history of ideas quiz : february 2014

1. Bill McKibben, a prominent environmentalist and part of a

question in the 1st HoI quiz, has started an organisation

350.org to raise awareness and force action on a particular

issue. Why is it called 350.org? (1 point)

1A. It is based on the analysis by NASA that 350 ppm of CO2 in

the atmosphere is the safe upper limit to prevent climate

tipping point.

2. The Wolfram Code is a way of naming/numbering something -

invented by Stephen Wolfram and discussed extensively

in, among other places, his books “A New Kind of Science”.

Number / Rule 90A produces a variation of the Pascal’s

triangle. Discovered by Stanislaw Ulam and John von

Neumann, they are useful in Mathematics, Physics and

Theoretical Biology modeling. They were made popular

beyond academia by a 1970 game.

Rule 110 has been proved to be an Universal Turning Machine.

When scientists referenced the proof of a certain Rule in a

paper, Wolfram filed a case against them on the grounds that

even the existence of a proof of the Rule was a trade secret

of Wolfram Research Inc.

What does the Wolfram Code ennumerate or what are these the

Rules for? (1 point)

2A. Cellular Automate - Rule 34 is supposed to be a Turing

machine...

3. X Y is a phrase coined by Henry Luce in a 1941 editorial in Life

magazine. Arguing for the US to enter the 2nd World War, Luce

wrote

“Throughout ... this continent teemed with manifold projects

and magnificent purposes. Above them all and weaving them

all together into the most exciting flag of all the world and of

all history was the triumphal purpose of freedom.

It is in this spirit that all of us are called, each to his own

measure of capacity, and each in the widest horizon of his

vision, to create the first great X Y”.

Z later titled his autobiography - "Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome

Secrets of a star crossed child in the Last Days of the X Y".

Give XY and Z. (2 points)

3A. XY = American Century; Z = Hunter S Thompson

4. Patrick Geddes was a Scottish

polymath, who among other

things was a

biologist, sociologist, wrote a

biography of JC Bose, coined

the term conurbation. As an

urban planner, his Geddes

Design/Plan from 1925 was the

basis for the development of

city X. The plan was based on

Geddes’s plans for Balrampur in

India etc. X (whose name

means “Spring

Mound”, signifying a renewal)

is the home to many foreign

embassies because the UN and

all countries do not recognize Y

as the official capital of the

country. Give X and Y. (2

4A. X = Tel Aviv, Y =- Jerusalem.

5. The term X in an Economics sense was coined by David

Ricardo who defined it as “the portion of the produce of the

earth which is paid to a landlord on account of the original

and indestructible powers of the soil”. It is used in a more

generic sense now.

XY is a concept 1st identified by Gordon Tullock in 1967 and

given the name XY by Anne Krueger in 1974 - XY “is an

attempt to obtain X by manipulating the social or political

environment in which economic activities occur, rather than

by creating new wealth”.

X and XY? (2 points)

5A. X = Rent; XY = Rent Seeking

6. This greek phrase X Y (English phrase is A of B) is the name

given to Euclid’s 5th proposition in book 1 that “angles

opposite the equal sides of an isoceles triangle are equal” -

the popular explanation for the name is that the proposition is

the 1st real test of a reader’s intelligence and serves as a B to

the harder propositions that follow.

The phrase is now used a metaphor for a problem or challenge

that separates the mind of the sure from the simple - i.e. it

represents a test of ability to understand.

Give the Greek or the equivalent English Phrase. (1 point)

6A. Pons Asinorum or the Bridge of Fools.

7. Charles McKay wrote the book “Extraordinary Popular

Delusion and the X Y Z” - it detailed many of the popular

delusions in history including the Crusades, Tulip Mania and

the South Sea Bubble.

This inspired the title W Y Z of a mid-2000s popular book by a

New Yorker writer. W Y Z starts of with an early 20th century

story about guessing the weight of an ox at a county fair and

Francis Galton’s analysis of it.

