Science & Technology: Chemistry, Inventions, and Computer Terms

Thomas Edison developed the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb in 1879. While earlier inventors like Swan and others worked on electric lighting, Edison's design was the first viable, long-lasting bulb that could be mass-produced and widely adopted.

Thomas Edison developed the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb in 1879. While earlier inventors like Swan and others worked on electric lighting, Edison's design was the first viable, long-lasting bulb that could be mass-produced and widely adopted.

Thomas Edison developed the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb in 1879. While earlier inventors like Swan and others worked on electric lighting, Edison's design was the first viable, long-lasting bulb that could be mass-produced and widely adopted.

TTL stands for Time To Live, a field in network protocols (especially IP) that limits the lifespan of a data packet. Each router decrements this value, and when it reaches zero, the packet is discarded to prevent indefinite circulation. Options A and C use 'Language' and 'Layer' incorrectly, while D is not a real technical term.

ECP stands for Extended Capabilities Port, a parallel port mode defined in IEEE 1284 standard that supports high-speed bidirectional communication. It's commonly used for connecting printers and other peripherals to computers. The other options with 'Part', 'Connection', and 'Peripheral' are fabricated expansions.

GPU stands for Graphics Processing Unit, a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images. It's essential for rendering graphics, gaming, video editing, and parallel computing tasks. Options A, C, and D incorrectly use 'Grouped', 'Utility', and 'Portable' instead of 'Graphics'.

RISC stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computer, a CPU design philosophy that uses simple, uniform instructions executing in one cycle. This contrasts with CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer). The simplicity enables faster processing and better pipelining. Options A, B, and C are fabricated expansions not used in computer architecture.

SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer, a cryptographic protocol designed to provide secure communication over a computer network. It creates an encrypted link between a web server and browser, protecting sensitive data in transit. Note that SSL has been deprecated in favor of TLS (Transport Layer Security), but the term SSL is still widely used.

Fathullah Shirazi, a Persian-Indian polymath in Akbar's court in the 16th century, invented the autocannon and multi-barrel guns. He was a brilliant inventor and scholar. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, Otto Hann is associated with mustard gas, and Mikhail Kalashnikov designed the AK-47 assault rifle much later.

The infinite series for pi/4 = 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + ... was discovered by Madhava of Sangamagrama in the 14th century, centuries before Leibniz. Though often called the Leibniz formula in Western textbooks, priority belongs to the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics.

Actinium is a radioactive element with atomic number 89, and its standard chemical symbol is Ac. Arsenic (As), Americium (Am), and Silver (Ag) are different elements with their own distinct symbols.

Curium is a synthetic radioactive element with atomic number 96, and its chemical symbol is 'Cm'. The symbol is derived from its name. Copper is 'Cu', Copernicium is 'Cn' (not 'Cp'), and Caesium is 'Cs'.

Neodymium is a rare earth element with atomic number 60, and its chemical symbol is 'Nd'. The symbol comes from 'neo' (new) and 'dymium'. Neon is 'Ne', Nitrogen is 'N', and Niobium is 'Nb'.

Rhenium is a transition metal with atomic number 75, and its chemical symbol is 'Re'. The name comes from the Rhine river (Rhenium in Latin). Rhodium is 'Rh', Rutherfordium is 'Rf', and Rubidium is 'Rb'.

Plutonium is a radioactive element with atomic number 94, and its chemical symbol is 'Pu'. Promethium is 'Pm', Praseodymium is 'Pr', and Platinum is 'Pt'. Plutonium was named after the dwarf planet Pluto.