Science Teasers

By the Same Author: MORE SCIENCE TEASERS SCIENCE TEASERS DILIP M. SALWI Editor Science Reporter Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, Government of India, New Delhi KONARK PUBLISHERS PVT LTD KONARK PUBLISHERS PVT LTD A-149, Main Vikas Marg, De!hi-110092 C O P Y R I G H T © D I L I P M . SALWI, 1 9 8 9 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior, permission from the Publisher. Phototypeset in India Photo Print, Panchsheel Garden, Naveen Shahdara, Delhi-32 and printed at Shiba Offset Printing Press, Delhi-110092 To my sister Shrimati Surekha D. Mane ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am thankful to my friends Dr N.R. Mankad and I.V. Subba Rao who went through the manuscript and suggested changes and modifications. I am thankful to the following agencies for providing me the photographs that have appeared in this book: Du Pont Company, U.S.A.; Meteorologie Nationale, France; the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta; Inter Nationes, West Germany; the United States Information Service, New Delhi; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, U.S.A.; British Information Service, New Delhi; IBM Research Laboratory, Switzerland; Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore; Indian Space Research Organisation, Bangalore; and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore. I am also thankful to P. Dayanandan for sending me photographs from his personal file. Last but not the least I am thankful to Smriti Salwi for the inconveniences caused to her while I was writing this book. DILIP M. SALWI PREFACE "What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?" says Alice in Alice in Wonderland. Indeed, a child does not like even a story book without pictures or conversations let alone a book on science. This book basically aimed to test a child's or teenager's knowledge of science and technology is therefore full of teasers in the form of pictures, stories and conversations, apart from crosswords, word search puzzles and true-false types. Efforts have been made to make the teasers not only stimulating but also on occasions humorous. The purpose in writing this type of book is to popularise science. Win those children and teenagers back to science who find their classroom lessons dull or hard and stimulate those for further studies who have already come under the spell of science. Teasers are meant to test a child's or teenager's scientific knowledge which he or she has gained in class-rooms as well as his or her awareness of science and technology affairs in the present world. The book is basically aimed at children and teenagers in the age group 8 to 18. Nevertheless, it would entertain any layman from 8 to 80 interested in science and pass his or her otherwise dull hour anywhere. DILIP M. SALWI CONTENTS xi 1. Let's start with a proverb 2. A printer's mistakes 3. Major Indian crops 4. Symbols are everything 5. Milestones in science 6. Belling the cats 7. Seven surnames 8. Straw tells wind's direction 9. In an animal's disguise 10. Flower and its parts 11. Scientific exploits of Dr. Vaigyanik 12. The monotonous ON 13. A skeleton is inside every man! 14. Household gadgets—who invented them? 15. Aero crossword 16. Sci-Fi films 17. Seven parallels 18. A gaseous mixture 19. Pollution—a menace of our time 20. Choose the right trump 21. Crazy boys take an examination 22. Physics oddity 23. Human body—a system of systems 24. Animals are hidden here 25. Where has Debu gone wrong? 26. Three gases, five properties 27. Latest knowledge 28. Hydro means water 29. Scientific shortcuts 30. Candle fiame and its parts 31. Past inhabitants of the earth 32. First men in space 33. Alphabets of the past 1 1 2 3 3 4 4 4 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 10 10 11 11 11 12 13 13 14 14 15 15 16 17 17 18 19 19 CONTENTS X