SciTech Inter IIT 2025 Tryouts

Transcript

Text from the slides — answers included, so no peeking if you're playing along!

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   Science & Technology
   SciTech Tryouts

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   Q1. This question gets me up
   ◼Angina Pectoris is a fancy name for chest pain-specifically.
   spasms in the heart's coronary arteries.
   ◼The pharmaceutical company Pfizer developed a pill named
   UK92480 to help constrict these arteries to relieve pain.
   ◼The pill failed its primary purpose, but the secondary side
   effect was startling. The drug became known as ______ and I
   hope no one here needs to use it :)
   ◼ Pfizer sold $288 million worth of the little blue pill in the first
   quarter of 2013.

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   Q1. Answer
   Viagra (sildenafil)
   Pfizer's UK-92,480 was trialled for angina:
   it was meant to relax and widen the
   coronary arteries (not constrict them).
   It did little for angina, but trial volunteers
   reported a notable side effect: erections. It
   is a PDE5 inhibitor.
   Sildenafil · PDE5 inhibitor
   It was approved for erectile dysfunction in
   1998; the “little blue pill”, and the title's
   pun. narrowed dilated

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   Q2. Is OLED good for my usecase?
   ●“3d pipes”, a bouncing _ _ _ logo and flying windows logos
   are all solutions to an age old (and sometimes very visible)
   problem that used to plague a certain computer peripheral in
   the 90s, that was somewhat made redundant with
   improvements in phosphor coatings.
   ● However the problem has made a resurgence in the modern
   era, with a particular (modern) class of the same peripheral
   having a similar issue, which is mitigated by using more
   “granular” techniques. What am I talking about?

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   Q2. Answer
   Screen burn-in
   CRT monitors burned static images into
   their phosphor, so screensavers (3D Pipes,
   the bouncing DVD logo, Flying Windows) DVD
   kept the picture moving.
   OLED panels have brought burn-in back,
   because organic pixels age unevenly.
   The fix is now at pixel level: pixel
   shifting/orbiting and pixel refresh cycles. Ghost of a static image
   fix: screensavers → pixel shifting

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   Q3. A thousand minds
   ● While all proteins can be described by sequences of just 22 amino
   acids, their 3d structure can be very unpredictable and is critical to
   their function. Folding@home is a mass project that simulates the
   folding of different protein structures, and has been instrumental
   in the treatment of Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s disease.
   ● Einstein@home is a similar project to analyse astronomical data
   to find a variety of rare celestial bodies
   ● Both these projects feature problems that are simple at a unitary
   scale, but feature an enormous number of these unitary problems
   ● Hence they use “resources” that are otherwise left unused for a
   large time. What are these systems based off of?

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   Q3. Answer
   Volunteer distributed computing (grid
   computing on idle CPU/GPU cycles)
   Volunteers' PCs crunch small work units
   while otherwise idle; Einstein@home runs
   on BOINC. work units
   Huge numbers of simple, independent
   tasks are “embarrassingly parallel”, which
   is ideal for this.
   Idle PCs, one shared problem

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   Q4. Who’s theorem is this?

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   Q4. Answer
   Bayes' theorem
   P(A | B) = P(B | A) · P(A) / P(B)
   Named after Rev. Thomas Bayes (published
   posthumously, 1763). A A∩B B
   P(A|B) = P(B|A)·P(A)
   P(B)

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    Q5. You stupid four-eyes, you
    ◼ Hejny, an audio engineer from
    Nashville, Tenn., was inspired to
    create the wax four years ago when
    he was at a concert in Texas and saw
    a musician he was working with,
    constantly have to do something.
    ◼ Out of sympathy, he wanted to walk
    on stage and hold something in
    place so the drummer could focus on
    the music. This led to him creating
    Nerd Wax.
    ◼ What is NerdWax?

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    Q5. Answer
    A wax for glasses that stops them
    slipping down your nose
    Rubbed on the nose pads/bridge of
    spectacles; it's what the drummer needed
    held in place.
    Hence “four-eyes”, and the nerd in
    Nerdwax.
    Wax on the nose pads
    → glasses stay put

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    Q6. It’s not chips! - some brit, probably
    ◼ The existence of anomalous repeating
    sequences of DNA in certain single
    celled organisms was first noticed in
    E.Coli.
    ◼ It was later observed in yogurt bacteria
    repeatedly infected by viruses that
    these sequences were actually being
    taken from the virus
    ◼ Along with a protein named Cas9, this
    setup allowed the cell to target specific
    DNA in the attacker the next time
    around
    ◼ What are these sequences called OR
    what did their discovery allow humanity
    to do for the first time?