Give XYZ and WYZ. (2 points)

7A. XYZ = Madness of Crowds; WYZ = Wisdom of Crowds

8. Which award winning book X from 1997 starts of with a

question from a local politician Yali - “"Why is that you white

people developed much cargo and brought it to YZ, but

we black people had little cargo of our own”. This sets the

author of on an answering the question which forms the title

of the book. Adam Smith had considered a similar question

stressed on the geography of waterways rather than the ease

of crossing Eurasia.

Just give the name of the book, Y. (1 point)

8A. Y = Guns, Germs and Steel.

9. This term X Y was coined by Henry James in an 1886 novel

centred on a North East American city and was used for a

relationship between 2 women living together independent of

financial support from a man. Henry James’s sister Alice lived

in one such relationship. It also the name of a play by David

Mamet, who wrote it after being criticized that he could only

write for men.

What is X Y? (1 point)

9A. XY = Boston Marriage

10. X Y is a term used by Frederich Nietzsche in Thus Spake

Zarathustra to describe the anti-thesis of his imagined

superior being Übermensch. XY is tired of life, takes no

risks, and seeks only comfort and security.

After having unsuccessfully attempted to get the populace to

accept the Übermensch as the goal of society, Zarathustra

confronts them with a goal (XY) so disgusting that he assumes

that it will revolt them. What is XY? (1 point)

10A. XY = Last Man

11. An example of a counting argument, this seemingly simple

intuitive idea was 1st formulated by Dirichlet in 1834 and was

called Schubfachprinzip and "principe des tiroirs" in French. It

can be used to show that "collisions" are inevitable in a hash

table or that any lossless compression scheme will have some

outputs larger than the input. What? (1 point)

11A. Pigeonhole Principle

12. British historian Herbert Butterfield coined the term "X

history" in his 1931 book The X Interpretation of History. It

takes its name from the X, who were advocates of the power

of Parliament. Butterfield wrote that “It is part and parcel of

the X interpretation of history that it studies the past with

reference to the present”.

It is also used in the field of History of Science - where the

Science is pictured as constantly advancing, with villains and

heroes and where ideas/novelties/revolutions in Science are

praised if they have been successful.

What is X? (1 point)

12A. X = Whig; Whiggism / Whiggishness

13. X was a French mathematician and with Denis Diderot was

co-editor of (and extensive contributor to) the Encyclopedie.

X formulated what is now called X Y in 1749 while working on a

Prize Problem of the BerlinAcademy. In the words of a Nobel

Laureate Cyril Hinshelwood, XY resulted in fluid mechanics

being discredited and lead to a split of the field into

Hydraulics (observing phenomena that could not be explained)

and Theoretical Fluid Mechanics (explaining things that could

not be observed).

The matter was resolved satisfactorily only in early 20th century

with Ludwig Prandtl’s discoevry and description of Boundary

Layers.

What is X Y? (1 point)

13A. X Y = D’Alembert’s Paradox (drag force on a body in an

incompressible inviscid flow is zero).

14. Id the Nobel Laureate in the video.

X introduced the concept Y in his 1960 book “Strategy of

Conflict” - he defined it as “a solution that people will tend

to use in the absence of communication because it seems

natural, special or relevant to them”.

“Tomorrow you have to meet a stranger in NYC. Where and when

do you meet them? This is a coordination game, where any

place in time in the city could be an equilibrium solution. X

asked a group of students this question, and found the most

common answer was "noon at (the information booth at)

Grand Central Station." ”

X and Y? (2 points)

14A. X = Thomas Schelling; Y = Focal Point

15. While cadavers had been used previously, “Sierra Sam” was

the 1st X, created by Samuel W. Alderson at his Alderson

Research Labs (ARL) and Sierra Engineering Co. in 1949 under

a contract with the US Air Force. Sierra Sam was much taller

and heavier than an average adult male. X?

