general knowledge Online Quiz - 3378

Ashwattama was cursed by Krishna to remain a Chiranjeevi (immortal) and suffer eternally for his heinous crime of killing the five sleeping sons of Draupadi. After the war, Ashwattama unleashed the Brahmastra to destroy the Pandava lineage, but Krishna countered it and cursed Ashwattama to roam the earth forever, suffering from the wounds of his sin, unable to find peace or death.

The Mahabharata is also known as 'Jaya', meaning victory. This name reflects the Pandavas' ultimate triumph in the Kurukshetra war. The epic was originally called Jaya before it expanded into the massive work we now know as Mahabharata. 'Vijaya' and 'Digvijaya' are related words but not the traditional alternate name.

Stri Parva is the book of the Mahabharata where the last rites (cremation ceremonies) are performed for those killed in the Kurukshetra war. It describes the women, particularly Gandhari and Draupadi, lamenting their losses and performing funeral rites. Anushasana Parva contains Bhishma's teachings on his deathbed, Shanti Parva is about Yudhishthira's coronation and statecraft, and Bhishma Parva covers the first 10 days of war.

Thomas Edison's first patent was US Patent 90,646 for the electric vote recorder, filed in 1869 when he was 22 years old. This device allowed legislators to vote yes or no by turning a switch, which would record votes electronically. Unfortunately, it was not commercially successful because politicians were unwilling to speed up voting processes. Edison vowed to only invent things people would actually buy after this failure.

General Electric (GE) is the only company founded by Thomas Edison that still exists today as one of the world's largest publicly traded companies. GE was formed in 1892 through the merger of Edison General Electric Company and Thomson-Houston Company. Edison founded 14 companies during his lifetime, but GE is by far the most successful and enduring. Companies like Philco, Motorola, and Phillips were not founded by Edison.

This is false. In 1877, Edison invented the first phonograph prototype, but he used wax paper wrapped around the grooved cylinder, not tin foil. The tin foil version came slightly later as an improvement. The wax paper version could record and play back sound, but the quality was poor. Edison continued refining the design, eventually using tin foil and later wax cylinders for better sound reproduction.

The War of the Currents in the late 19th century was a major commercial and technological rivalry between Thomas Edison, who championed direct current (DC), and George Westinghouse, who promoted alternating current (AC).

Edison's fluoroscope was an early X-ray imaging device that used fluorescent screens to make X-ray images visible in real-time. This technology became commonly known as X-ray imaging or simply 'X-rays' in medical practice. Edison himself stopped working on X-ray technology after his assistant Clarence Dally suffered severe radiation damage and died from X-ray exposure, highlighting the dangers of early radiography.

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. He went on to develop numerous pivotal devices that greatly influenced modern life.

In 1983, the U.S. Congress officially designated February 11 (Edison's birthday) as National Inventor's Day through Senate Joint Resolution 140. This holiday honors not just Edison but American inventors overall. The designation recognizes Edison's enormous contribution to innovation and technology, celebrating the spirit of invention that he embodied throughout his life with over 1,000 patents.

Thomas Edison is credited with 1,093 patents, making option B (1500) the closest approximation among the choices. His patents cover inventions like the phonograph, motion picture camera, alkaline battery, and electric light system. The exact count is 1,093 U.S. patents plus additional patents in other countries. This remarkable output earned him the nickname 'The Wizard of Menlo Park' and solidified his legacy as one of history's most prolific inventors.

Thomas Edison developed the first motion picture film (movie) at his laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey in 1889. This was a significant breakthrough in cinema history, building on his earlier work with the phonograph. West Orange became Edison's primary research facility where he developed many of his most famous inventions, including improvements to the motion picture camera and projector. Menlo Park was his earlier laboratory site.

Edison's most significant and impactful inventions were in electric light and power, including the incandescent light bulb (1879) and the first commercial power distribution system (Pearl Street Station, 1882). While he worked in telegraphy, sound recording, and batteries, his electric light innovations had the widest societal impact and commercial success.

Edison's last patent (U.S. Patent 1,908,327), granted in 1933 shortly before his death, was for a holder used in the electroplating process. This reflected his continued interest in practical industrial applications even late in his career, working on improvements to manufacturing processes.

Charles Edison, the son who took over Edison's companies after his father's death in 1931, later served as Governor of New Jersey from 1941-1944 and as U.S. Secretary of the Navy. His brothers Thomas Jr. (known for problematic business ventures) and William (who became an engineer) did not take over the companies.

Seminole Lodge in Fort Myers, Florida, was Edison's winter home and laboratory, not a museum operated by the National Park Service. It is now maintained by the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford Winter Estates as a historic site open to the public, but it is not a National Historic Site operated by the NPS.

Edison was famously known as 'The Wizard of Menlo Park' because his laboratory and home were in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he developed many of his most famous inventions including the phonograph and incandescent light. The press gave him this nickname in the 1870s-1880s.

Edison's most prolific and impactful invention in 1878 was the incandescent light bulb, which he developed commercially after years of experimentation. While he did not invent the first light bulb, his 1879 patent created the first practical, long-lasting bulb for commercial use. The other options (hoset?, micro chip, electric fan) are either nonsensical or anachronistic.

Konrad Zuse, a German engineer, created the first programmable computer (the Z3) in 1941. It was the first working, programmable, fully automatic digital computer. Alan Turing was a theoretical computer scientist, Bill Gates founded Microsoft decades later, and 'Alan Bohr' appears to be a fictional name conflating Alan Turing and Niels Bohr.