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    Q6. Answer
    CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced
    Short Palindromic Repeats)
    It allowed precise, programmable editing
    of genes (CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing)
    The repeats were first seen in E. coli (Ishino,
    1987); in 2007 work on yogurt bacteria (S.
    thermophilus) at Danisco showed they store Cas9
    viral DNA as an immune memory.
    Doudna and Charpentier won the 2020 Nobel
    in Chemistry. The title: crisps, not chips. Guide RNA finds it · Cas9 cuts

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    Q7. Would be slightly weird if it were human
    ◼The Svalbard Global ____ vault is a secure backup facility in
    order to maintain diversity of a certain item.
    ◼Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago that lies at the
    convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean,
    and hence is a perfect location for the same.
    ◼It has over a million samples of said item, ensuring
    humanity’s future even if things go agrainst us.
    ◼FITB/Put funda

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    Q7. Answer
    Seed: the Svalbard Global Seed Vault
    Nicknamed the “Doomsday Vault”, opened
    2008, dug into a mountain on Spitsbergen.
    Permafrost keeps the seeds cold even if
    power fails; it holds duplicate crop seeds
    from gene banks worldwide.
    First withdrawal: ICARDA in 2015, to
    rebuild seed stocks lost to the Syrian war.
    −18 °C · 1.3 M+ seed samples
    Permafrost backup if power fails

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    Q8. Mr Wilson if he had health insurance
    ◼These items initially used to be made of ivory, because it had
    certain physical properties, such as a particular density, and
    the ability to rebound properly.
    ◼A shortage in ivory during the late nineteenth century meant
    that celluloid was used instead.
    ◼However, celluloid was unstable, and exploded when 2 such
    items bumped together, which was not ideal for its use-case.
    ◼What items, whose explosions would cause a scorching of
    the “green”?

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    Q8. Answer
    Billiard / pool balls
    Ivory balls were costly, which led to a prize
    BANG! for a substitute; John Wesley Hyatt tried
    celluloid.
    Celluloid balls could crack loudly on 3
    impact, like a gunshot. Legend says players
    in saloons drew their guns.
    The “green” is the baize table cloth.
    Ivory → celluloid
    The green = baize

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    Q9. Choosiest iqs solution - unscramble this for bonus
    ◼In 1610, Galileo sent out an anagram
    SMAISMRMILMPOETALEUMIBUNENUGTTAUIRAS in order
    to announce a new discovery.
    ◼This was re-assembled by Kepler as “Salve, umbistineum
    germinatum Martia proles.” However, what Galileo actually
    wanted to communicate was “Altissimum planetam
    tergeminum obseravi”.
    ◼Miraculously, both these interpretations were astronomical
    fact - though the prior one was only established to be true in
    1877.
    ◼What discoveries, respectively about Mars and Saturn?

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    Q9. Answer
    Mars: it has two moons (Phobos and
    Deimos)
    Saturn: it appeared triple (Galileo was
    seeing its rings)
    Kepler's reading: “Hail, twin companionship,
    children of Mars.” Asaph Hall discovered the
    two moons in 1877. Mars + 2 moons Galileo saw “o O o”
    Galileo's meaning: “I have observed the
    highest planet tri-form”; his telescope couldn't Phobos & Deimos (1877)
    Saturn's rings, unresolved in 1610 resolve the rings, so they looked like two side
    bodies.

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    Q10. If you can’t chuck the logs,...
    ◼This particular species should be a prime candidate for CTE
    (Concussions) due to their working conditions being similar
    to NFL players. (even worse, considering they do it
    year-round)
    ◼However, the 2006 IgNobel prize was awarded for showing
    that the species is built to avoid any kind of head injury.
    ◼This is due to having their brains packed more tightly into
    their skulls, smoother brain surface to maximise impact area,
    and by having minimal lateral motion, which avoids shear
    forces
    ◼What animal?

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    Q10. Answer
    Woodpecker
    2006 Ig Nobel Prize in Ornithology: Ivan
    tok!tok! Schwab and Philip May, for explaining why
    woodpeckers don't get headaches.
    Title: “How much wood would a
    woodchuck chuck…”
    ~20 pecks/sec, no concussion
    Tight skull · smooth brain · straight strikes

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    Q11. Just google it man
    ◼January 15, 2001 is probably the single most notable day in
    2001 (sadly).
    ◼_________ was launched on this date as a single language
    Edition. Its integral policy of "neutral point of view" arose
    within its first year.
    ◼Otherwise, there were initially relatively few rules, and it
    operated independently of Nu_____, its precursor.
    ◼In 2007, it surpassed the Yongle Encyclopedia made in China
    during the Ming dynasty in 1408, which had held the record
    for almost 600 years, as the largest of its kind.
    ◼WAITA?

