Announcement: IIS1K Competition

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Originally Posted by davidpretorius

the hard ones!!

Most of the hardest ones weren't mine. And quite a few of the easiest ones were.

[Vermin (Tom)]

After reading the questions I sent Mike a PM indicating that IMO there are six questions without the correct multiple choice answer option available.

[iceman (Mike)]

In response to Tom, Dennis and Steve are verifying their sources and i'll respond "officially".

If there are any questions where a discrepancy is found, all entries will be marked "correct" for those questions.

[Striker (Tony)]

Wahoo...that means I may get 6 right by default....nice.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

There is one international character that got lost in translation: the ö in Röntgen. Question 19.

[Mick (Michael)]

Thanks Tony good luck everyone.

Originally Posted by Striker

Well that was fun.

I feal like a round of Sale of the Century now.

I had to guess some aswell....I'm not ashamed...some were tuff.

As long as I achieved more then 10 out of 30 which I got last comp I will be happy....lol

Mike....quick ban Mick and anyone else who lives in Mackay before they enter....hehehe

Oh BTW the answer for Question 7 is (E)....

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Man that was harder than my last uni exam.

[Calin]

I haven't submitted my answers yet, and have only done the first 12 so far. Of course I am doing some research, great incentive to enlighten the grey-matter. I have noticed there is at least one question in the first 12 that doesn't give a correct choice, first thought this might be a trick question with different spelling or something, but my sources confirm a glitch. Had me going round in cycles there - if there are 5 others then it's going to be a challenge just to work out which ones, some hard nuts in there, but fun all the same.
Will finish the rest and submit after I get some real work done that pays the bills, great excuse to procrastinate and avoid somehting I don't want to do .. if only for a few hours. I have found some goodly sites on the Net as a result - learn something new everyday.

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks Calin, it's great to hear that the quiz is encouraging research and learning - exactly its intention.

Please PM me the question you feel is incorrect and i'll confirm if it matches Tom's list.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Strange, there were a couple of really hard ones in there but I don't think I came across any without an answer

[ving (David)]

look again paul... look again!

i got 6 right!!!!

[iceman (Mike)]

Ok, official response regarding the validity/correctness of some of the questions:

Questions 1-5 were done by me.
Questions 6-17 were done by Dennis.
Questions 18-30 were done by Janoskiss.

Where a query was raised, it was sent to the author of the question for clarification.

I've received their responses, and can confirm that the questions and answers as they are presented are valid.

Specifically (without revealing answers):

Q6: Several sources point to the correct answer.

Q7: Several sources point to the correct answer listed in the options. Other sources may quote another name which is not listed as an option however out of the 4 answers listed, the correct one can be found.

Q8: An example of Legrange Points is given as one of the answer options. The answer as stated is correct and is the only correct interpretation of the listed four possible choices.

Q13: This is not a trick question, and does not include our Sun as a star.

Q14: Several sources point to the correct answer listed in the options. Other sources may quote another name which is not listed as an option however out of the 4 answers listed, the correct one can be found.

Q15: A great number of sources (including NASA's own website) point to the correct answer which is listed in the answer options.

Q24: A "typical" dobsonian telescope with a focal length between 800mm and 2000mm would give a figure that is closest to the correct answer.


Remember:

- The internet is a big place, and there are many sources of information that are often conflicting. If you find an answer that isn't listed, keep searching. You'll most likely find an answer that IS listed as one of the options.

- Maybe the source you found isn't correct? Maybe the source we used isn't correct. The quiz attempts to be factually correct, however due to the point above it's possible that some answers are ambiguous. In all cases, the correct answer out of the listed options can be found.

- The quiz is meant to be both fun and informational. It's great that people can use it as a research and learning exercise, however let's remember to not lose focus of the fun part. You only need to get 1 right to get an entry into the draw.

If you still believe there are errors in the quiz, please PM or email me with the question, your sources, and what you believe is wrong.

Thanks

[iceman (Mike)]

As an aside, 39 people have entered the quiz so far!

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Originally Posted by iceman

Questions 18-30 were done by Janoskiss.

Oh no! My cover is blown! I hope there's no hard feelings, Davo.

[ving (David)]

oh so you did the easy ones steve

[Vermin (Tom)]

Originally Posted by iceman

- The internet is a big place, and there are many sources of information that are often conflicting. If you find an answer that isn't listed, keep searching. You'll most likely find an answer that IS listed as one of the options.

That still does not make it the correct one, you can find all kinds of gibberish on the net (oh wow! the Moon hoax must be real).

e.g. Q15. NASA's web site may say that, but they were still beaten into orbit around Mars (what the question asked) by the USSR.

FACT.

[ving (David)]

ya should be PMing ice, tom

[iceman (Mike)]

Sorry Tom, it's not fact.

I've PM'd you 7 sources which state the (correct answer) beat Mars 2 into orbit by 2 weeks.

[Vermin (Tom)]

My apologies, I was incorrect.

[Dennis]

Competitions can be fun and add another dimension of interest to Ice In Space, already a great place to be. We are a diverse and varied bunch of people and often do have strong views, ideas, opinions, beliefs, etc which will inevitably bring us into (hopefully) healthy and oft times vigorous debate on the Forum.

IIS seems to have a structure that appears to have served it, and other similar forums, very well. The structure appears to be that of “owner(s)” and “moderators”. These folks probably spend a lot of their waking and thinking time looking after this forum, nursing it, and trying to protect it from itself, and in my view do a terrific job. Therefore, I believe they are deserving of our respect and courtesy, perhaps even a little more so that the rest of us members who come here to play, rather than work.

It is highly likely that they, like we, like I, make mistakes. They probably have limited time to make decisions, produce entertaining stuff for us, are unpaid, and do not have the resources and safety net of a formal peer review process. Hence there will inevitably always be an amount of uncertainty in anything written here.

I think IIS is a friendly and mature enough place, where we can accept and tolerate these minor hiccoughs, much as we accept and tolerate our own short comings, whatever they may be.

Can I suggest that we all use the formal structure to put forward our views, corrections, more qualified knowledge, better informed resources, etc before making it public? It would seem respectful to contact Mike first, in private, before publicly stating that this or that is wrong, which may be the case, or not.

When going public, we also ought to ask ourselves….am I doing this for my passion for astronomy, to help my IIS colleagues, to make IIS a better place to hang out, or, do I simply need to be right, to soothe my ego, to look good, etc. which can be sweet at the time, but is also very temporary and an unsatisfactory way to be – I know as I have been there, and sometime still cross over in spite of my best intentions. I hope I have not just crossed over in this response.

Cheers

Dennis