Q 01/05

William Sealy Gosset devised the Student's t-test for small samples while brewing for which Irish beer company?

A) Murphy's

B) Beamish

C) Guinness

D) Smithwick's

Answer · why

C) Guinness

Guinness preferred its staff to publish under pen names, so Gosset signed his 1908 paper as Student, and the test has carried the alias ever since.

Q 02/05

The word calculus comes from a Latin term for which small object, once used as a counter on Roman abacuses?

A) Pebble

B) Walnut

C) Bean

D) Shell

Answer · why

A) Pebble

Pebble is a meaning that survives in medicine, where a calculus is a stone formed in the body, such as a kidney stone.

Q 03/05

In topology, a coffee mug counts as the same shape as which food, since one can be molded into the other?

A) Pretzel

B) Pancake

C) Meatball

D) Doughnut

Answer · why

D) Doughnut

A doughnut and a mug each have exactly one hole, and topology treats two shapes as equal when one can be stretched into the other without cutting or g...

Q 04/05

Graph theory began with a 1736 proof that no walk could cross each of which Prussian city's seven bridges once?

A) Magdeburg

B) Königsberg

C) Breslau

D) Brandenburg

Answer · why

B) Königsberg

Königsberg, now Kaliningrad in Russia, defeated every walker because all of its land masses were touched by an odd number of bridges, as Leonhard Eule...

Q 05/05

Stanisław Ulam's random-sampling method, born at Los Alamos, took its code name from which gambling resort?

A) Las Vegas

B) Atlantic City

C) Monte Carlo

D) Baden-Baden

Answer · why

C) Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo was where Ulam's uncle borrowed money to gamble; the idea itself came to Ulam while he played solitaire and wondered how often a deal woul...