Engineers Quiz.

[RobbieB]

Engineers Quiz:
It’s late, I’m waiting for a computer to defrag, and I’m bored. So, here is a guaranteed 100% geek test. Most of these are probably Googleable, but not all. Enjoy.
1: Which of the naturally occurring chemical elements has the distinction of being both the cheapest and most expensive?
2: What is the third most abundant gas in the atmosphere?
3: Genetically speaking, which did come first, the chicken or the egg?
4: How many odd numbered leap years have there been?
5: Before Pluto was discovered, which planet was furthest from the Sun?
6: Without adding anything to either the ice cube or the water, how can you make a pure water ice cube sink in a glass of water? (there are at least two correct answers to this).
7: If you hang a weight from a rubber band, then heat the band, does the weight rise or lower?
8: If a butcher is 190 cm tall, blond, and male, what does he weigh?
9: What is worth more, a box full of $1 coins or the same box half full of $2 coins?
10: How many people do you need to have in the same room to have a 50% chance that at least two them share a birthday?
11: Starting at zero and spelling out the numbers, how far do you have to count before you use the letter ‘a’?
And finally, one for the Mushtare fans:
12: What does your strike percentage have to be to have a one-in-a-thousand chance of throwing a 900 series? What about one-in-a-million?
Cheers, Robbie.

 

[wchester]

Answers off the top of my head..
2) methane..lots of old farts around.
5) Pluto (unless it moved before being discovered)
4) zero
7) higher (rubber contracts before melting)
8) meats and poultry
9) $2 coins ( they're smaller)
10) 30
11) 101

 

[mongoliantreesloth]

12 quick guesses:
1. Carbon
2. Helium?
3. Chicken?
4. None
5. Neptune, assuming the question related to "known" planets
6. Heat the water?
7. Lower
8. Dead Animals
9. Depends on the size of the box
10. 2
11. 101
12. Whatever Daddy says it is.

 

[Scotty H]

6. Suck out the water with a straw... ice cube sinks in the glass?

-Scott

 

[jhk67]

1. Carbon (Coal and Diamond)
2. Nitrogen i think
3. Chicken (10 Year study determined it)
4. None
5. Neptune
6. Suck the water out
7. Dont Know
8. Meat
9. The $2 coins
10. 183 (Including yourself)
11. 101 one hundred and one (if and does not count then never)
12. 1 in a thousand (58.35%), 1 in a million (41.33%)

 

[tonx]

1)carbon (as previously answered)
2)argon
3) egg-for a chicken to be a chicken, it must come from somewhere..... (recent finding, i believe)
4)0
5)wayne has this one right, pluto
6)as previously answered, suck, tip out the water
7) im gunna say lower
8)as previously stated, meat
9)$2
10)183
11) one thousand
12) 100% (i think its a trick question, regardless of what the ratio it, you still need to strike all the time to get it)

 

[RobbieB]

Wayne is leading so far with 4 correct.

 

[Brenton_Davy]

1. Carbon (free in gaseous state expensive when part of gold)
2. Neon (Guess, just something I thought I heard somewhere)
3. Egg (Recent news article)
4. Every leap year PRIOR to 1AD (my probably flawed logic)
5. Pluto (hasn't moved as far as i know)
6. Drill a hole in the bottom ogf the glass? (Isn't sucking it out with a straw adding something to the water, ie the straw?)
7. ??? (No idea)
8. Meat (trick q)
9. Same (")
10. 30 or 31 (depends on the month)
11. 1000 (one thousAnd)
12. 100% (whatever the odds you need 36 out of 36 to get it)

 

[Feral]

1. Carbon
2. Oxygen
3. Egg
4. 7
5. Pluto
6. siphon off the water
7. Higher
8. Meat
9. 1/2 box of $2 coins
10. 183 (allows for leap year)
11. Thousand (one hundred one can be used instead of one hundred and one)
12. 27.8%

 

[Woza]

1. carbon
2. oxygen
3. egg
4. none
5. Pluto
6. suck/tip
7. raise
8. meat
9. $2
10. 23
11. One Thousand
12. 100%

 

[RobbieB]

Getting closer...

Q. 6 - no you don't siphon off or otherwise remove the water. The ice has to sink _in_ the water.

New leader - Feral got 7/12.
On edit - so did woza

 

[Feral]

Edited guesses:

1. Carbon
2. Argon
3. Chicken
4. 7
5. Pluto
6. Pressurise the glass of water and ice
7. Higher
8. Meat
9. 1/2 box of $2 coins
10. 183 (allows for leap year)
11. Thousand (one hundred one can be used instead of one hundred and one)
12. 27.8%

 

[Woza]

Edited Guesses

Ones that I have right (i think)

1. Still Carbon

2. Argon is the third most abundant gas in the atmosphere, after nitrogen and oxygen

3. the bird that evolved into a chicken must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg

5. Still Pluto

7. As you gently heat the rubber band you can watch the weight rise (until you start melting the rubber band, that is).

8. Meat


10. To figure out the exact probability of finding two people with the same birthday in a given group, it turns out to be easier to ask the opposite question: what is the probability that NO two will share a birthday, i.e., that they will all have different birthdays? With just two people, the probability that they have different birthdays is 364/365, or about .997. If a third person joins them, the probability that this new person has a different birthday from those two (i.e., the probability that all three will have different birthdays) is (364/365) x (363/365), about .992. With a fourth person, the probability that all four have different birthdays is (364/365) x (363/365) x (362/365), which comes out at around .983. And so on. The answers to these multiplications get steadily smaller. When a twenty-third person enters the room, the final fraction that you multiply by is 343/365, and the answer you get drops below .5 for the first time, being approximately .493. This is the probability that all 23 people have a different birthday. So, the probability that at least two people share a birthday is 1 - .493 = .507, just greater than 1/2.

