Science & Technology Mixed Quiz: Set 20

The correct answer is D, automation. Automation is the technology in which mechanical parts, electronics and computer based control are put together so that a process is controlled and operated with little human help, which is exactly the description in the question. Option A is wrong because a PLC, the programmable logic controller, is only one device used in automation, the controller that reads inputs and switches outputs; it is a part and not the technology as a whole. Option B is wrong because a sequential controller is a still narrower idea, a controller that steps through operations in a fixed order. Option C is wrong because microprocessor based systems name the computing hardware, which may be used in automation or in any other electronic product. Remember that the broad term is automation and the devices inside it are the PLC, SCADA and CNC.

The correct answer is B, Norio Taniguchi. The Japanese engineer Norio Taniguchi used the word nanotechnology in 1974 to describe machining to tolerances of a nanometre, and that is the coinage examiners expect. Option A is wrong, and it is the usual trap: Richard Feynman gave the famous lecture There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom in 1959, which set out the idea of building with individual atoms, but he never used the word, so he is credited with the concept and not with the term. Option C is wrong because K. Eric Drexler popularised the word through his book Engines of Creation in 1986 and through the phrase molecular nanotechnology, which is popularisation rather than coinage. Option D is wrong because Sumio Iijima reported carbon nanotubes in 1991, a landmark material but much later than the naming of the field.

The correct answer is B, the Scientific Policy Resolution of 1958. It was the first policy statement on science adopted by independent India, placed before Parliament during the prime ministership of Jawaharlal Nehru and shaped in large part by Homi Bhabha. It declared that the state would foster, sustain and cultivate science and scientific research in all its aspects, and it tied national development to a scientific temper. Option A, the Technology Policy Statement, came twenty-five years later in 1983 and dealt with technological self-reliance and indigenous technology rather than with science as a whole. Option C, the Science and Technology Policy of 2003, was the first to join the two words in one document and set the target of two per cent of GDP for research spending, but it was the third such document. Option D, the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy of 2013, added innovation as a third element and came last of the four.

The correct answer is B, an unknown quantum state cannot be copied and measuring it disturbs it. The no cloning theorem forbids an exact copy of an unknown state, and any measurement changes the state, so an eavesdropper on the channel inevitably leaves statistical traces that the two legitimate parties detect when they compare a sample of their key. The BB84 protocol of Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard, proposed in 1984, is built on exactly this. Option A is wrong because double encryption is a classical measure and is not what makes the method secure. Option C is wrong because the speed of the signal has nothing to do with secrecy. Option D is wrong because quantum key distribution runs over ordinary optical fibre and free space links that any receiver can physically access; the security lies in physics, not in hiding the channel.

The correct answer is B, Karel Capek. The Czech writer Karel Capek used the word in his play R.U.R., or Rossum's Universal Robots, written in 1920, taking it from the Czech word robota, which means forced labour. Option A is wrong, though it is the favourite trap: Isaac Asimov coined the word robotics and framed the three laws of robotics, but not the word robot itself. Option C is wrong because George Devol invented the first industrial robot arm, the Unimate, which went to work in a factory, a matter of engineering and not of naming. Option D is wrong because Alan Turing is remembered for the theory of computing and for the test of machine intelligence. Keep Capek for the word robot and Asimov for robotics and the three laws.

The correct answer is B, Vijay P. Bhatkar. He was the founding Director General of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, set up at Pune in 1988, and he led the team that delivered PARAM 8000 in 1991. Because the project gave India its own supercomputer after a foreign machine was denied, he is commonly described as the architect or father of India’s supercomputer programme. He was later associated with the national effort on indigenous computing and with several educational institutions.

Option A, Raj Reddy, is an eminent Indian born computer scientist and a Turing Award winner, but his work was in artificial intelligence and robotics in the United States, not the PARAM programme. Option C, Narinder Singh Kapany, was a physicist known as the father of fibre optics, a different field altogether. Option D, Sam Pitroda, led the telecom revolution in India through C-DOT, the Centre for Development of Telematics, which is often confused with C-DAC because the names look alike.

The correct answer is C, the Prime Minister of India. CSIR was set up in 1942 and is registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act of 1860, and by its rules the Prime Minister holds the office of President of the society by virtue of the post. Option A is wrong because the President of India is not part of the CSIR structure; the office is ceremonial in a different sphere and does not extend to a registered society of this kind. Option B is wrong but is the common trap: the Union Minister of Science and Technology is the Vice-President of CSIR, one step below. Option D is wrong because the Principal Scientific Adviser, an office created only in 1999, advises the government and chairs the Executive Council of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, but has no presiding role in CSIR. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar was the first Director General of CSIR.

