MIT Toast to IAP - 2014 Quiz

Hello Contestants. Your group’s mission – should you choose to accept it – is to answer as

many of the questions below as possible. Internet assists or telephone chats are frowned upon

but “crowd sourcing” of your MIT Club’s members is encouraged.

Question 1. Once again, can somebody top the Tarheels?

The number of MIT Clubs participating in this Toast to IAP quiz keeps growing. This year over 60 Clubs are involved and, of those, over fifteen are located outside the USA. Welcome, international Clubs! For the last two years, the overall winner of this competition has been the Research Triangle Park Club from North Carolina. Last year, the Club of Hartford gave them a run for their money tying for first place. Well done, Hartford! Let’s see if another MIT Club can outdo them this year. Remember, the winning team(s) will be added to our Toast to IAP Champion Trophy. To start things off, here are questions about some very special MIT clubs. For 2 points each, do you know:

1. Oldest International MIT Club?

2. Second oldest domestic MIT Club?

3. MIT Club participating in the Toast to IAP that is furthest from Cambridge, MA?

4. MIT Club that had the most events in the past year?

5. MIT Club which proposed the Beaver as the mascot?

6. MIT Club that held 4 Toast to IAP events in 2013?

7. MIT Club that held their first Summer Send-off event titled “LEGO® at the Museum”?

8. MIT Club that made their own pocket protector name badges?

Question 2. The Adventures of Flat Tim

This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the adoption of MIT’s Mascot. Tim the Beaver is

justifiably proud and increasingly visible around the Institute as this milestone approaches, For 1

point each, provide the name of the building or campus landmark where Tim appears below.

Hint: for Photo #2 the answer “the dome” will not receive credit.

Photo #1 Photo #2

Photo #3 Photo #4

Photo #5 Photo #6

Photo #7 Photo #8

Photo #9 Photo #10

Question 3. The Institute, Land of Discovery!

One of the reasons we enjoy being members of the MIT community is that the Institute is the

site of so many seminal discoveries in basic science and other areas MIT people study. Most of

these breakthroughs do not occur within a specific discipline but are the product of an

interdisciplinary perspective. For example, back in the 1960s a researcher in climate models

noticed that adjusting for computer rounding errors completely changed the predictions in his

models. His discovery led to a whole new field of mathematics in the 1970s. For 5 points, what

is this (relatively) new field of mathematics called? Hint: it has a very cool name.

Question 4. It’s All in the Units

In 8.01 and other elementary physics courses, we, MIT alumni, learned the convention of

prefixing a unit of measure to scale it up or down (e.g. a nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and

a kilometer is a thousand meters). We can have some fun with this if we are not fussy about the

unit of measure, like, for example, one trillion pins equals one “terrapin”. For 3 points each,

what are the “metric” equivalents of

1) 10 rations

2) 1000 grams of wet socks

3) a half-bath

4) 1 million billion piccolos

5) 2 monograms

Question 5. Set in Stone

The names of the many great scientists, engineers, and philosophers are inscribed in stone on

the buildings around MIT’s Killian Court. Hopefully, they will continue to inspire future

generations. We have all, no doubt, noticed the names in big letters - like Archimedes, Darwin,

and Newton. But here are some of the names in small letters. For 2 points each, match each

name with the appropriate description.

1. Carnot A. Physicist, researcher in electricity

2. Napier B. Developed theory of definite proportions in chemistry

3. Foucault C. Inventor of logarithms

4. Priestly D. Teacher, minister, experimenter, and discoverer of oxygen

5. Dalton E. Founder of the science of thermodynamics

Question 6. Renaissance Recreations

Here is a tough one that some Course 21 folks might know. The left hand column lists five great

Italian Renaissance artists and the right hand column lists a work from each. For 2 points each,

match each artist with the correct painting.

1. Raphael A. Statue of Moses

2. Tintoretto B. Venus of Urbino

3. Michelangelo C. Worship of the Golden Calf

4. Botticelli D. The School of Athens

5. Titian E. Primavera

Question 7. What’s All the Fuss About MOOCs?