(1 point)

15A. X = Crash Test Dummy

16. Pierre Martel noticed the erratic distibution of boulders in

the Chamonix valley in the Swiss Alps and reported that the

inhabitants attributed the action of glaciers for it. James

Hutton, Goethe and Swiss-German geologist Jean de

Charpentier also had similar explanations. Karl Friedrich

Schimper called it Eiszeit.

Louis Agassiz is however considered to have given the 1st

scientific explanation. After his initial paper was rejected, he

embarked on fieldwork and wrote a book about. Currently

Huronian, Cryogenian, Andean-Saharan, Karoo and Quaternary

are currently accepted as 5 major occurences of what? (1

point)

16A. Ice Age

17. The essence of what 19th century ideal is

● Order as most important necessity.

● Tricameral legislature with varied and broad powers

composed of

○ A hereditary and professional Senate.

○ A body of Censors composing the state's "moral authority".

○ A popularly elected legislative assembly.

● A hereditary and professional Senate.

● A body of Censors composing the state's "moral authority".

● A popularly elected legislative assembly.

● A life-term executive supported by a strong, active cabinet or

ministers.

● A judicial system stripped of legislative powers.

● A representative electoral system.

● Military autonomy.

19A. Bolivarian Republic

Guinea Pig: Vikram joshi

Cover Photo Credits: Chaitanya: Trick of The

Light

John Ruskin‘s Unto His Last opens with the following passage

―Among the delusions which at different periods have possessed themselves of the minds of large masses of the human race, perhaps the most curious —certainly the least creditable — is the modern soi-disant science of political economy, based on the idea that an advantageous code of social action may be determined irrespectively of the influence of social affection‖.

Ruskin‘s work is famous in India thanks to a 1908 translation. This is still revered by many who consider their political philosophy as welfare for all. Id the author and the name of the translation.

20

M K Gandhi

Sarvodaya

A quote from Karl Marx‘s Economic and

Philosophy Manuscripts.

‖___a___ , ___b___and __g__ __ g ’__were the 3

great inventions which ushered in bourgeois

society. ___a___ blew up the knightly class, the

___b___ discovered the world market and

founded the colonies, and the __g__ __ g ’__

was the instrument of Protestantism and the

regeneration of science in general; the most

powerful lever for creating the intellectual

prerequisites.‖

21

a - Gunpowder

b - Compass

g g‘ -Printing Press

Scottish Highlanders, Punjabi Sikhs, and

Nepalese Gurkhas were identified as fiercest of

warriors in the British Indian Army. As ―____

_____―(7, 4) these men were believed to possess

a biological or cultural disposition to the qualities

necessary for the arts of war as opposed to the

―sedentary‖ lifestyles of other ―natives‖. The ____

____ were considered the best examples of

manhood, Britain and India had to offer. Id this

(rather shoddy) ―racist‖ term-- an unsaid

requirement, one had to ―possess‖, to get into

the army.

22

Martial Race

What thought experiment is the artist trying to

depict?

23

Infinite Monkey Theorem

What ―parable‖ is depicted here?

24

The broken window fallacy or the glazier fallacy

IBM‘s ―Birth of a Trend‖ project is an effort

dedicated to understanding the science behind

predicting online trends. In 2013, they predicted

________ as a major trend that would take hold

of the retail industry.

Based on the data from 2009- 2012 they also

said that ―____ has evolved into a cultural ‗meme‘

via a series of leaps across cultural domains‖.

25

Steampunk.

Based on an analysis of more than a half million

public posts on message boards, blogs, social

media sites and news sources

William Paley, an 18th century philosopher was

the author of ―Natural Theology: or, Evidences of

the Existence and Attributes of the Deity‖. The

book proposed an analogy that was widely

accepted at the time. As with most things in

Biology, this changed after Charles Darwin‘s

Theory of Evolution.

