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The Rules
#1. No Googling until I announce a free-for-all,
#2. No more than 2 answers per person until the free-for-all
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Please read the rules
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The Questions
1. Trivial question to get started. If [itex]4 \times 5=12~,~~4 \times 6=13~,...[/itex] then [itex]4 \times 13=?[/itex]2. For decades, a box labeled Costa Cider sat under the sink in the home of a pathologist. This box contained a pair of large jars. What is the significance of these jars?3. My favorite Roman scholar, Pliny the Elder, was in charge of the naval fleet stationed near Naples, when a rare event occurred. In his eagerness to observe the phenomenon, Pliny took some ships and headed towards it. However, curiosity killed the cat and Pliny died that day.
What was the event?4. Upon his divorce and his wife's subsequent marriage, he had this to say: "Had she taken a bullfighter I would have understood, but an ordinary chemist…"
Who said this?5. What is the special significance of the phrase "Who ordered that?" to the field of physics? (I'm looking for the name of a person and a thing.)6. What is common to the Burnet moths, tobacco smoke, and cherry pits (no smart-ass responses)?7. Former US President, James Garfield remained in his deathbed for over two months, after being shot, in July 1881. Given the medical capability of the time and the risk involved, White House surgeons were extremely reluctant to operate on the President without a good knowledge of the location of the bullet.
While in Boston, Alexander Graham Bell heard about this and suggested that perhaps his own invention was just the thing for this problem. The White House accepted Bell's offer, and using his invention, he tried to help the White House surgeons. Despite several successful trials prior to this (on injured soldiers), he failed with the President. (Garfield died in September that year.)
This invention was an early prototype of what? And why did Bell's attempt fail?8. What is considered to be the first successful bombing by unmanned airborne drones?9. This element was discovered by German chemists who were looking for traces of thallium in samples of zinc ores. A brilliant bluish-violet line in the sample's spectrum revealed the existence of the new element.
Name the element.10. And finally, this is about one of my favorite people. What follows is a quote.
There was, of course, X. He came down from Y to consult a little bit, to help us if we had some problems. We had a meeting with him, and I had been doing some calculations and gotten some results. The calculations were so elaborate it was very difficult. Now usually, I was this expert at this; I could always tell you what the answer was going to look like, or when I got it I could explain why. But this thing was so complicated I couldn't explain why it was like that.
So I told X I was doing this problem, and I started to describe the results. He said, "Wait, before you tell me the result, let me think. It's going to come out like this (he was right), and it's going to come out like this because of so and so. And there's a perfectly obvious explanation for this --"
He was doing what I was supposed to be good at, ten times better. That was quite a lesson to me.
Who is X? (No points for identifying the narrator.)
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Note: Quotes may be translations from another language.
#1. No Googling until I announce a free-for-all,
#2. No more than 2 answers per person until the free-for-all
------------------------
Please read the rules
------------------------
The Questions
1. Trivial question to get started. If [itex]4 \times 5=12~,~~4 \times 6=13~,...[/itex] then [itex]4 \times 13=?[/itex]2. For decades, a box labeled Costa Cider sat under the sink in the home of a pathologist. This box contained a pair of large jars. What is the significance of these jars?3. My favorite Roman scholar, Pliny the Elder, was in charge of the naval fleet stationed near Naples, when a rare event occurred. In his eagerness to observe the phenomenon, Pliny took some ships and headed towards it. However, curiosity killed the cat and Pliny died that day.
What was the event?4. Upon his divorce and his wife's subsequent marriage, he had this to say: "Had she taken a bullfighter I would have understood, but an ordinary chemist…"
Who said this?5. What is the special significance of the phrase "Who ordered that?" to the field of physics? (I'm looking for the name of a person and a thing.)6. What is common to the Burnet moths, tobacco smoke, and cherry pits (no smart-ass responses)?7. Former US President, James Garfield remained in his deathbed for over two months, after being shot, in July 1881. Given the medical capability of the time and the risk involved, White House surgeons were extremely reluctant to operate on the President without a good knowledge of the location of the bullet.
While in Boston, Alexander Graham Bell heard about this and suggested that perhaps his own invention was just the thing for this problem. The White House accepted Bell's offer, and using his invention, he tried to help the White House surgeons. Despite several successful trials prior to this (on injured soldiers), he failed with the President. (Garfield died in September that year.)
This invention was an early prototype of what? And why did Bell's attempt fail?8. What is considered to be the first successful bombing by unmanned airborne drones?9. This element was discovered by German chemists who were looking for traces of thallium in samples of zinc ores. A brilliant bluish-violet line in the sample's spectrum revealed the existence of the new element.
Name the element.10. And finally, this is about one of my favorite people. What follows is a quote.
There was, of course, X. He came down from Y to consult a little bit, to help us if we had some problems. We had a meeting with him, and I had been doing some calculations and gotten some results. The calculations were so elaborate it was very difficult. Now usually, I was this expert at this; I could always tell you what the answer was going to look like, or when I got it I could explain why. But this thing was so complicated I couldn't explain why it was like that.
So I told X I was doing this problem, and I started to describe the results. He said, "Wait, before you tell me the result, let me think. It's going to come out like this (he was right), and it's going to come out like this because of so and so. And there's a perfectly obvious explanation for this --"
He was doing what I was supposed to be good at, ten times better. That was quite a lesson to me.
Who is X? (No points for identifying the narrator.)
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Note: Quotes may be translations from another language.
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) I don't know enough about him that he'd make my list of favorite people.
