Question - 406

Identify both men.

Answer: The men are Walt Disney and the legendary space architect Werner Von Braun. I posted the question for Von Braun but apparently with Walt Disney he made some educational videos for television. Debashish, Kaushik, v. chandrashekar, Arvind, Kamal Rathi, Ramki, Rajesh K, Hirak, anon, Iam, Krithi, Amresh and Raghu got it. Well done.

A special dry question

He is a brilliant academic who disproved all the theories of his advisor Professor Emeritus Zekowsky. He is the Arthur C. and Caroline J. McCallister Distinguished Chair Professor and Anderson Faculty Scholar, and the Director of the Center for Computational Research and the National Institute of Dynamical Physics. He is the recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Prize of the Netherlands, the National Science Foundation Presidential Investigator Award, the Exceptional Achievement Medal from the International Society of Engineers, the Pi Gamma Tau Industry Excellence Professorship, the National Medal of Engineering, and the Medal of Honor from the Royal Academy of Scientists. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Advanced Dynamics, the Journal of Nano-Particle Computation, Physik-Publication and several other journals, and on the advisory boards of many industry consortia. He holds honorary doctorates from the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Tsing-Chua Beijing University and the Universidade de São Paulo, among others. Who is he? Google away, people.

Answer: Professor Brian S. Smith of PhD comics. Kaushik, Mekie, Anand, Raghu, Arvind, Soubhagya Jena, Vetti, Chithananda, Karthik, Hirak, Amresh, Ramki and Rithwik got it. Well done.

Question - 405

Connect Identify the two images.

Update: Apologies for the misleading question. Just realized that the answer I had in mind is completely untrue. I have changed the question accordingly. If you wasted time looking for the non-existent connect, I apologize. If you found a good connect, let me know :)

Answer: The visuals are "The blue marble" and "The pale blue dot". Carl Sagan convinced the Voyager program to take the second picture which shows earth from an astronomical distance. I had some vague idea that Sagan made a comment connecting the two visuals. My bad. Kaushik, Raghu, Krithi, Mekie and Amresh got it. Well done.

Question - 404

Identify the building in the foreground.

Answer: This is the Hiroshima peace memorial also known as the Atomic Bomb Dome. It is the closest building to the hypocenter of the atom bomb that survived at least partially intact. Kaushik, P, Ramki, Mekie, Krithi, Rajesh K, Chithananda and Rithwik got it. Well done.

Question - 403

What is happening? Identify as many as you can.

Answer: Greg Ritchie, David Boon, Jeff Thompson and Craig McDermott are loading kegs of beer to keep them company on the plane trip from Australia to England for the Ashes. There is an unofficial championship of sorts among Australian cricketers as to who consumes the most beer on these trips. Boon supposedly drank 54 cans of beer on one of these trips. Raghu, Rajeev, Debasish, Kaushik, Swapnaa, anon, Krithi, Arvind, ameen, Rajesh K, Anand, Renuka and Mihir got it. Well done.

Aside: Since there was no update yesterday, there will be 2 questions today (402&403). Next update is on Sunday night.

Question - 402

Connect the three images. The person on the left contributed to the motto on the right which in turn is responsible for the visual on the right.

Answer: King Louis XV once famously said "Après moi, le déluge" (after me, the deluge) which the 617 Squadron of RAF (famously known as the dam busters) adopted as their motto. The last image is the breach of the Eder dam as part of Operation Chastise. Mekie, Raghu, Debasish, Kaushik, anon, Krithi, Renuka + Anand and Karthik got it. Well done.

Question - 401

Who? Picture from where?

Answer: This is Nyla, wife of the "Nanook of the north". This is a film made in 1922 by Robert Flaherty and is considered the very first documentary. ameen, Debasish, Prachi, Kaushik, mekie and aji got it. Well done.

Asides: Blog readers erupt in thunderous ovation after the amazing pun in Q400 dawns on them. Read comments for more and feel free to leave further praises.

