Mark Brader
2024-02-28 01:34:32 UTC
These questions were written to be asked in Toronto on 2024-02-05,
and should be interpreted accordingly.
On each question you may give up to two answers, but if you give
both a right answer and a wrong answer, there is a small penalty.
Please post all your answers in a single followup to the newsgroup,
based only on your own knowledge. (In your answer posting, quote
the questions and place your answer below each one.) I will reveal
the correct answers in about 3 days.
All questions were written by members of the Misplaced Modifiers
and are used here by permission, but have been reformatted and may
have been retyped and/or edited by me. The posting and tabulation
of current-events questions is independent of the concurrent posting
of other rounds. For further information please see my 2023-05-24
companion posting on "Questions from the Canadian Inquisition
(QFTCI*)".
* Game 2, Round 4 - History - Technological Advances with Historic Impact
This round is about technological advances over the past 150 years
that have had a historic impact on the world. For each technology
or innovation, we'll ask for the year it was invented, patented,
or launched, as we specify -- in each case, plus or minus 5 years.
1. Automobile: The year when German engine designer and automotive
engineer Karl (or Carl) Benz patented the first gasoline-powered
car.
2. Phonograph: The year when American inventor and businessman
Thomas Edison patented the cylinder phonograph.
3. Television: The year when Scottish inventor and electrical
engineer John Logie Baird demonstrated the world's first live
working television system.
4. The tank: The year when designers Walter Wilson and William
Tritton in Britain and Eugè ne Brillié in France invented the
first operational military tanks.
5. World Wide Web: The year when English computer scientist Tim
Berners-Lee invented the Web.
6. YouTube: The year when the first popular video-streaming site
was launched by Taiwanese-American Internet entrepreneur Steve
Chen, American webmaster and businessman Chad Hurley, and
American software engineer and Internet entrepreneur Jawed Karim.
7. Transistor: The year when American physicists John Bardeen,
Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented this semiconductor
device at Bell Labs.
8. Nylon: The year when the first fully synthetic fiber was produced
by chemist Wallace Carothers while working at DuPont.
9. Radio: The year when Italian electrical engineer Guglielmo
Marconi sent the first wireless signals across the Atlantic
Ocean.
10. Airplane: The year when American aviation pioneers Orville
and Wilbur Wright made the first controlled and sustained flight
of an engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft.
* Game 2, Round 6 - Science - Scales and Measurements
1. A tachometer measures the working speed of an engine. In what
*units* does a tachometer typically measure?
2. What is the ancient unit of measurement oft-cited in the Bible
that was equivalent to the distance from one's elbow to the
tip of one's middle Finger?
3. What is the name of the unit used to measure the height of
horses?
4. The strongest recorded earthquakes to hit Toronto were of
virtually the same magnitude and occurred on 2010-06-23 and
2013-05-17. Within 0.1, what was the measurement of these
earthquakes on the Richter scale?
5. What is the name given to the most accurate kind of clock,
considered accurate to within one second in 20,000,000 years?
6. When we put on a sphygmomanometer, what are we measuring?
7. What does an anemometer measure?
8. Many -- or most? -- members of this trivia league make use of
an everyday item whose strength is measured in diopters. What
do diopters measure?
9. The Bristol Scale is graded from 1 -- "separate hard lumps" --
to 7 -- "entirely liquid." What does the Bristol Scale measure?
10. What is the name of the system of weights measured in pounds
and ounces, First used in the medieval wool trade and
standardized by international treaty in 1959? Its name derives
from the French term meaning "goods sold by weight."
and should be interpreted accordingly.
On each question you may give up to two answers, but if you give
both a right answer and a wrong answer, there is a small penalty.
Please post all your answers in a single followup to the newsgroup,
based only on your own knowledge. (In your answer posting, quote
the questions and place your answer below each one.) I will reveal
the correct answers in about 3 days.
All questions were written by members of the Misplaced Modifiers
and are used here by permission, but have been reformatted and may
have been retyped and/or edited by me. The posting and tabulation
of current-events questions is independent of the concurrent posting
of other rounds. For further information please see my 2023-05-24
companion posting on "Questions from the Canadian Inquisition
(QFTCI*)".
* Game 2, Round 4 - History - Technological Advances with Historic Impact
This round is about technological advances over the past 150 years
that have had a historic impact on the world. For each technology
or innovation, we'll ask for the year it was invented, patented,
or launched, as we specify -- in each case, plus or minus 5 years.
1. Automobile: The year when German engine designer and automotive
engineer Karl (or Carl) Benz patented the first gasoline-powered
car.
2. Phonograph: The year when American inventor and businessman
Thomas Edison patented the cylinder phonograph.
3. Television: The year when Scottish inventor and electrical
engineer John Logie Baird demonstrated the world's first live
working television system.
4. The tank: The year when designers Walter Wilson and William
Tritton in Britain and Eugè ne Brillié in France invented the
first operational military tanks.
5. World Wide Web: The year when English computer scientist Tim
Berners-Lee invented the Web.
6. YouTube: The year when the first popular video-streaming site
was launched by Taiwanese-American Internet entrepreneur Steve
Chen, American webmaster and businessman Chad Hurley, and
American software engineer and Internet entrepreneur Jawed Karim.
7. Transistor: The year when American physicists John Bardeen,
Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented this semiconductor
device at Bell Labs.
8. Nylon: The year when the first fully synthetic fiber was produced
by chemist Wallace Carothers while working at DuPont.
9. Radio: The year when Italian electrical engineer Guglielmo
Marconi sent the first wireless signals across the Atlantic
Ocean.
10. Airplane: The year when American aviation pioneers Orville
and Wilbur Wright made the first controlled and sustained flight
of an engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft.
* Game 2, Round 6 - Science - Scales and Measurements
1. A tachometer measures the working speed of an engine. In what
*units* does a tachometer typically measure?
2. What is the ancient unit of measurement oft-cited in the Bible
that was equivalent to the distance from one's elbow to the
tip of one's middle Finger?
3. What is the name of the unit used to measure the height of
horses?
4. The strongest recorded earthquakes to hit Toronto were of
virtually the same magnitude and occurred on 2010-06-23 and
2013-05-17. Within 0.1, what was the measurement of these
earthquakes on the Richter scale?
5. What is the name given to the most accurate kind of clock,
considered accurate to within one second in 20,000,000 years?
6. When we put on a sphygmomanometer, what are we measuring?
7. What does an anemometer measure?
8. Many -- or most? -- members of this trivia league make use of
an everyday item whose strength is measured in diopters. What
do diopters measure?
9. The Bristol Scale is graded from 1 -- "separate hard lumps" --
to 7 -- "entirely liquid." What does the Bristol Scale measure?
10. What is the name of the system of weights measured in pounds
and ounces, First used in the medieval wool trade and
standardized by international treaty in 1959? Its name derives
from the French term meaning "goods sold by weight."
--
Mark Brader "There are three rules for writing the novel.
Toronto Unfortunately no one knows what they are."
***@vex.net -- Maugham
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Mark Brader "There are three rules for writing the novel.
Toronto Unfortunately no one knows what they are."
***@vex.net -- Maugham
My text in this article is in the public domain.