The analogy was also used for the title of a

classic 1986 book by a scientist, although with a

minor modification.

Give the analogy, the title of the book and the

author of the 1986 book.

26

Watchmaker analogy

The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins

Shown in the image is a special type of train used

by Network Rail in the UK. The train is used for a

specific task, at a particular time of the year. What

is the task? What are these trains called as?

27

Leaf busters--used to remove fallen leaves from

the track, which cause slippery rail.

An excerpt from a paper titled ―On The Monstrosity

of _____s(6)‖ by Dr. D. Graham Burnet, a historian of

science at the Princeton University. Just fill in the

blank.

A/An ______ (6) is a bit of earth that has broken

faith with the terrestrial world. This quite naturally

gives rise to concern about the reliability and good

will of these landforms, which have so clearly

turned their back on geographical solidarity.

Creeping anxiety along these lines likely accounts in

some measure for the prominence of ______s (6)in

the robust literatures of

betrayal, solitude, madness, and despair.

28

Island(s)

The historic District Commission designated the

Savery Avenue, Carver MA(shown)under the

National Historic Preservation Act that lists all

types of architectural and cultural resources

deemed worthy of preservation in October 2007.

What „first‟ is often attributed to Savery Avenue

in the USA?

29

According to Carver history, Savery Avenue was

the first divided highway in the United States. It

was presented to the public in 1861 by William

Savery. T

The trees between the roads and on the outside

of them were to be left for ―shade and ornament

for man and beast.‖.

This is the ―head‖ of a particular musical

instrument. Id the instrument(generic name would

do) and the mythical creature depicted.

30

The Veena

Yali or Vidala or Sharabham

What is Paul Krugman talking about here.

―What we want from a monetary system isn‘t to

make people holding money rich; we want it to

facilitate transactions and make the economy

as a whole rich. And that‘s not at all what is

happening….‖

―…So to the extent that the experiment tells us

anything about monetary regimes, it reinforces

the case against anything like a new gold

standard – because it shows just how vulnerable

such a standard would be to money-

hoarding, deflation, and depression‖

31

Bitcoin

___X___ may be more familiar than ___Y___ to the average reader. Because of this, we readily understand when, in Tidewater Tales, John Barth says, what he says so, about Helen throughout the Trojan War. Nevertheless, the anachronistic substitution of ___X___ for ___Y___ should not be tolerated despite its familiarity to modern readers. Additionally, this misperception has crept into reference works on ___X___; some authors misdate the invention of ___X___ by millennia because of the idea that Penelope was ___X___ .

32

X- Knitting

Y- Weaving

The excerpt from Lydia Hailie‘s essay Unravelling Penelope‘s Knitting

―Saying that Penelope was knitting, however, does more than introduce an anachronism. It also destroys the symbolism of what she is doing; weaving locks multiple threads together into one piece of fabric, while knitting, in its simplest form, just turns the yarn back on itself. ‖

Founders of 2 ―secular‖ institutions. ID both and

the institutions

33

Madan Mohan Malaviya- Banaras Hindu

University

Syed Ahmed Khan- Aligarh Muslim University

The book Leviathan and the Air Pump by Steven

Shapin and Simon Schaffer, according to many

Historians of Science, is said to have changed

the discourse on the "History of Science"

because of its treatment of subjects like

"production of knowledge", "scientific

rationality―, "experimental culture" among other

things. The book explores the debates between

X and Y over Y's experiments. ID X & Y

34

Thomas Hobbes and Robert Boyle

This comic attempts to retell the tale of a certain

west bound journey.

The comic also aims to show us the true purpose

of the mission, that is, to hunt down and destroy

the monsters that infest this nation and make it

safe.

Images Follow. Identify the title of the comic and

the west bound journey that is fictionlised here?