Question - 400

The most persistent version of this urban legend connects a work of the man in the bottom right with one of the other 3 people shown. Which legend is this and what (really bad) reason does the QM have for asking this question?

Answer: Herbert Von Karajan, Akio Morita and Norio Ohga were all associated with the development of the CD. The run length of CDs being 74 minutes is attributed to one of these men's desire to include the entire 9th Symphony of Beethoven (which runs for 74 minutes in some renderings) in a CD. The story is almost surely false but has endured nonetheless. Karthik, Mihir, Raghu (no, not the reason I was looking for), Iam and Hirak got it. Well done.

Aside: No one got the (bad bad) reason for this question being the 400th. Keep trying, folks.

And the answer is: CD is roman for... (how awesome am I?)

Question - 399

What does the sculpture symbolize? Where is this scene most commonly seen?

Answer: The sculpture shows an eagle eating a snake while perched atop a cactus. According to legend, the early Aztecs witnessed such a scene which they took to be a vision on a swampy island in Lake Texcoco and proceeded to found the city of Tencochtitlan in that spot. This symbol is now present in Mexico's flag and coat of arms. Ramki, Mekie, Prachi, Raghu, Hari, Iam, Karthik, Hirak and Jaggi got it. Well done.

Question - 398

Identify him.

Answer: Chuck Norris - the West's answer to Captain Vijayakanth. He can divide by 0, order a big Mac from Burger King and can slam a revolving door. Arvind, Raghu, Iam, Hirak, Hari and Srivats got it. Well done.

Question - 397

Connect the visuals.

Answer: The man is Slartibartfast from Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy (the visual is from the movie). The location is a fjord in Norway. In the books, Slartibartfast is a planet designer who wins special awards for his delicate work in the Norwegian fjords. Mekie, Adi and Raghu got it. Well done.

Question - 396

Sketch of what?

Answer: This is the model of the spaceship serenity in the cult TV show/movie firefly. Raghu, Manix and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 395

Connect all the images. Also, identify the especially famous item that is missing from this collection.

Answer: These images are the elephant and donkey of the Democratic and Republican parties, Uncle sam, the Tammany hall tiger and Columbia (a personification of the US). Though they can all be connected as US political symbols, the particular connect I was looking for was that they were all drawn by Thomas Nast, the legendary US cartoonist. He is partly responsible for the now familiar depiction of Santa Claus as a bearded rotund man. Santa Claus was the famous missing item I was looking for. AjithP, Iam, Renuka + Anand got the connect I had in mind while Hirak and Hari went with other connects. Well done all.

Question - 394

What, possibly apocryphal, event is being portrayed here?

Answer: Archimedes about to be killed by a Roman solider during the Battle of Syracuse. Apparently, he was engrossed in some problem and asked the soldier not to "disturb his circles". Debasish, Karthik, Arvind, v.chandrashekar and Hirak got it. Raghu and Iam went with the wrong ancient mathematician. Well done all.

Question - 393

Today's question is courtesy Ramki aka Sriram. Identify him.

Answer: This is Wikipedia's cofounder Larry Sanger who has since left it and gone on to found Citizendium. His main grouse is that Wikipedia lacks credibility since anyone can edit its articles. ajaalgujaal and Srivats got it. Well done.

Question - 392

Today's question is courtesy Adi. Connect the image on the sides to the one in the middle in two ways (one way is easy, the other a bit obscure).

Update: As Adi suspected, it turned out to be a hard question and so he has helpfully sent a hint too (the pic at the bottom). Let me add that the guy on the right is a movie character from a famous sci-fi movie. You can connect visuals 1 and 3 to the clue in the bottom.

Answer: The images are R2D2 from star wars, a patent for an android and the character Roy Batty from Blade runner. The first connect is android (both R2D2 and Roy Batty are androids). The deeper connect is that while R2D2 is a droid, Roy Batty is a Nexus-6 model. Droid and Nexus are cellphones by Motorola and Google which both run on the android OS. Manix, Hirak and Iam got the first connect but no one got the second one. Well done all.