The correct answer is B, biodiesel. Jatropha curcas yields a non-edible oil seed, and because India cannot spare edible oil for fuel, the National Policy on Biofuels looks to non-edible oils such as Jatropha and Pongamia pinnata, or karanja, along with used cooking oil and animal tallow, as feedstock for biodiesel. Option A is wrong because bioethanol comes from sugar and starch materials, molasses, sugarcane juice, maize and damaged grain, through fermentation. Option C is wrong because biogas is produced by the anaerobic digestion of wet organic waste such as cattle dung, not by pressing an oilseed. Option D is wrong because biochar is the charcoal-like solid left when biomass is heated without air and is used as a soil amendment, not as a liquid fuel.

The correct answer is B, Isaac Asimov. Asimov set out the three laws in his science fiction, by which a robot may not harm a human being, must obey the orders given by human beings except where that conflicts with the first law, and must protect itself except where that conflicts with the first two laws; he also coined the word robotics. Option A is wrong because Arthur C. Clarke is remembered for the idea of the geostationary communication satellite and for his own fiction. Option C is wrong because H. G. Wells wrote earlier scientific romances such as The Time Machine. Option D is wrong because Jules Verne wrote of submarines and journeys long before the robot was imagined. The order of the three laws is itself asked, so learn it.

The correct answer is B, air to air. Astra is a beyond visual range air-to-air missile, which means it is fired from a fighter aircraft at an enemy aircraft the pilot cannot see with the eye, using radar to find and follow the target. It is carried on Indian Air Force fighters and was developed to replace imported missiles of the same class, giving India a weapon it can make and improve at home.

Option A, surface to surface, covers Prithvi, Agni and Shaurya, which are fired from the ground at ground targets. Option C, surface to air, covers Akash, Trishul and QRSAM, which are fired from the ground at aircraft, so the direction is the reverse of Astra. Option D, anti-tank, is the class of Nag and HELINA. Keeping the first word as the launch place and the second as the target makes these questions easy.

The correct answer is C, 2023. The Anusandhan National Research Foundation Act was passed by Parliament in 2023 to create a single apex body for funding research across the sciences, including in state universities and colleges, which earlier received very little central research money. The same Act dissolved the Science and Engineering Research Board and transferred its work to the new foundation. Option A, 2018, is the year the Prime Minister's Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council was constituted and the year the Prime Minister's Research Fellowship began, not the year of the foundation. Option B, 2020, is the year in which a fifth science, technology and innovation policy was drafted and put out for consultation, which is why it is an attractive wrong choice. Option D, 2024, is the year the government gathered its science awards into the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar, not the year of this Act.

The correct answer is A, Jharkhand. The Jaduguda mine lies in the Singhbhum belt of Jharkhand and has been worked by the Uranium Corporation of India Limited, a public sector company set up in 1967, since the late nineteen sixties; it was the first uranium mine in the country. Option B is wrong because Andhra Pradesh does hold large uranium deposits, notably at Tummalapalle in the Kadapa basin, but that mine is far more recent. Option C is wrong because Meghalaya has known deposits in the Domiasiat area that have not been mined. Option D is wrong because Rajasthan is associated with the Rawatbhata power station and the Pokhran test range, not with uranium mining. Remember that India is poor in uranium but rich in thorium, which comes from the monazite sands of the Kerala and Odisha coasts.

The correct answer is A, up to 250 grams. The rules class drones by all up weight, which includes the battery and the payload, and the nano class is the smallest, up to 250 grams, which is why the lightest toy and camera drones fall in it and are treated most lightly by the law. Option B is wrong because above 250 grams and up to 2 kilograms is the micro class. Option C is wrong because above 2 kilograms and up to 25 kilograms is the small class, which is the usual size for survey and spraying drones. Option D is wrong because above 25 kilograms and up to 150 kilograms is the medium class, and anything heavier is large. Learn the ladder as 250 grams, 2, 25 and 150 kilograms.

