Quantum Qwizzing

1.

 

He was a well-known Indian classical vocalist. He is considered to be one of the most influential figures in Hindustani Classical music, and the founder of Indore Gharana. His grandfather Change Khan was a singer in the court of Bahadur Shah Zafar. He shares his name with an Indian actor. Name him.

2. What had replaced Fox kids and what was replaced by XD in India?

3.

Something has been named on him for his contributions. Either name him or give me his claim to fame.

4.

This is the picture of an American criminal and murderer who gained international notoriety for demanding that his death sentence be fulfilled following two murders he committed in Utah. He became the first person executed in the United States after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976. Although he had an I.Q. of 133, had high scores on both scholastic and academic tests, and clear artistic skills, he dropped out of high school in the ninth grade. By the age of 14, he started a small car theft ring with other friends, resulting in his first arrest. He was executed on January 17, 1977 at 8:07 a.m. by firing squad at Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah for committing two murders. He was strapped to a chair, with a wall of sandbags placed behind him to absorb the bullets. Five gunmen, local police, stood concealed behind a curtain with five small holes cut for them to place their rifles through. When asked for any last words, he replied something which has inspired something related to the world of sports. Either tell me what he replied or what it inspired or give me his name.

5.  He is  a black belt in Taekwondo. After studying Modern History at the University of Oxford he graduated in June 2010. He was appointed as the chairman of his party on 30 December 2010. His father had been named the new chairman in his mother’s will, but he asked for his son to be appointed instead to be his son’s co-chairman. He intended to complete his studies at Oxford before returning to lead the party full-time. It had been estimated that his security at Oxford would cost at least one million pounds each year. Which personality am I taking about?

6. Connect :

7. The youngest of 14 children born to Adhémar Dion and Thérèse Tanguay, both of French-Canadian descent, X was raised a Roman Catholic in a poverty-stricken, but, by her own account, happy home in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada. Music had always been a part of the family (X was named after the song X recorded by French singer Hugues Aufray two years before her birth). On the 13th of August 1973, (at the age of five) young X did her first public appearance at her brother Michel's marriage, and performed Christine Charbonneau's song Du fil des aiguilles et du coton. Then after she grew up singing with her siblings in her parents' small piano bar called Le Vieux Baril. From an early age X had dreamed of being a performer. In a 1994 interview with People magazine, she recalled, "I missed my family and my home, but I don't regret having lost my adolescence. I had one dream: I wanted to be a singer."

8. The idea of this came from the then Information and Broadcasting minister, Vasant Sathe, in 1984. In 1983, delegates from India, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya and Brazil visited Mexico City on a special invite of David Poindexter, the President of the centre for Population Communinications International, New York, to meet Miguel Sabido, the creator of 'Simplemente Maria', a soap based on a poor migrant girl from Peru who sews her way to the riches. S.S. Gill, the then secretary of the I&B ministry had represented India. Finally the idea was 'brought to you by' Maggi, then a new special food launched in 1883. Ashok Kumar was the narrator. What?

9. Brihadratha, the king of Magadha. His wives were the twin princesses of Benares. He did not have any child for a long time. Frustrated he went to the forest and ended up serving a sage. The sage pleased with his service, not knowing the fact that he had 2 wives, offered him an apple and instructed him to feed it to his wife who would then give birth to a baby. The king not wanting to displease any of his wives offered half of the apple to each of them. But each of gave birth to two halves of a human body. Not able to withstand this fact, the king ordered to discard them in the forest. There the two halves were found by a demoness while observing brought the two halves close to each other. On bringing the two halves close the halves joined and turned alive. Taking pity on the child the demoness returned the child to the king telling him the story. Who was this child destined to become?

10. Identify this deity.

A Simple Olympiad Problem

In this post I am going to post an olympiad problem that one of the earliest problems which I had solved and after solving which I was satisfied with myself. It is a problem based on elementary number theory which is a very interesting part in olympiad mathematics and is the favourite of most of the lot.

The following problem was posed in 1978 Kurschak olympiad and it is said that only a few students were able to solve this problem.

   is never a prime.

Solution:- 

If n is even then it will be divisible by 4 giving us composite numbers. Hence we need to consider the odd numbered values for n. Since n is odd we can write n = 2x+1 for some natural number x. 

. Seeing this what I tried to do is completing the square(completing the square is a very useful tactic and helps in several problems).

