron Collider. What does the green circle show?



A. CERN.

7. What kind of vehicle was invented by Christopher Cockerell?



A. Hovercraft.

Round 3

1) In 1914, if people wanted to travel very fast over long distances, they would take a car instead of a plane. Why was this so?

A. Because cars were faster than planes.

2) What is the active chemical substance in the salivary secretion of leeches, which prevents the blood from clotting while sucking blood from animals?

A. Hirudin.

3) In which US national park is the Old Faithful geyser located?

A. Yellowstone National Park.

4) Which programming language was developed by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie?

A. C

5) Which is the only part of the human body which receives no blood supply, and instead takes in oxygen directly from the air?

A. Cornea.

6) The votes of Michael Fincke and Gregory Chamitoff in the Obama elections were something unusual. What was extraordinary about their votes?

A. They voted from space.

Aud: "The maximum possible mass of a stable cold star, above which it must collapse to become a black hole." What is the name of this law and who is it named after?

A. The Chandrashekhar limit, after Subrahmanyan Chandrashekhar.

Round 4 -- Rapid Fire

1) Which 2-word term is used to describe an upward speed of 40,000 km/h?

A. Escape velocity.

2) What is technically known as the laryngeal prominence?

A. Adam's apple.

3) What type of lens is known as a meniscus?

A. A convex-concave lens.

4) In accordance with what principle are insects able to walk on water?

A. Surface tension.

5) In the CGS system of measurement units, it is a dyne. What is it in the SI system?

A. Newton.

6) In its earliest form in 1176, a hand-cranked propellor was used to operate it. What is it?

A. Submarine.

7) What was first extracted from opium by Friedrich Sertürner in 1903?

A. Morphine.

8) What is the usual colour of copper sulphate?

A. Blue.

9) Who proposed that light is made of packets of energy?

A. Albert Einstein.

10) What is the abbreviation of Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation?

A. Laser.

Aud: Who proposed the variable x for an unknown quantity? He said, "I think, I know, therefore I am."

A. René Descartes.

Answer to Bumper Question: Chemical.

Aqua Regia '13 — Bangalore Regional Finals

Venue -- J.N. Tata Auditorium, IISc, Bangalore.

Date -- 28 November 2013, Friday.
Age limit -- Classes 8 to 10.

Round 1 -- Blastoff
Round 2 -- Spectrum
Round 3 -- Orbital Velocity
Round 4 -- Salvo - The Rapid Fire

Round 1

1) X received a posthumous fellowship from the Royal Society of London in 2002 for his contributions to forensic science. However, what was strange about this was that X did not exist at all. Who is X?

A. Sherlock Holmes. :-)

2) placeholder

3) This company has the same name as the verb used to describe it. The word, in turn, gets its name from the Greek word meaning "drying". What is the word?

A. Xerox.

4) This object is the subject of much curiosity. It was created in 1879 and was stored in a sealed container till 1955, when it was taken out and placed in a pressured jar by Thomas Harvey for 20 years. It was finally studied in 1975. What are we talking about?

A. Albert Einstein's brain.

5) Which acid gets its name from the Latin word for "ant"?

A. Formic acid.

6) Between the year 1968, when it was invented, and 1975, it reached hardly 50 people. It is now manufactured by a company known as BMVSS. It is especially popular in war-hit areas such as Afghanistan and Syria. What is this?

A. The Jaipur leg.

Aud: Who invented the machine gun?

A. Richard Gatling.

Round 2

1) Connect the word "temperature" to these three scientists.

   

A. (Daniel Gabriel) Fahrenheit, (Anders) Celsius, (William Thomson, Lord) Kelvin.

2) Name the dog and what it is special for.

A. The Basenji dog doesn't bark.

3) What is its significance in computer terminology?



A. It is a virus which pretends to be a desirable program in order to gain entry into our computer.

4) Which organisation uses this video as an advertisement?

A. +Greenpeace International 


5) What is this documentary about?

 

6) What is this device which was patented in 1880?

A. Light bulb.

Aud: Who is this person who is connected with this year's Nobel Prize in Physics?

A. Peter Higgs.

Round 3

1) Swami Vivekananda and J.N. Tata met on a ship in 1893. While discussing the future of India, Vivekananda advised Jamsetji to build a university for the advancement of science. Which university was thus established?

A. IISc.

2) In the 19th century, this field was popularly known as "Mr Tylor's science" because it was largely dominated by Edward Tylor. Which branch of science are we talking about?

A. Anthropology.

3) What is the one-word term for a substance which is used to destroy pests, pathogens, and weeds, and is organic in nature? Examples of this include canola oil and baking soda.

A. Biopesticide.

4) Anousheh Ansari became the first to achieve something on 18 September 2005. What?

A. She was the first woman space tourist.

5) In the preface to his book A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking notes that for each equation the book contained, its readership would be halved. Therefore, it contains only a single equation. Which?
A. E=mc²

6) Seymour Cray, an American electrical engineer, founded the Cray Research company. What was it formed to research?
A. Supercomputers.

Aud: Which organisation uses this logo?

A. CSIR.

Round 4 -- Rapid Fire

1) How many people have set foot on the moon till now?

A. 12.

(9 placeholder questions)

Have a nice day!