Thread: Science Quiz - win SciHD creds / Seedbox

I would have to disagree with Dejvi.

No, because in cellular respiration the body takes nutrients, goes through many cycles (which I will not go into) and outputs ATP which your body uses for energy. This is not just a case of situs transversus, everything is flipped including all molecules and cells. As your body is made to use the reverse of what is in this new world for energy, it would not work. For instance in glycolosis when the body turns glucose into glucose 6 phosphate, it would attempt to bind to the wrong side and subsequently fail.

Awesome 192 gets this one again. I don't know specifically about the binding of glucose, but in general, none of the regular processes needed for nutrition are likely to work because all living molecules are left handed. This point is often used by creationists to dispute evolution, but the same faulty argument could be used to say that we should have equal parts matter and anti-matter on earth (which would be fun for a very brief instant).

Anyway, on to question 23 - Subject : Geometry (what else can you expect from me since I have a math degree)

Suppose you have an irregular tetrahedron, with height = 3 meters and volume = 6 cubic meters. If you know the length of two of the sides of the base are 3 and 5 meters, calculate the length of the third side.

Volume = (1/3) * (Base Area) * Height
6 = (1/3) * Area * 3
Area = 6 sq.m

Using Heron's forumla:
A = sqrt(s * (s-a) * (s-b) * (s-c))
A = (0.25)*sqrt((a^2 + b^2 + c^2)^2 - 2(a^4 + b^4 + c^4))
24^2 = (9+25+c^2)^2 - 2(81+625+c^4)
576 = (c^2 + 34)^2 - 1412 - c^4
576 = c^4 + 68c^2 + 1156 - 1412 - c^4
576 = 68c^2 - 256
832 = 68c^2
c^2 = 12.235
c = 3.498 meters

Originally Posted by buzz

Volume = (1/3) * (Base Area) * Height
6 = (1/3) * Area * 3
Area = 6 sq.m

Using Heron's forumla:
A = sqrt(s * (s-a) * (s-b) * (s-c))
A = (0.25)*sqrt((a^2 + b^2 + c^2)^2 - 2(a^4 + b^4 + c^4))
24^2 = (9+25+c^2)^2 - 2(81+625+c^4)
576 = (c^2 + 34)^2 - 1412 - c^4
576 = c^4 + 68c^2 + 1156 - 1412 - c^4
576 = 68c^2 - 256
832 = 68c^2
c^2 = 12.235
c = 3.498 meters

Double check your math by plugging your answer back into Heron's formula.

Gahh, I knew it shouldn't cancel out that easily...
(error highlighted in blue)

A = sqrt(s * (s-a) * (s-b) * (s-c))
A = (0.25)*sqrt((a^2 + b^2 + c^2)^2 - 2(a^4 + b^4 + c^4))
24^2 = (9+25+c^2)^2 - 2(81+625+c^4)
576 = (c^2 + 34)^2 - 1412 - c^4
576 = c^4 + 68c^2 + 1156 - 1412 - 2c^4
576 = -c^4 + 68c^2 - 256
0 = c^4 - 68c^2 + 832
(c^2 - 52)(c^2 - 16) = 0
c^2 = 52 OR c^2 = 16
c = 7.211 OR 4
After substituting, ans = 4 meters (of course...the elegant answer :p)

Nice work yet again buzz!

Question 24: Subject = General Analytical Skills

This is a question I have asked for many years as I've interviewed business analysts for employment.

Given two lists of approximately 1,000 SSN's each (list A and list B - assume that these lists are in an electronic format such as flat text files), how would you go about figuring out which SSN's are on list A but not on list B. You are allowed to use any tool you have experience with. Be detailed in how you would use the tool you chose, including specific functions you might employ.

---------- Post added at 10:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:11 PM ----------

Greigor (in IRC) got this one:

[22:24] <+greigor> excel
[22:24] <+greigor> vlookup

Other acceptable answers would have been:
1) SQL - select ssn from #listA where ssn not in (select SSN from #listB)
2) Access - Basically doing an outer join where listB.ssn is NULL
3) SQL - outer join
4) writing a program that sorts each file, then compares each SSN against the values in the other file.
5) shouting each ssn to a friend who crosses them out as he/she finds them.

Question 25 (the FINAL question in this contest):

Subject: Seedboxes

Suppose you have a 100 mbit/s seedbox, and you're trying to download 3 torrents at once:
1) a 10 GB file being uploaded by a single user at 5 MB/s
2) a 20 GB file being uploaded by a different user at 10 MB/s
3) a 30 GB file being uploaded by a third user at 15MB/s

Assume that your bandwidth is spread equally when you are downloading multiple files, and no additional users jump on these torrents.

How long would it take for you to finish downloading all 3 files?

Good luck!

Originally Posted by EnderWiggin

Question 25 (the FINAL question in this contest):

Subject: Seedboxes

Suppose you have a 100 mbit/s seedbox, and you're trying to download 3 torrents at once:
1) a 10 GB file being uploaded by a single user at 5 MB/s
2) a 20 GB file being uploaded by a different user at 10 MB/s
3) a 30 GB file being uploaded by a third user at 15MB/s

Assume that your bandwidth is spread equally when you are downloading multiple files, and no additional users jump on these torrents.

How long would it take for you to finish downloading all 3 files?

Good luck!

My answer is 85m 19s.. i could put the math here if you want :P..

Edit: the details

10 GB = 10*1024 = 10240/4 = 2560s / 42m 40s
20 GB = 20*1024 = 20480 = 10 + 10 = 42m 40s + 10240/6 = 1706s / 28m 26s
30 GB = 30*1024 = 30720 = 10 + 20 = 42m 40s + 20480/6 = 28m 26s + 10GB/12 = 853s / 14m 13s
5119s / 85m 19s

or directly

60*1024/ 12 = 5120s / 85m 20s (since the bandwidth would be maxed out at all times)

Originally Posted by amuntVCF

My answer is 85m 19s.. i could put the math here if you want :P..

...
60*1024/ 12 = 5120s / 85m 20s (since the bandwidth would be maxed out at all times)

Close enough, although I assumed that 100mb/s = 12.5 mB/s and 1GB = 1,000MB, so my answer was simply 80m.

You win the last question!


---------------------

Contest is over! Here are the final standings:

Final Leaderboard:
buzz - 9 (seedbox winner)
Dejvi - 5
Cheesecake - 4
awesome192 - 4
HDAdd1c7 - 2
DX - 2
amuntVCF - 2
MrCoolboy - 1
Smack - 1
Bandersnatch - 1
Mooncake - 1


All other winners, please pm me with your SciHD username if you'd like your bonus credits.

This was great fun, we'll have to do something like this again soon!