Hence,   

 

Hence we have shown that  with n odd factors out into two terms. Hence it remains to check whether the smaller is 1 or not. This is quite trivial. Therefore both the terms are strictly greater than 1 and the number is not a prime.

Now let me state the famous identity of Sophie Germain upon which this problem is based.
The Sophie-Germain Identity:- 

Exercise for the reader :
(a) Try to get the identity by starting from LHS and ending in RHS.
(b) Show that  can be written as a product of two positive integers each of which is larger than . (RMO 2009)
(c)      is never a prime. (Problem Solving Strategies, Titu Andreescu and Razvan Gelca)

International Day for Biodiversity

\*This post is for those who have a very little or no knowledge on the subject. Experts may read it but I am sorry if they find it to be boring. There are no technical details. I have tried to keep it as simple as I can.*\

The United Nations has declared today as the International Day for biodiversity. I copy the following directly from this website.

International Day for Biodiversity: 22 May 2012

Date: 

Tue 22/05/12

Related Organisation/Agency: 

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

The United Nations proclaimed May 22 The International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues. When first created by the Second Committee of the UN General Assembly in late 1993, 29 December (the date of entry into force of the Convention of Biological Diversity), was designated The International Day for Biological Diversity. In December 2000, the UN General Assembly adopted 22 May as IDB, to commemorate the adoption of the text of the Convention on 22 May 1992 by the Nairobi Final Act of the Conference for the Adoption of the Agreed Text of the Convention on Biological Diversity. This was partly done because it was difficult for many countries to plan and carry out suitable celebrations for the date of 29 December, given the number of holidays that coincide around that time of year.

The theme for this year is Marine Biodiversity, providing Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and everyone interested in marine life, the opportunity to raise awareness of the number of known marine species and the need to protect them.

This is the weblink for the event : http://www.cbd.int/idb


Introduction


As the name suggests biodiversity means the diversity in life forms(Bio-). It relates to having a variety of species of flora and fauna to maintain the balance of nature.


Before learning about the need of biodiversity it is required to know some of the basic terminology and getting used to them. I would start explaining with what a food chain is and then proceed.


The sun is the ultimate source of energy in this planet. The plants use the energy of the sun to make food by the process of photosynthesis. These plants are eaten up by herbivorous or grass-eating animals. These animals are in turn eaten up by the carnivorous or meat-eating animals. After the death of these animals their bodies are decomposed into organic substances by the microbes. These organic substances mix with the soil and are taken up by the plants. This chain continues with a loss of energy at each stage. As for example, the plants are able to use only 1% of the entire solar energy available to them. This chain is known as the food chain and each level where the energy of the sun passes is known as a tropic level. For example, grass is eaten up by a grasshopper, the grasshopper by a sparrow, the sparrow by a snake, the snake by an eagle and the eagle by a lion. The organisms are the tropic levels in this food chain. The highest tropic level is that of the lion and the lowest is that of grass.


An ecosystem is a community of organisms interacting with each other and with their environment such that energy is exchanged and system-level processes, such as the cycling of elements, emerge. The study of ecosystems is known as ecology. An ecosystem may range in size from a drop of water to maybe an ocean. Each ecosystem constitutes of biotic and abiotic components. Biotic components include all the living organisms including plants, animals and other life forms. The abiotic components include all the non-living part of the ecosystem such as water, sunlight, wind, minerals, etc.



Why is biodiversity important ?


Biodiversity might seem to be quite silly to some but infact its importance has a great impact on the survival of man. Each creature is important. God has sent everyone with a purpose on Earth. When we see a tiger killing a deer we feel pity for the deer. For a moment it might strike our minds that it would good if all the tigers existing on this planet should die. But if tigers die, then who would be left to control the increasing population of deers. Initially the number of deers would be continuously increasing and they will keep eating the grass. This would lead to overgrazing thus causing soil erosion and the land would become barren like a desert. This would make the deers starve to death. Hence in any food chain the organisms at the uppermost tropic level are compared to be like the foundation of a building where any damage made to the building adversely affects the entire food chain.
It is obvious that the death (extinction) of the organisms at the lower tropic levels will adversely affect the higher tropic levels.
Biodiversity is important at the national level as a country gains a lot from it and this makes tourism possible. Also a country's international status depends on its biodiversity also.
The ecosystems provide us with a huge amount of wealth which boosts up the economy. Each and every industry are dependent on some or the other ecosystem. Hence any damage to the later will effect the former.
Most of us don't like snakes but we don't know their importance. They check the number of rats thus keeping these nuisance creating creatures aside. Also rats do not have so much of an ecological importance.