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    Q11. Answer
    Wikipedia
    Precursor: Nupedia
    Launched 15 January 2001 by Jimmy Wales 1408 2001 2007
    and Larry Sanger, initially in English only.
    Yongle Wikipedia overtakes In 2007 it overtook the Yongle Encyclopedia (after Nupedia) Yongle
    Encyclopedia as the largest encyclopedia
    ever compiled.
    ~600-year record broken
    15 Jan 2001: Wikipedia Day

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    Q12. Might cause arguments
    ◼____ ______ fever is a viral
    disease of humans and
    livestock that can cause loss
    of sight, infections of the
    brain, and liver problems.
    ◼It was first discovered in
    livestock in the ____ ______
    in Kenya, and was named
    thus, after the famous
    natural feature.
    ◼FITB

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    Q12. Answer
    Rift Valley fever
    Named after the Great Rift Valley in Kenya,
    where it was identified in sheep in the
    1930s.
    Spread by mosquitoes and contact with
    infected animals. A rift “might cause
    arguments”. valley floor
    Great Rift Valley, Kenya
    Plates pulling apart: a “rift”

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    Q13. Rise. Rise!
    ● The album Reise, Reise was
    dedicated to one of the worst
    disasters in a particular field,
    claiming 520 lives after a thirty
    minute struggle to regain control
    ● The album cover art also references
    this horrific incident, in particular
    the unique and standardised color of
    the item that fills the frame
    ● What is the item present in the the
    cover?
    Audio A(full track): Audio B: WARNING

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    Q13. Answer
    A flight recorder: the “black box”, which
    is actually orange
    Rammstein's Reise, Reise (2004) references
    Japan Airlines Flight 123 (1985): 520
    deaths after about 30 minutes of struggle; FLIGHT RECORDER
    the deadliest single-aircraft accident. DO NOT OPEN
    The cover is styled as a flight recorder,
    painted the standard high-visibility orange
    “Black box” = high-vis orange so it can be found in wreckage.
    JAL 123 · 12 Aug 1985 · 520 lost

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    Q14. You spin me right round
    ◼What is this a proposed solution to?
    ◼You might have seen it horizontally oriented,
    then in its current state
    ◼There is also a very famous episode of Friends,
    with the episode revolving around a related
    issue

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    Q14. Answer
    The moving sofa problem
    What is the largest-area shape that can be
    turned around a right-angled corner in a
    hallway of unit width? (Leo Moser, 1966)
    Hammersley's sofa is the horizontal unit-width hallway
    “telephone” shape; shown here is Gerver's
    sofa (area ≈ 2.2195), proved optimal by PIVOT!PIVOT!
    Jineon Baek in 2024.
    Friends, “The One with the Cop”: Ross yells Max area ≈ 2.2195 (Gerver)
    Proved optimal: Baek, 2024 “PIVOT!” while carrying his couch up the
    stairs.

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    15. zeroes and Ones
    ●This filmmaking technique uses an array of array of cameras
    around a fast moving object, and takes photos of it from
    multiple angles and high FPS.
    ●These photos are then stitched together and played in
    sequence (as in any normal movie) at normal speed to create
    a sense of fast camera movement in what is otherwise a
    single slow motion moment. CGI is sometimes use to smooth
    out the action.
    ●What is this technique called, named after its most common
    subject? OR Where can you find this technique first used in
    cinema?

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    15. Answer
    Bullet time
    First used in cinema (and popularised
    by): The Matrix (1999)
    A ring of still cameras fires in sequence
    around the subject; the frames play as a
    camera move around a frozen moment.
    Title: “zeroes and ones”, i.e. the Matrix's
    digital world. Frozen moment, moving camera
    The Matrix (1999)

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    Q16. You as well, Johan?
    ◼In 1963, he was the first of the only 8 people to be made an
    honorary citizen of the USA.
    ◼He was also named the G.O.A.T of his nation in a 2002 poll by
    the national television, with 2nd in the list being a
    construction engineer, 3rd a women, 4th a biologist, 5th a
    poet and 6th a physicist. Who?
    ◼About whose invasions to his country, twice in the history in
    55 BC and 54 BC, was the theme of the first of his 4-volume
    book, titled 'A History of the _______ Speaking Peoples'?

