Answers for 26th Nov 2010

Q1. The first engineering college in India was established in 1847. It is now an IIT. Which one?

A: IIT Roorkee. It was established by the British. After independence, it became University of Roorkee in 1949 and then the seventh IIT in 2001.

Correct answers: @Prashanth_Krish, @kirankarlmarx, @swaraj_india, @Saffronizer

Q2. What law holds that the simplest explanation is more likely to be the correct one?

A: Occam's Razor, also known as the Law of Parsimony. It is attributed to William Of Ockham from 14th century England. It recommends selecting the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest new assumptions. It finds application in philosophy, science and the study of religion.

Correct answers: @Prashanth_Krish, @kirankarlmarx, @Saffronizer, @sashikanthd

Q3. What are the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China? Name atleast three.

A: Compass, gunpowder, paper and printing. The Chinese are understandably quite proud about them, as they indicate ancient China's scientific advancement, and they were featured during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Inventions_of_Ancient_China

Correct answers: @Prashanth_Krish, @Saffronizer

Q4. Evidence for which particle, popularly known as "God particle", is to be found at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN?

A: Higg's Boson. It is a hypothetical elementary particle that could be the reason why mass exists in the universe. Though scientists are convinced of its existence, they'd like to come up with irrefutable evidence, and collecting this evidence is one of the goals of the Large Hadron Collider experiment: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-exactly-is-the-higgs

Correct answers: @kirankarlmarx, @Prashanth_Krish, @Saffronizer, @sashikanthd

Q5. Watson and Crick made which famous discovery in the field of biology?

A: The double helical structure of DNA. It was discovered with the help of X-ray diffraction in 1953. Watson and Crick won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962.

Correct answers: @Vijay_Vikram, @anooprk07, @kirankarlmarx, @Prashanth_Krish, @SivaChandan, @Saffronizer, @sashikanthd

Scores

@Saffronizer 50

@Prashanth_Krish 50

@kirankarlmarx 40

@sashikanthd 30

@SivaChandan 10

@Vijay_Vikram 10

@swaraj_india 10

@anooprk07 10