Present day situation


Many species which were present even a few decades ago have become extinct. Many are on the verge of extinction. Such species are known as endangered species. Also there are certain species which aren't yet vulnerable but if the same conditions prevail then they may become vulnerable. Such species are known as vulnerable species.
Species such as dodo, passenger pigeon are extinct whereas species such as blue whales are endangered. Remembering about blue whales I tell that if the rate of environmental destruction continues in this way then their number may become handful and finally they may become extinct. Same is the case with lions. Earlier India was known for its lions and we have heard great tales of these mighty kings. But now in entire Asia, their number is so poor that Asiatic lions are found only in the Gir National Park. Earlier in the end of the 19th century the number of passenger pigeons was so high that each huge tree had hundreds of nests. But now one can only see them in statues.


Threats

• Animals have the greatest threats from poachers. The poachers not only kill their prey but also damage the forests and to get at their targets they also do damage to the other species
• Pollution
• Soil erosion
• Inefficient practices of agriculture such as 'slash and burn'.
• Forest fires                                                               
• Oil spills                                                                 A bird soaked in an oil spill trying to get up
• Fishing                                                                        
• Global Warming
• Population increase

What can we do at home ?

We think that being at home or in the home town we can't stop destruction to biodiversity. But if we want we can do a lot.

• Stop buying products made of animal skin and hides.
• Decrease the use of poly bags
• Water the plants at the evening
• Try to participate at mass events such as Vana Mahotsava. At least plant a tree.
• Segregate the garbage before discarding
• Use the kitchen water to water the plants
• Use CFLs and tube lights instead of bulbs
• Do not waste energy and resources
• Try using the system of car pool
• Switch off the ignition in a motor vehicle when you have to wait for more than 15 seconds
• Try using other sources of non-exhaustible energy if available such as solar energy, hydel power, bio-gas,etc.
  
• And this is from me: try to have vegetarian food whenever you can.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mothers' Day to all the mother's of this world including mother Earth. A mother is life giver to all living mortals on Earth. She is first person whom we see after opening our eyes for the first time. She is the one who holds our hands to give us support when we are helpless. The syllable "Ma" is the first one which a baby speaks when learns to speak. She brings joy to our life and is one the real treasures of any man or animal. She brings sweetness to our life by cooking sweet dishes and at times salt by using her magical broom to show us the right path. She gives her best in bringing up a child and proves her motherhood by taking proper care. The mothers are the real "home-makers" and true "super-heroins" in the real sense of the term.

This day is a very special day and I request each and every son and daughter to give a helping hand to their mothers, not only this day but every day. Then it would seem that each day is a Mothers' Day. This "Sunday" we have to shine like the sun in giving our mothers joy and making their lives joyful.

I would like to end by praying for those whose mothers are no more in this world and also for those mothers whose children are no more in this world. See here for the historical facts.

Hello everyone

Hi everyone! I am very knew to this world of internet and so apologies for any mistake. I am enjoying my holidays after a month-long laborius study time for my ICSE. Huh! I guess now I might enjoy some rest.


I am 16 year old foolish boy who is trying to enjoy the natural wonders of nature. I am an impractical day dreamer. But, I am a night dreamer too. I love to boast about myself, quite selfish about me, cunning, stupid, and ya of course an introvert. I am an insane and love to find out and make others find insanity in the midst of seriousness.


I have a little knowledge of computers, viz. HTML, Java, Javascript and so want to put it to the test. I amfacebook, eating, sleeping, texting, programming or in a single line it would be "Jack of all trades, master of none." interested in maths, quizzing, photography, graphics editing, softwares, chatting, 

I am a believer of God and as others belong to the universal religion of humanity. But I am not superstitious. I love peace and love peace-lovers. I owe no hatred towards any of my fellow beings and view them equally. I believe in the eternal motto of love and have faithn on its power to change the world. I love thinking and studying emotions and behaviours of several people in several cases. I am interested in anything that is under the sky(and also beyond).


So good night going to have my dinner. Meet you later...............................