35

Ends

Lewis and Clark

Expedition

From the comic: The expedition, fearing they may never find anything, finally come upon something that may seem familiar in our day and age, although it is not covered in metal but made of foliage; This version, looking like some crazy topiary, is the first point of investigation for this strange trip. While ____ begins sketching and testing the arch, ___ sends out the troops to secure the perimeter. Out of the treeline rides what can only be described as a beast, a monster like a Minotaur and a centaur, heading straight for ______ in hopes of cutting their investigation short. What structure is referred to here?

36

Gateway Arch, St. Louis

From Ananda Coomaraswamy‘s collection of essays ―The Dance of Siva‖ .

… What is the essential element in poetry ? According to some authors this consists in style or figures, or in suggestion. But the greater writers refute these views and are agreed that the one essential element in poetry is what they term ___X____. With this term, which is the equivalent of Beauty or Esthetic in the strict sense of the philosopher, must be considered

the derivative adjective ___Q___ 'having __X__ ' applied to a work of art, and the derivative substantive __Y__, one who

enjoys __X__, a connoisseur or lover, and finally ____Z___, the tasting of __X___, i.e., aesthetic contemplation.

37

X- Rasa Q- Rasavanta

Y- Rasika

Z-Rasavadana

The following are the first few lines from the

introduction of a classic book. Id the book and the

author: (actual there are two authors, just name

the more famous author)

“Nothing appears more ancient, and linked to an

immemorial past, than the pageantry which

surrounds British monarchy in its public

ceremonial manifestations. Yet, as a chapter in

this book establishes, in its modern form it is the

product of the late nineteenth and twentieth

centuries”

39

The Invention of Traditions, edited by Eric

Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger

'Traditions' which appear or claim to be old are

often quite recent in origin and sometimes

invented.

Stuart Hall, professor of Sociology was

considered as the ―Godfather of Multiculturalism‖.

Hall was a prominent post-war Left voices of

Britain and in the 70s coined the phrase ______;

He attached this term to the rise of the ―New

Right‖. In 1979, he warned the left intellectuals

not to dismiss the appeal of the nascent ______

since it ―addresses real problems, real and lived

experiences, real contradictions‖.

40

Thatcherism

K B Ganapathy, the editor of Star of Mysore (one

the most widely read evening newspapers in

English in Mysore) has a bungalow overlooking

the Lalith Mahal Palace Hotel. His house is

named ___ ____, a term taken from Edmund

Burke‘s famous speech at the House of

Commons in 1840.

―… in the Reporters‘ Gallery yonder, there sat

a ____ _____ more important far than they all. It

is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a

literal fact,—very momentous to us in these

times…‖

41

Fourth Estate

The fact that this avant-garde composer chose to omit an important detail, has led to such discussions

―We, a group of theologians, musicologists, philosophers, composers and organists, met during a couple of years solely to discuss this question. It was rather wonderful to have one topic to discuss at length."

"We came up with the answer that the piece could last for the duration of the organ - that is the lifetime of an organ.―

"It's a sound that we give to the future to take care of, and hopefully the aesthetics and the ideas of ___ ___ will manage to survive.― Who? What piece of music? What detail?

42

John Cage‘s As Slow as Possible.

Cage did not mention as to how slow the piece

should be played. The performances over the

years have ranged from 20 minutes to 639

years(the theologians are actually discussing

about this 639 year project)!!!

Alex Wellerstein(@wellerstein), from the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics, authors a “nuclear secrecy”blog, which has many interesting things like NUKEMAP(a way of making the sublime horror of nuclear weapons actually accessible). The blog is titled ____ _____ and takes its name from legal definition of American nuclear secrecy, as defined by the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Identify the title of the blog.

An excerpt follows:

The term ―___ ___‖ as used in this section means

all data concerning the manufacture or utilization

of atomic weapons, the production of fissionable

material, or the use of fissionable material in the

production of power, but shall not include any

data which the Commission from time to time

determines may be published without adversely

affecting the common defense and security.

Restricted Data