MIT Invitational 17-18
40
Assuming the US average, how many grams of food will be wasted today by all Science Olympiad competitors?
6
If all competitors chose to work a Massachusetts minimum wage job instead of competing in this tournament (8 hour work day), how many Bitcoins could you make instead (1 Bitcoin ~ $13200 at time of writing)?
1
During the course of this event, how many tons of carbon dioxide will you have emitted by breathing?
-5
About 2*10^38 neutrinos are created in the Sun every second. Assuming they radiate out of the Sun uniformly, how many solar neutrinos will go through you during this event?
18
If all Fermi competitors chewed gum during their block, how much energy, in Btu (British thermal units), would be collectively spent doing so?
4
During the course of this event, how much less will a dollar be worth due to inflation (in dollars)? Assume a linear decrease in value.
-6
How many times will your heart beat during the course of this event?
3
Assuming the US average, how many seconds will all competitors collectively spend on their phones today?
7
Assuming 1 byte is needed per character to store this test digitally, how many bits are needed for the whole test? Assume only text counts towards this, aka the XKCD in front counts as 0 bits.
5
How many dead skin cells will have been shed by Fermi competitors in this room today (gross)?
8
How many births worldwide will there have been during this event?
4
How many trees (or fractions of trees) have been cut down to produce all the paper needed for tests in this event?
-3
Assume the Earth is made entirely of water. How many seconds would it take for the Sun to increase the Earth’s temperature by 1oC? Assume 100% of the input energy is used to heat up the Earth (no loss in energy to reflection, atmospheric effects, etc).
10
How many iPhone X’s could we power with this amount of energy?
23
Compared to all humans who have ever existed, what fraction of them are competing in today’s tournament?
-8
If we wanted to power all MIT buildings using just AAA batteries today, how many would we need?
11
We want to be really energetic for our tests, so to get maximum value we decide to eat uranium instead of food for energy. How much more energy-dense is uranium than carbohydrates per kilogram (fission of uranium vs. combustion of carbohydrates)?
6
Assuming an average distance of 1 foot between your center of mass and this test, what is the gravitational force between you in Newtons?
-9
During the course of this event, how much money will Google have made?
7
Suppose you eat pizza today for lunch. If you put the equivalent of one Jalapeño pepper’s worth of red pepper on your pizza, how many pizzas would you need to consume to eat one Carolina Reaper’s worth of Scoville units? Assume Scoville units are additive.
2
During the course of this event, how much energy could one typical solar panel produce in Joules? Assume these are photovoltaic, 65” x 39”, and are the ones typically used for powering homes.
6
During the course of this event, how many neural spikes will you have had, assuming high brain activity?
14
Suppose we can fit at most 72 teams at MIT due to its surface area. How many teams could the Pacific Ocean fit, surface-area wise?
10
How many dollar bills would it take to fill the Great Dome of MIT? Assume the walls are thin and the inside completely hollow, and that the dome is a perfect hemisphere. Ignore any packing effects.
10
How far will the Jakobshavn Isbrae, the fastest glacier in the world, travel during the course of this event in millimeters?
3
Assume each competitor spends 1 hour today scrolling through Facebook on their phone. Assuming about 1 post per screen size, a 5” screen (vertically), and about 5 seconds per post, how many miles of Facebook will competitors collectively scroll through?
2
If all competitors put a three minute song on Spotify and play it continuously 24 hrs today, how much money would we make in dollars?
3
What percent of the annual US cotton production goes into making MIT Science Olympiad shirts? Assume we make one for each competitor, and that shirts are 100% cotton.
-6
Time for some major 2017 events. The neutron star collision detected by LIGO produced about 200 Earth masses of gold. Assuming 1 kg of gold is worth $1200, how many times greater value did this produce than the current US national debt?
17
The US was hit by three major hurricanes in 2017 - Harvey, Irma, and Maria. In dollars, what is the estimated total damage from these hurricanes?
11
President Donald Trump’s inauguration was exactly a year ago today - how many people actually showed up?
6
On September 3, North Korea tested their largest nuclear weapon yet. Assuming the highest energy estimate, how many Joules of energy did this explosion release?
15
One of the biggest controversies of 2017 was the active involvement of Russia in sabotaging the U.S. election. How much more money (aka a factor) was spent by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Facebook advertisements compared to Russian troll farms?
3
The Cassini probe entered Saturn’s orbit on July 4, 2004, and remained there until the mission end on September 15, How many seconds was it in Saturn’s orbit?
8
The Keystone pipeline released 210,000 gallons of oil into South Dakota - how much energy was wasted, in Joules?
13
The “Great American Eclipse” occurred on August 21, 2017 and the next such total eclipse across North America will occur on April 8, How many U.S. quarters will we need to stack to match the distance the Earth travels in its orbit during this time?
15
The Paradise Papers have revealed that many companies actively attempt to avoid paying US taxes. How much money does the US government lose to tax cheats a year, in dollars?
11
The Wanna Cry exploit was the biggest ransomware attack in history, affecting as many as 150 countries, and was based on a Windows exploit. Assuming there is a possible exploit per 100 lines of code in Windows, how many exploits are possible?
6
On a much lighter note, Pokemon released its 27th and 28th games in its core series, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Not including these two, how many total copies of the core games have been sold so far?
8
Now that you’ve finished taking it, on a scale of 5-49, how difficult did you think this test was?
1