The correct answer is B, human insulin produced in bacteria. The two polypeptide chains of the hormone are made in genetically engineered bacteria and then joined by disulphide bonds, giving insulin identical to the human hormone, which ended the dependence on insulin extracted from the pancreas of cattle and pigs and the allergy that sometimes followed. Option A is wrong because the hepatitis B vaccine is also a recombinant product, made from a viral surface protein grown in yeast, but it is a vaccine and not Humulin. Option C is wrong because growth hormone for therapy is also made by recombinant means today, not taken from sheep. Option D is wrong because antibiotics such as penicillin come from fungal fermentation, an older form of biotechnology. Insulin is the standard example of red biotechnology.

The correct answer is A, 2008. The Science and Engineering Research Board Act was passed in 2008 and the board was constituted as a statutory body under the Department of Science and Technology to fund basic research in the sciences and engineering through competitive grants to individual scientists. Its functions passed to the Anusandhan National Research Foundation under the Act of 2023. Option B, 2010, is wrong; it is the first year of the Decade of Innovation declared for 2010 to 2020. Option C, 2013, is wrong but tempting because that is the year of the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, a policy document and not a statute creating a funding body. Option D, 2016, is wrong; that is the year the Atal Innovation Mission was set up under NITI Aayog to run Atal Tinkering Labs and support start-ups, a separate initiative altogether.

The correct answer is B, the tetanus vaccine. A toxoid vaccine uses the toxin of a microbe rather than the microbe itself, treated so that it can no longer harm the body but still provokes antibodies; the tetanus and diphtheria vaccines are the two standard examples, and they work because in those diseases it is the toxin that does the damage. Option A is wrong because the oral polio vaccine is a live attenuated vaccine, containing weakened poliovirus. Option C is wrong; BCG is also live attenuated, made from a weakened bovine tuberculosis bacterium. Option D is wrong because the hepatitis B vaccine is a recombinant subunit vaccine, carrying a single surface protein of the virus produced in yeast. Group the vaccines by type once and every question of this shape becomes a recall exercise rather than a guess.

The correct answer is A, Digital Sky. Digital Sky is the online platform of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on which a drone is registered and given its unique identification number, on which the airspace map with its green, yellow and red zones is published, and through which flight permissions are sought. Option B is wrong because Bhuvan is the geoportal of ISRO, which serves satellite imagery and maps. Option C is wrong because DigiLocker is the government service for keeping and sharing personal documents such as mark sheets and licences. Option D is wrong because UMANG is the single mobile application for many government services. Fix Digital Sky with the Drone Rules of 2021 and the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Papers also ask which ministry notified the Drone Rules, and the answer is the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

The correct answer is D, 1971. The Department of Science and Technology was created in 1971 as the nodal department for the promotion of new areas of science and technology and for the coordination of scientific work across ministries; it now runs the INSPIRE programme, the fellowships and the Vigyan Dhara scheme. Option A, 1958, is wrong, though it is the trap year: that is the year of the Scientific Policy Resolution and also the year the Defence Research and Development Organisation was formed and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize instituted. Option B, 1962, and option C, 1966, are wrong; no scientific department was created in either year, and they are offered only as near misses. Remember the sequence of the three departments under the Ministry of Science and Technology: science and technology in 1971, scientific and industrial research in 1985 and biotechnology in 1986.

The correct answer is B, unmanned aerial vehicle. A UAV is an aircraft with no pilot on board, flown either by a remote pilot or by its own programme, and when it is counted together with its ground control station and the radio link between them the whole is called an unmanned aircraft system. Option A is wrong because universal air vehicle is not a term used in aviation. Option C is wrong because avionics is the name for the electronic systems of an aircraft, and no vehicle class is named after it. Option D is wrong because upper atmosphere vehicle is not a standard expression either, though high altitude pseudo satellites do fly in the stratosphere. For the exam, pair UAV with drone and UAS with the whole system.

The correct answer is C, the Department of Space. The Department of Space, created in 1972, and the Department of Atomic Energy, created in 1954, are not placed under the Ministry of Science and Technology; both report directly to the Prime Minister, which is why ISRO and the atomic energy establishment are described as working under the Prime Minister's charge. Option A is wrong as an answer because the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, created in 1985, is indeed one of the three departments of the Ministry of Science and Technology and oversees CSIR and the National Research Development Corporation. Option B is wrong because the Department of Biotechnology, created in 1986, is the third department of the same ministry and runs BIRAC. Option D is wrong because the Department of Science and Technology of 1971 is the first and best known of the three.