Q 01/05

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which computer calculates the Ultimate Answer as 42?

A) HAL 9000

B) Marvin

C) Deep Thought

D) Multivac

Answer · why

C) Deep Thought

Deep Thought, built by hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings, spends seven and a half million years computing 42, then admits nobody knows the Ques...

Q 02/05

Which children's author gave the world its first recorded use of the word 'nerd', in 1950?

A) Dr. Seuss

B) Roald Dahl

C) Maurice Sendak

D) Shel Silverstein

Answer · why

A) Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss coined it in If I Ran the Zoo (1950), whose narrator wants to collect 'a Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker too'; Newsweek reported the slang ...

Q 03/05

Ernő Rubik, inventor of the Rubik's Cube, was a professor of what?

A) Mathematics

B) Physics

C) Chemistry

D) Architecture

Answer · why

D) Architecture

Architecture: Ernő Rubik was teaching at Budapest's College of Applied Arts when he built his Magic Cube in 1974 and applied for a Hungarian patent in...

Q 04/05

The first literal computer 'bug', a moth found in 1947, is linked to which pioneer?

A) Ada Lovelace

B) Grace Hopper

C) Jean Bartik

D) Margaret Hamilton

Answer · why

B) Grace Hopper

Grace Hopper's team taped the moth from the Harvard Mark II into the logbook in 1947; she later wrote the A-0 compiler, helped create COBOL and retire...

Q 05/05

Linus Torvalds first released the Linux kernel in which year?

A) 1991

B) 1993

C) 1996

D) 1998

Answer · why

A) 1991

Torvalds announced the kernel on the comp.os.minix newsgroup in August 1991 and posted version 0.01 that September, written for Intel 386 PCs.