Sunday quiz | Easy like Sunday morning

The sculpture ‘Le Penseur’ by French sculptor Auguste Rodin in the garden of the Rodin Museum in Paris
| Photo Credit: Chesnot

1. On November 12 in 1661, English scientist Robert Hooke was appointed curator of experiments at the Royal Society, England. He was also an architect, who helped re-build a lot of buildings after the Great Fire of 1666. The previous year, he had published the book Micrographia, where he coined a word to describe the basic, structural unit of life. What word was this?

2. Born November 12 in 1729, French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville was famed for his scientific expeditions. One of his assistants onboard was Jeanne Baret, the first known woman to circumnavigate the world. She spotted an unknown flower and named it ‘bougainvillea’ after the captain. By what other name is it known due to the texture of its petals?

3. Born November 12 in 1840, Auguste Rodin was a French sculptor known for crafting complex and deep works in clay. His most famous creation titled ‘Le Penseur’ is a bust of a figure now displayed in Paris. Often used in posters for quizzes, how better do we know this sculpture?

4. On November 12 in 1859, French acrobat Jules Leotard performed his first ever circus act on an apparatus he had designed. It was a horizontal bar suspended high above the crowd, from which he swung and did stunts. What is the name of this apparatus, which is a reference to the shape it forms with the ropes?

5. Born November 12 in 1889, DeWitt Wallace was a publisher who, along with his wife, founded one of the most popular family magazines. While recovering from World War I wounds, he started collecting his favourite articles, which led to this magazine. Now the largest paid-circulation magazine in the world, what is it called?

6. Born November 12 in 1896, this naturalist was the first Indian to conduct systematic bird surveys across the country. He became interested in birds after he shot one for sport with his air gun, and the secretary of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) identified it as an unusual species. Who was this bird man, who eventually went on to become an important figure in BNHS history?

7. Born November 12 in 1961, Nadia Comăneci is a Romanian gymnast who has won the Olympic Gold medal five times. She eventually moved to the U.S., and along with Bart Conner, another Olympic gymnast, started a production company named ‘P10 productions’. What does P10 stand for?

8. On November 12 in 1980, the NASA space probe Voyager I made its closest approach to a planet humans have been studying for hundreds of years. When Galileo first saw it through his rather crude telescope in 1610, he saw something he thought were the planet’s moons. When he searched for them two years later, they had disappeared. What were these moon-like structures, which Voyager I finally took a picture of?

9. Born November 12 in 1982, this award-winning American actress is one of the world’s highest paid performers. She became fascinated with acting after watching a stage play of Les Misérables starring her mother. She is named after the wife of arguably the world’s most famous playwright. Who is this actress, who charmed us as Mia Thermopolis?

10. On November 12 in 2003, the Shanghai Transrapid set a new speed record of 501 km/hr for commercial railway systems, the highest yet for unmodified commercial rail vehicles. The technology it used to attain this speed is known as ‘maglev’. What does this stand for?

A molecular biologist from Madurai, our quizmaster enjoys trivia and music, and is working on a rock ballad called ‘Coffee is a Drink, Kaapi is an Emotion’. @bertyashley

Answers

1. Cell

2. Paper Flower

3. The Thinker

4. Trapeze

5. Reader’s Digest

6. Salim Ali

7. Perfect 10 Productions (first athlete to get the score of Perfect 10 at the Olympics)

8. Saturn’s Rings

9. Anne Hathaway

10. Magnetic Levitation