23 February, 2007

No property, no will

Question by BV Harish Kumar

In his year of death, the Nobel committee rejected a flood of nominations for ‘X’ citing, among other reasons, the practical one that he belonged to no organization and left no property and wrote no will: Who will the money go to? The prize was withheld that year as no suitable candidate was found available. Who is ‘X’?

22 February, 2007

And here’s a tasty question

Question by Gaurav Sabnis

Connect these 32 - tomato, vegetable, green pea, clam chowder, beef, cream of asparagus, cream of celery, beef broth (bouillon), chicken gumo, pepper pot, chicken with rice, consomme (beef), vegetable beef, chicken noodle, cream of mushroom, scotch broth, bean with bacon, vegetarian vegetable, black bean, beef noodle, cream of chicken, onion, turkey noodle minestrone, chicken vegetable, cream of vegetable, old fashioned tomato rice, split pea with ham, cheddar cheese, vegetable bean, chili beef, turkey vegetable.

21 February, 2007

The missing members

Question by Samrat Sengupta

Fill in the blanks in the following team:

________________ (USA)

- Paul Van Himst (Bel) - Michael Caine (UK) - Co Prins (Hol)

- Mike Sumerbee (UK) - Bobby Moore (UK)

- Ossie Ardiles (Arg) - John Wark (Sco)

- Erik (Den) - ________ (Bra) - Kazimariez Deyna (Pol)

20 February, 2007

The name, the place

Question by Shamanth Rao

What geographical entity gets its name from the Pali word for ‘monastery’?

19 February, 2007

A strange and sublime address

Question by Arun Simha

"H0H 0H0” is a postal code used by Canada Post for routing letters sent in Canada to which person?

17 February, 2007

A particularly symbolic Stars and stripes

Question by Rishi Iyengar

When Japan formally surrendered to the United States in 1945 on board the USS Missouri, they did so in the presence of a specific Stars and Stripes banner, framed, on the walls of that ship. What flag was used, given the particular symbolism of that moment? [Hint: Nothing to do with World War II.]

16 February, 2007

Dit-dit-dit in the sand

Question by Amit Varma

"I took a beach chair down to the beach and sat down. And I’m thinking, How the hell am I going to pull this off? I was just thinking to myself, What do I need? Well, the first thing I need is some sort of code. And the only code I knew of was Morse code. You know, I had to learn that in the Boy Scouts when I was a youngster. And I was thinking, [singing] ‘dit-dit-dit, daaah-daaah-daaah, dit-dit-dit’. Remember what that is? That’s SOS. Dit-dit-dit was S. I stuck my four fingers down into the sand and for whatever reason I pulled them to myself.”

This is a chap named Joe Woodland speaking. What did he go on to invent?

10 February, 2007

The surveyor’s chain

Question by J Ramanand

A “surveyor’s chain” is a measuring device, whose form will be familiar to students of civil engineering even today. It was first used in England in the late 17th century, primarily to help landowners measure land. It has 100 metal links of equal length, each of 7.92 inches. The legacy of this “chain” is still preserved in a very different field. How?