29

							General Quiz: Dt. 28.6.2001
Q-File 29
Qns by: Anindya S.Ray

1) "It was love at first sight." So said he about his physics class. His
colleagues sometimes called him the "prize wild idea man" because of the
huge range of his activities. He was part of the Manhattan project in Los
Alamos and was on board the bomber Enola Gay when it dropped the bomb on
Hiroshima. He also assisted the Warren Commission that investigated the
assassination of President Kennedy and holds 22 patents, including an
indoor golf-training machine he developed for President Eisenhower. Name
this Nobel-winning physicist.
ans)Luis Alvarez

2) "If a lion chases you to the bank of a river filled with crocodiles,
you will leap into the water convinced you have a chance to swim to the
other side. But you would never accept such odds if there were no lion."
About which famous event in science is this being said?
ans)Christian Barnard on the world's first successful heart
transplant..... Barnard had a patient, 55-year-old Louis Washkansky, who
had diabetes and incurable heart disease. Washkansky could either wait
for certain death or risk transplant surgery with an 80 percent chance of
surviving. He chose the surgery.

3) "The Italian navigator has just landed in the new world." What is the
significance of this statement in the world of science?
ans)It is the coded message to US Govt following successful testing of
the first controlled nuclear reaction by Enrico Fermi

4) Written during a politically-oppressive atmosphere in the early 1950s
when McCarthyism was rampant, this film's screenplay was tightly scripted
from a Collier's Magazine story titled The Tin Star by John W.
Cunningham. The story has often been interpreted as a metaphor for the
Hollywood blacklisted artists who faced persecution from the HUAC. The
time span of the film (about 105 minutes) approximates the actual screen
length of the film - 85 minutes - accentuated by frequent images of the
clock. Name this inimitable western.
ans)"High Noon" (1952).....one of my all-time fav movies.......*ing Gary
Cooper,Grace Kelly

5)   Over 2 years in making, this film employed 3,700 extras, 1,000 of
whom were unemployed men who agreed to have their heads shaved for a
particular sequence. Although it caused quite a stir upon its release,
the picture was so expensive that UFA, the studio that had bankrolled it,
was nudged toward bankruptcy and was ultimately sold. Name this film
which was ....(now this gives away!!)....inspired by a street ablaze with
neon.
ans)Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1927)

6) Known as Captain Zap among his friends, he was the first hacker to be
tried and convicted as a felon. He broke into AT&T's computers in 1981
and changed the internal clocks that metered billing rates. People were
getting late-night discount rates when they called at midday. Name this
guy who also inspired the movie "Sneakers".
ans)Ian Murphy

7) David Low, the late British political cartoonist, called him "the
most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo." His talents were
first used in a silent cartoon entitled "Plane Crazy." This mercurial
genius also personally directed the design of an Experimental Prototype
Community of Tomorrow, planned as a living showcase for the creativity of
American industry. Who?
ans)Walt Disney

8) He has a staggering 558 patents, costing companies around the world
some $1.5 billion in licensing fees. The cos paying for licenses on his
patents include an eclectic mix of Boeing,Alcoa,GE,Ford,GM, IBM,HP,Cisco.
His patents have covered Velcro darts and industrial robots, crying dolls
and semiconductors, and also the ubiquitous bar-code scanner. Who?
ans)Jerome Lemelson

9) This company's mission was "creative integration of soy into the
average American diet." They launched a soymilk product called Silk,
which was instrumental in their phenomenal sales growth from $6 million
in 1993 to $81 million in 2001. Name the co.
ans)White Wave (Founder & CEO, Steve Demos)

10) She was once anointed by Barron's as "Queen of the Net", lovingly
profiled by the New Yorker, equated with Alan Greenspan and Warren
Buffett as a market mover by Wall Street Journal. Once the most important
voice for Internet during the dotcom craze, her importance has now
diminished as the stocks she has never downgraded, namely, Amazon,
Priceline, Yahoo, Freemarkets, have all declined between 85% and 97% from
their peak. Who?
ans)Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley Internet analyst