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    Q16. Answer
    Winston Churchill
    Invader: Julius Caesar; book: A History of the
    English-Speaking Peoples
    First honorary US citizen (1963). Winner of the Britannia
    BBC's 100 Greatest Britons (2002), ahead of
    55 & 54 BC
    Brunel, Princess Diana, Darwin, Shakespeare and
    Newton.
    Volume 1, The Birth of Britain, opens with Caesar's Gaul
    invasions of 55 and 54 BC. Title: “Et tu, Brute?”
    Caesar crosses the Channel He won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature, partly
    “Et tu, Brute?” → Johan
    for his historical writings.

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    Then why should I live?

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    17.
    ●Before the advent of modern organic chemistry, bright, deep
    color was a time consuming process of extracting and
    processing gemstones, bugs and the like.
    ●The rarest of the lot was _ _ _ _ _ _, which could only be
    reliably extracted from the mucus of the Tyrian sea snail, or
    murex.
    ●As a result it became a color almost entirely missing from
    national and state flags over history, as these flags would
    need to be mass produced.
    ●Which color am I talking about?

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    17. Answer
    Purple (Tyrian purple)
    Thousands of murex snails were needed
    Tyrian purple for a single gram of dye, so it became the
    colour of emperors and royalty.
    Only two national flags include purple:
    Dominica (the Sisserou parrot) and
    Nicaragua (the rainbow in its coat of arms).
    William Perkin's synthetic mauveine (1856)
    ~10,000 murex ≈ 1 g of dye
    finally made purple cheap. Flags with purple: Dominica, Nicaragua

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    18.Colorful
    ◼ X once collaborated with Triflare, a
    sportswear company for a marketing
    campaign where US synchronized swim
    team members performed in a
    17,000-gallon tank broadcasted live on
    giant LED screens.
    ◼ This Swimming event featured X's new
    product with two years' worth of ____. The
    event also helped in promotion of Triflare
    special swimsuits printed with X's
    dye-sublimation technology.
    ◼ ID X.

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    18. Answer
    Epson
    “Swimming in Ink”, Times Square,
    September 2015: USA Synchro swimmers
    performed in a 17,000-gallon tank.
    The launch was for the EcoTank printers,
    sold with two years' worth of ink.
    Triflare's swimsuits were printed with
    Epson's SureColor dye-sublimation “Swimming in Ink” · 2015
    EcoTank: two years of ink printers.

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    19. Maybe this quiz has too many color
    questions
    ◼This dark blue pigment produced by oxidation of ferrous
    ferrocyanide salts, is named after a historic region in the central
    Europe. ID this compound that you might have come across
    during your JEE days. (5)
    ◼Thanks to it binding to Cs-137 in the gastrointestinal tract of
    humans and animals, preventing it from being absorbed into the
    body and promoting its excretion through feces, the pigment
    was used extensively in Eastern Europe in the late 20th century.
    Put the funda. (5)
    ◼What from the world of pop-culture is named after Cs-137
    isotope? (5)

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    19. Answer
    a) Prussian blue (ferric ferrocyanide)
    b) An antidote for radioactive caesium
    Prussian blue
    after the Chernobyl disaster (1986)
    Fe₄[Fe(CN)₆]₃
    It binds caesium in the gut and stops it
    being reabsorbed. It was given to people
    and added to livestock feed, and today is Cs-137
    trapped in gut sold as Radiogardase.
    → excreted
    c) Cesium 137, an American
    futurepop/synthpop band Chernobyl, 1986 · Radiogardase

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    20. Za
    ◼This is a condition in which there is sustained
    involuntary flexion of the body and head to
    one side and slight rotation of the trunk,so
    the person appears to have a ‘lean’. Even
    though the common name owes its
    inspiration to something for its unintended
    5.5° tilt,this syndrome is clinically defined as
    a lateral flexion of more than 10° in the
    standing position.
    ◼How do we better know this medical
    condition?

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    20. Answer
    Pisa syndrome (pleurothotonus)
    Named after the Leaning Tower of Pisa, 5.5°
    which tilted about 5.5° before it was >10°
    stabilised (about 4° now).
    Often a side effect of antipsychotic drugs;
    also seen in Parkinson's disease. Title: “Za”,
    as in Piz-za.
    Leaning like the tower
    Lateral flexion of the trunk