Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas

We wish all our readers a merry Christmas! And if you're not into heathen traditions turned Christian turned capitalist, we wish you a peaceful and happy day anyway :o) As promised, we conclude our advent calendar with a quiz:
  1. Erwin Schrödinger had a daughter with the wife of which physicist colleague? (First and last name, 11 letters.)

  2. The catholic church of which town has windows that were designed by an artist with education in physics who used pictures of three-jet events, spectroheligrams and Feynman diagrams? (6 letters)

  3. Which physicist introduced constants of length, mass and time with the motivation that they would be meaningful also for extraterrestrials? (Last of his middle names, 6 letters).

  4. According to a study published in the Journal "Sex Roles" in 1979, at which age in months are human female infants the cutest? (Write down English word for the number.)

  5. Which chemical element forms together with chloride a solid that at room temperature is blue in its pure form but turns purple when it binds (pure) water? (6 letters)

  6. Approximately at which volume, in liters, does an (average) human stomach burst, according to a study performed on organs of deceased, published in Revue médicale de la Suisse romande, in 1885? (One digit).

If you write down the answers in the order of the questions you should get a string with 34 symbols. The following entries give you the solution to this year's quiz: 33-11-1-24-15-34-17-27-31-20-22-26-23.

This year's prize is a BackRe(Action) mug and it will go to the first who submits the right answer in the comments. (For the shipment, we'll need your snail-mail address. If you are not willing to provide your address, please do not spoil the fun.)

Hint: The answers to question 1,3,4 and 6 can be found on this blog. The answers to question 2 and 5 can be found on Wikipedia. If I notice you're stuck, I will provide more hints in the comments.

19 comments:

  1. Hi Bee & Stefan,

    I have them all accept the church. Still working :-)

    Merry Christmas,

    Phil

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Bee,

    Is it

    ArthurMarchMainzLudwigNinecobalt4


    Best,

    Phil

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  3. That is pretty good, but not quite right...

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  4. just pipped me to it :-) good work

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  5. thank4reading? The church is in Kalkar, I belive.

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  6. argh, almost had it :-) congratulations and merry christmas!

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  7. Kalkar is an ancient church, I'm left confused:)

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  8. According to wikipedia, it is near Xanten, which has the nessessary X (but at the wrong position...)

    http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nicolai_(Kalkar)

    Pretty confusing :-)

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  9. Hi All,

    Thanks for the good work!

    I noticed, unfortunately, that a "U" is missing. It should have been Thank U 4 Reading. So, taking into account that I accidentally dropped the "U", Jason was the first who got it right. So, Jason, congratulations :o) You guys figured it out almost as fast as Stefan, I am totally impressed! Yes, the town is Kalkar. Jason, you can send your email address to hossi at nordita org.

    Merry Christmas everybody!

    Best,

    Bee

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  10. Congratulations Jason and thanks Bee and Stefan for another interesting Christmas puzzle. thwarted by a church's Name on Christmas morn is something I'm not soon to forget :-)

    Merry Christmas all,

    Phil

    Still I thought we were to offer the solutions to each question in a string.

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  12. Hi Bee & Stefan,

    I was curious if that elf you display their photo of at the top of this years quiz was found in one of your stockings. She must have been left behind by Santas in his rush; not that I'm worried as I know you will give her a good home:-)

    Merry Christmas,

    Phil

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  13. Wow, thank you very much Bee. As a long time reader of your blog, a dream comes true for me :-D. Oh and thankU4writing!

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  14. Thanks for the all those anecdotes, Bee and Stefan (and to Lara and Gloria, for kindly co-operating ;-)). Loved every day of it.

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  15. Hi Phil,

    The little Christmas elf we give thanks for not to Santa but to an enthusiastic local photographer. By whose entertainment efforts Lara was entirely unimpressed, which is why I've left the Christmas cheers to Gloria. Best,

    B.

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  16. That was very hard. How is it possible for someone to know all that stuff?

    Anyway congrats to the winner and mary christmas.

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