Question - 391

Identify him (in the news now).

Answer: This is USC linguistics professor Paul Frommer who developed a new language for the Na'vi race in James Cameron's Avatar. Srivats, Hari, Corina, Schmetterling, rishabh and Manix got it. Well done.

Question - 390

Connect the 3 images (not an exhaustive list). I asked this question in the quiz club many years ago. So, this might be a repeat for some of you.

Answer: The common theme connecting the pictures is mistranslation. The first picture is Michaelangelo's Moses who is depicted with horns. This is due to a mistranslation of the Exodus by St. Jerome. The original described Moses as having light rays radiating from his head which was translated as him having horns. The second visual is the slipper scene from cinderella. The original french tale had Cinderella wearing fur slippers which got mistranslated as glass slippers in English. The last graph is a curve called the witch of Agnesi. My math teacher told me it was because the curve looked like the outstretched arms of a flying banshee but the more mundane truth is that the curve of Agnesi got mistranslated from Italian to English as the witch of Agnesi. Ramki, P, Iam and Hirak got it. Chandra had a great try. Well done all.

Question - 389

What phenomenon gets its name from the controversy surrounding this picture?

Answer: The house belongs to Barbara Streisand and the picture was taken as part of a study on erosion of the California coastline. Streisand sued to have the photo removed from the web and the resulting popularity made the picture far more famous than it originally was. Since then, the Streisand effect has come to refer to this kind of negative publicity resulting from censorship. Mrinalini, Rithwik, P, Manix, Iam (who has moral & other issues in answering the Q), mysore, and Sweta got it. Well done all and to set the record straight, Iam asked this question in the quiz club a while back.

Question - 388

Identify him and the place where the photograph has been taken.

Answer: This is Thomas Hunt Morgan, a pioneering geneticist who introduced the now ubiquitous drosophila melanogaster aka the fruit fly into genetics research. The picture is taken in the famous "fly room" in Columbia university. P, AC&amp, Krithi, Manix, Chandra and Iam (if you believe him) got it. Well done.

Question - 387

This painting is a part of a larger painting. Identify that and the funda behind this panel.

Answer: This is a panel from Michaelangelo's terrific The Last Judgement. In this painting, Michaelangelo himself is being judged by St. Bartholomew and judging by the flayed skin, Michaelangelo didn't have high hopes for his after life. Srivats, P, Hari, Raghu, Vetti, chandra, karthik, Ramki and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 386

Sorry about the late post. The first 3 visuals show some of the more fanciful structures that have been associated with an annual event the logo of which is shown in the last visual. Which event is this?

Answer: The structures have all been erected in the past years as part of the burning man festival that takes place annually in the Black Rock desert in Nevada. The participants say the festival is an experiment in community, self-expression and self-reliance. Ramki, Mihir, Mekie, Krithi, Srivats, Hirak, P, umang, Iam, Swapnaa, Corina and the Jayaramans got it. Well done.

Question - 385

Identify both.

Answer: This is Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. Srivats, Hari, P, Ramki, anon, Hirak, Karthik, Corina and v.chandrashekar got it. Well done.

Question - 384

What's the story behind the cartoon? Brownie points for identifying everyone.

Answer: This is a lithograph made in memory of Mel Blanc, the legendary voice actor for a bunch of well-known Warner Bros animated characters. The characters are Tweety bird, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Speedy Gonzales, Foghorn leghorn, Daffy duck, Bugs Bunny, Porky the pig and Pepe Le Pew. Rajeev, P, Hari, Jaggi, nice try, Chandra & Swapnaa, jollyrover, Ramki, rishabh, Hirak, Corina and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 383

The guy on the right made the chart on the left for a specific reason. Who is he and what is the chart for?