11. Thousand


That leaves questions 4,6,9 and 12 which may be suspect answers

4. odd numbered leap years still say 0

6. Agree with feral - pressurise glass

9. Still say $2

12 strike percentage

 

[RobbieB]

Woza wrote:
Ones that I have right (i think)

1. Still Carbon

Correct. Coal & Diamond.

2. Argon is the third most abundant gas in the atmosphere, after nitrogen and oxygen

Wrong. Water vapor averages about 2%. So much for Googling analyses of dry air.

3. the bird that evolved into a chicken must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg

Correct. The mutation that produced the first chicken had to be in an egg or sperm cell, making the first chicken egg.

5. Still Pluto

Yep.

7. As you gently heat the rubber band you can watch the weight rise (until you start melting the rubber band, that is).

Yes. It's an entropy driven process. Basically the weight pulls the rubber molecules straight, adding heat allows them to vibrate more and become less ordered, so the rubber contracts.

8. Meat

Correct.

10. To figure out the exact probability of finding two people with the same birthday in a given group, it turns out to be easier to ask the opposite question: what is the probability that NO two will share a birthday, i.e., that they will all have different birthdays? With just two people, the probability that they have different birthdays is 364/365, or about .997. If a third person joins them, the probability that this new person has a different birthday from those two (i.e., the probability that all three will have different birthdays) is (364/365) x (363/365), about .992. With a fourth person, the probability that all four have different birthdays is (364/365) x (363/365) x (362/365), which comes out at around .983. And so on. The answers to these multiplications get steadily smaller. When a twenty-third person enters the room, the final fraction that you multiply by is 343/365, and the answer you get drops below .5 for the first time, being approximately .493. This is the probability that all 23 people have a different birthday. So, the probability that at least two people share a birthday is 1 - .493 = .507, just greater than 1/2.

23 is right.

11. Thousand

If you count forwards. If you count backwards, you get straight to negative one.

That leaves questions 4,6,9 and 12 which may be suspect answers

4. odd numbered leap years still say 0

Seven is correct. See: http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/LeapYear.html
for why.

6. Agree with feral - pressurise glass

Nope. Any other guesses? I did this trick as a demo at a chemistry fun day for QAGTC in Brissy a few years ago.

9. Still say $2

Yes. As Wayne said $2 coins are smaller than $1 coins.

12 strike percentage

A strike percentage of 82.5% gives you a 1/1000 shot at 900, assuming random distribution of strikes through the games. That is just over nine strikes per game on average. At 68.1%, you are a million to one chance. That is why Mushtare is full of it.

I'll post the ice cube answer in a couple of days.

In the meantime: a pet shop owner has six canaries in a cage. Three are on the top perch, one in the middle and two on the bottom. How many of the birds are for sale?

 

[tonx]

Make Sinking Ice
Cost: $65
Time: 2 Hours
Safe | | | | | Risky
Want a surefire bet for your next cocktail party? First, tell your guests that aquatic life—at least in temperate climates—depends largely on the fact that ice floats. If it sank, lakes would freeze solid instead of forming an insulating layer of ice on top, killing all the fish. Now bet that you can magically make an ice cube sink. Grab one from a glass of special cubes you've strategically placed nearby, and drop it into a cup of ordinary water. Collect your guests' money.

The key to the trick is heavy ice. Many terms shouldn't be taken literally—a red quark isn't red, a peanut is neither a pea nor a nut—but heavy water is exactly what it sounds like: water that weighs more than normal. This is possible because elements occur in several different forms, or isotopes, made up of atoms with the same number of protons and electrons (which determine their chemical properties) but a variable number of neutrons (which contribute weight but not much else).

Hydrogen atoms always have one proton and one electron, but only one in every 6,400 has a neutron that nearly doubles the atom¹s mass. Using a complex process called H2S, it¹s possible to isolate this heavy hydrogen, also known as deuterium (D), creating water that¹s about 10 percent heavier than normal.

 

[Woza]

I saw it earlier on the internet - heavy water it is called D20 instead of H2O - apparently common in nuclear power plant. Not very good to drink though apparently

Water containing significantly more than the natural proportions (one in 6,500) of heavy hydrogen (deuterium, D) atoms to ordinary hydrogen atoms. Heavy water is used as a moderator in some reactors because it slows down neutrons effectively and also has a low probability of absorption of neutrons.

 

[Feral]

All of them.

 

[Feral]

I saw it earlier on the internet - heavy water it is called D20 instead of H2O - apparently common in nuclear power plant. Not very good to drink though apparently
Water containing significantly more than the natural proportions (one in 6,500) of heavy hydrogen (deuterium, D) atoms to ordinary hydrogen atoms. Heavy water is used as a moderator in some reactors because it slows down neutrons effectively and also has a low probability of absorption of neutrons.

I was going to say an ice cube made from Yarra River water but .....
No offence meant!!!

 

[RobbieB]

Well done Tonx! Heavy water it is. It's used in an analysis technique called nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and we had a bottle that was no no good because - believe it or not - it had absorbed too much water from the atmosphere to be useful (in other words, our heavy water got wet!). It was the only chemistry trick I ever did at the G&T workshops that the brainy little mongrels didn't manage to work out.

D2O has the novel distinction of being the least poisonous toxic substance known - it will kill you if you replace about 30-50% of the 'normal' water in your body with it. A very expensive way of killing someone.