Hopefully, most of us alums are aware of MIT’s recent major initiative to advance the art of

MOOCs (Massively On-Line Open Courses) and on-line education. MIT’s leadership in the Edx

consortium is one more effort in a very long list of educational innovations, starting with MIT’s

founding in 1861. Below is a list of some of the more recent innovations. For 4 points, please

put them in chronological order, starting with the oldest first.

Athena, UROP, OpenCourseWare, IAP

Question 8. Going Nuclear

Recently the earthbound nuclear industry has had some tough going, though nuclear fusion

continues to be a very serviceable power source for our solar system, as well as the larger

universe. As Einstein’s famous formula E=MC2 reminds us, there is a lot of latent energy in even

a small amount of matter. Suppose New York City’s power requirements for one year are 25

billion kilowatt-hours. If one were about able to covert an entire mass to energy, how much

mass would be needed to keep the Big Apple lit up? For 5 points, please answer to the nearest

kilogram.

Question 9. Leading Ladies

Ellen Swallow was a pioneer in so many ways. As the Institute’s first female graduate she would

be pleased with the strides women have made since her days here. Women make up nearly

half of MIT's undergraduate student body and a growing number of its faculty and leaders,

including MIT's former President, Susan Hockfield. For 2 points each can you match each

alumna to one of their notable achievements?

1. Carly Fiorina SM ‘89

2. Helen Greiner ‘89, SM ‘90

3. Radia Perlman ‘73, SM ‘76, PhD ‘88

4. Mary Ann Beyster SM ‘90

5. Eve Higginbotham Williams MD ‘75, SM ‘75

6. Megan Smith ‘86, SM ‘88

7. Sheila Widnall ‘60, SM ‘61, ScD ‘64

A. Vice President, Google[x]

B. Vice Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at

University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman

School of Medicine

C. Executive Producer “We the Owners”

D. Served as Chairman of the Board of iRobot

E. Former Secretary of the Airforce

F. CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005

G. Invented Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

Question 10. MIT Students Try to Stump our Alumni

This year we offered students an opportunity to submit questions for our Toast to IAP quiz.

1. For 1 point, the first online version of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is

hosted on shakespeare.mit.edu. In which year was the website put up?

Submitted by MIT Shakespeare Ensemble

2. For 1 point each, name any four floors of East Campus and their nicknames.

Submitted by James Deng ‘17

Question 11. Sorority Sisters There are also six national sororities at MIT, and most have well over a hundred active

members. Collectively they form the Panhellenic Association at MIT, which is now MIT’s largest

women’s organization. For 1 point each can you name at least 4 of today’s campus sororities?

Question 12. It’s Elemental Here is a question from the Youth Division (i.e. Middle & High

Schools) of a recent Science Trivia Challenge, a team competition held annually every spring at

MIT. It is sponsored by Mathworks and organized by the MIT Club of Boston as part of the

Cambridge Science Festival. The symbols of the periodic table can be used to spell the full

name of an element. For example, "Tin" can be spelled by “Ti” (Titanium) plus “N” (Nitrogen)

and “Arsenic” can be spelled by “Ar” (Argon), “Se” (Selenium), “Ni” (Nickel), and “C” (Carbon).

For 1 point each, name the 10 other elements whose names can be spelled in this way. How

many can you name? Please provide the formula (e.g. tin = Ti + N).

BONUS QUESTION – Make Up a Question! (5 points)

The 8th Annual Science Trivia Challenge (see Question 10) will be held next April 23 at the

Broad Institute, next to the MIT campus. Can you think of a challenging question for the

contestants? Enter it here. Please also supply an answer. And If you would like to enter a team

or submit questions in the Trivia Challenge, check out http://web.mit.edu/trivia.

Photo Submission (15 points) Submit at least one photo of attendees at your event with your Birthday Edition of Tim the Beaver standup visible in the photo. Please identify individuals in the photo. Attendance (5 points) Submit a typed attendance list including the name and graduation year (for alumni) of

attendees.

THANKS FOR COMPETING IN THE 2014 TOAST TO IAP!