Answer: The guy is Alfred Mosher Butts, the inventor of Scrabble. The chart shows a frequency analysis study that he conducted on various sources such as the New York Times to decide the point value for the various tiles. I hope it wasn't too obvious from the visual that he is sitting on a bunch of scrabble tiles. P, Karthik, Srivats, Hirak and Rajeev got it. Well done.

Question - 382

This phrase originated from the device whose operation is illustrated in the first visual. The most (in)famous example of this phrase is associated with the woman shown on the right. Identify the woman and the phrase.

Answer: The phrase is "Deux ex Machina", literally "God from the machine. The device shown is a mechane which was used in Greek theater to lower Gods on to the stage. Since the Gods usually appear out of nowhere and were often used by Greek playwrights to resolve thorny plot issues by appealing to their supernatural powers, the term has since come to mean a plot device that appears out of the blue and solves seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Euripides notoriously used the machine to lower Medea (the woman on the right), a mere mortal , onto the stage. Prachi, P, Srivats, Corina and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 381

This term's origin can be traced to the movie whose poster is shown in the upper right. It may have been used to refer to the man in the left though he rejected the term. The scene in the bottom right can be taken as a clue to the term. What term?

Answer: The statue is that of the famous surfer/swimmer Duke Kahanamoku (look him up in Wiki. Very interesting guy), who introduced surfing to the world. The movie is Gidget, one of the first surf culture movies which spawned several sequels and TV spin-offs. The screen shot is of course from Pulp fiction. The term I was looking for was Big Kahuna. Kahuna is a Hawaiian word that means a healer. In the context of surfing, the big kahuna is the best surfer on the beach. The term traces its origin to the movie Gidget where Cliff Robertson is nicknamed that. It might have been used to refer to Duke though he rejected it since he knew its original meaning. The Hawaiian burger joint from where the burgers come in that famous scene from Pulp Fiction is the Big Kahuna. A couple of you had other equally valid (except for the oblique Pulp fiction bit) connects. Raghu, Hirak, Rajesh K, Keshav, Mrinalini, Krithi, Ramji, Iam and P got it. Well done.

Question - 380

Connect the man on the right to the event on the left. There is a slightly obscure technical term that owes its origin to the connection. Brownie points if you get it too.

Answer: The painting depicts the last day of Pompeii before it got buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Pliny the Elder who was a naval officer in a nearby area at that time attempted to sail into Pompeii both to observe the eruption directly and to help some friends who were stuck there. He met his demise in the city that day though not due to any effect of the volcano. The common assumption is that he had a heart attack while in Pompeii. In volcanology, eruptions of a certain degree of violence are characterized as Plinian in his honor (Krakatoa was an ultra-plinian). Hari, Srivats, Mekie, P (great answer for the technical term), Corina and Manix got it. Well done.

Question - 379

The man on the right made the notes shown on the left. He has been called the "most famous unknown actor in the world". Who is he and what are the notes for?

Answer: The notes are for the famous "Dawn of man" sequence that opens Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Dan Richter, the man who played the lead ape (moon watcher) is also the choreographer of the scene. In the right, he is shown reenacting the famous scene when he throws a bone up in the air and it transforms into a spacecraft (called the longest flash-forward in movie history). The quote about him being the world's most famous unknown actor is due to Arthur C. Clarke. Karthik, Hari, Arvind, Mrinalini, Jaggi, Corina, Srivats and P got it. Well done.

Question - 378

Identify the two people in the foreground.

Answer: The guy in the umpire chair is Teddy Tinling, a tennis player/fashion designer and the woman facing him is the American tennis player Gertrude Moran who wore a dress designed by Teddy for the 1949 Wimbledon. She created quite a stir with an outfit short enough for her knickers to be visible, a first for any kind of tennis tournament. The press quickly dubbed her "Gorgeous" Gussie and the event caused such an uproar that it was discussed in the British parliament and got Tinling banned from the all England Lawn Club for 33 years. Ramki, Krithi and Jaggi got it. Well done.

Question - 377

This chess set was auctioned recently and fetched more than $140,000 (about 100 times the minimum bid) despite missing a piece. What's so special about it?

Answer: Hope all of you had a great vacation/weekend. This is the chess set used in the iconic scenes of death playing chess with a medieval knight (Max Von Sydow) in Ingmar Bergman's classic movie The Seventh Seal. In the movie, the knight knocks down the pieces in a scene which breaks the white king into two. AJ,Vetti, Paddy, Rithwik, Srivats, Krithi, Hari, Mrinalini, Rajeev, Arvind, Karthik, P, Corina and guessthelogo got it right. Well done.

Question - 376

This is a scene from a 1920s play. Identify the play.

Answer: The play is Karel Capek's R.U.R (Rossum's universal Robots) when the word Robot was used for the very first time. Karel Capek credited his brother Josef Capek with coining the word. Jaggi, Corina, Manix, P, biswagyan, Karthik, Srivats, Raghu and Renuka got it. Well done.

Question - 375

What has the event shown led to?

Answer: The painting shows Phillipides, an Athenian herald who supposedly ran 240 kms in 2 days between Greece and Sparaa and then a further 40 km from Marathon to Athens to convey the news of a Greek victory over the invading Persian army (with the famous word Nenikekamen) before dying of exhaustion. The marathon race was inspired by this possibly apocryphal story. Rithwik, P and Srivats got it without the added hint while Rajesh, AJ, Corina, Manix, Jaggi and Arvind needed the sports connection to figure it out. Well done all.

Question - 374

National Lampoon, a famous humor magazine ran this mock ad satirizing this particular incident. This resulted in a legal action from Volkswagen claiming unauthorized use of its trademark. What is the incident being satirized?

Answer: The chappaquiddick incident involving Sen. Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne when Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge and then left the scene of the accident. Mary Jo died in the accident and the fallout of the incident was a huge factor in Ted Kennedy not running for president in 1972. Even as late as 1980 when he finally did run, he wasn't quite able to live this one down. Jaggi, v. chandrashekar, Srivats, Raghu, Schmetterling, Rajesh K, Corina, mekie, Arvind, Manix, Mrinalini, Krithi, Debasish, guessthelogo, Arvind, P and Ramji got it. Well done.

Question - 373

Identify the man and this location which he called home for nearly 20 years.

Answer: Turns out the question wasn't really all that hard. This is Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian traveler who got stranded in Paris's Charles de Gaulle from August 1988 to July 2006. His story was the inspiration behind the Tom Hanks movie The Terminal. nice try, P, Hari, Rithwik, Mrinalini, anon, Srivats, Jaggi, Rajesh, Karthik and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 372

Identify.

Answer: This is Guy Laliberte, the CEO of Cirque du Soleil. He recently went to space on board the Soyuz TMA-16 and in the process became the first space clown. He has quite a colorful career and is also an excellent poker player. Rajesh, Mrinalini, Anish, Karthik, P, raklodramA, Adi, Anurag, anon, Arvind, Swapnaa, Jaggi, Manix, Corina, Renuka, Srivats, Hari and Ramji got it. Well done.

Question - 371

Identify the person and the associated event.

Hints: No hits so far except one valiant attempt by Corina :) The zoomed out visual on the left might give you an idea of what she was up to. A film adaptation of her exploits is scheduled to come out in 2010 with Rachel Weisz (not Kristen Stewart) portraying her.

Answer: The picture shows Julia Butterfly Hill, an environmental activist who lived in a 180 feet tall coastal redwood tree for a mind-boggling 738 days to prevent it from being cut down by the Pacific Lumber company. Mrinalini, Manix, Corina, Iam and Jaggi got it. I suppose the originally posted picture provided no clues to work with. Well done all.

Question - 370

Connect the image on the left to the two gentlemen on the right.

Answer: The connect is the Leonid meteor shower which happens when earth's orbit intersects the debris left behind by the comet Tempel-Tuttle (the guys in the visual). Every so often, conditions conspire to produce a meteor storm when the number of meteors seen goes up by orders of magnitude. Among the most spectacular showers was the one in 1833 which supposedly produced about 100,000 meteors per hour (compared to 500 per hour predicted for this year's shower). That night has come to be known as the night the stars fell and a jazz standard called Stars fell on Alabama was composed inspired by that shower. This has since made its way to Alabama license plates as well. The 1833 shower had all kinds of mystical significance associated with it including forceful eviction of Mormons from Independence, Missouri. Karthik, Manix, Rajesh K and Swapnaa got it. Well done.

Question - 369

Where is this located? What occasion does this commemorate?

Answer: This is the memorial commemorating Douglas MacArthur's landing in Leyte Island, Philippines. A famous photograph of the event can be seen here. On returning to fulfill his famous vow, he declared "I have returned". Hirak, Karthik, P, Anand and Krithi got it. Well done.

Question - 368

Hint 1: No correct hits on this so far. It's a standard related question.
Hint 2: Map 2, a slightly more simplified version of the first map.


The Return of Dinesh: Dinesh is back starting tomorrow as the QM for the blog. Your truly is off to the Motherland and will be back in two weeks,  certainly well-fed and hopefully with more questions.

Answer: World GSM coverage. The frequencies are different for the Americas and the rest of the world.

Answered by: Corina and Anand

Question - 367

Identify the duelists.

Answer: Eugene Onegin and Vladimir Lensky by Repine. Arguably the most famous duel in literature was made more ironic by the fact that Pushkin himself died in a duel.

Answered by: Arvind, Corina, Ashwin, Swapnaa, Hari, P and Mekie.

Aside: For those interested in reading the poem, try Charles Johnston's version of Eugene Onegin. Despite V. Nabokov's quibbles in accurately translating Pushkin in English verse, he does an outstanding job in translating the meaning of poem while maintaining the rhyme and meter of the Onegin stanzas. {steps off soapbox}.

Question - 366

Patent drawing for what?

Answer: The first frisbee by Wham-o!

Answered by: Corina, Dinesh, Ashwin, P, and Swapnaa.
QM is a tad surprised at there weren't as many answers given the popularity of the sport in AA. Que?

Question - 365

Question: Path traces what?

Answer: Path traces the locations in James Joyce's Ulysses. I guess it's a happy coincidence the Leopold Bloom's path traces an inverted question mark. It's also known as the Joyce Walk in Dublin.

Answered by: Anish, Schmetterling, Adi, Manix, Corina, Raghu, Riskit, P, Paddy and Rajeev.

Question - 364

This jacket is an accessory to enable what legendary item's use?

Update: Man in pic is connected with this.

Answer: Jacket for listening to the Sony Walkman. Among the many accessories that come out in the wake of the personal stereo

Answered by: Q, Anonymous and P.

Question - 363

Which famous incident in sporting history is shown here?

Answer: Bellow's 'Dempsey through the ropes'. Jack Dempsey being knocked out of the ring by the Argentine Firpo. Dempsey was an unpopular champion and Firpo was the underdog the crowd wanted to see win. Despite the knockout, Dempsey won the bout.

Answered by: Anon, Corina, Swapnaa, Dinky, Paddy and P

Question - 362

Identify the couple.

Answer: Mr. Salvador and Mrs. Gala Dali.

Answered by: Dinky, Anand, Jaggi, Anonymous, Rajesh, Debashish, P, V. Chandrashekar and Swapnaa

Question - 361

Map showing what? (Question by: Manix)

Answer: Map shows the peak times for the fall foliage.

Answered by:Iam K, Rajesh, Corina, and P

Question - 360

Whose statue?

Answer:Stevie Ray Vaughan(SRV).

Answered by: hotmanoj, Karthik, Jaggi, Corina, ashwin, Adi, Rajeev (nice!), Rajesh, Paddy, P, Rahul, Abhiskek, and Iam