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Many questions are allusive and a few are cryptic. Not all departments are represented in a given section but all departments appear at least once overall. Par score (without internet) 8-15 depending on your department and how long you have been in Oxford. A link to the answers can be found at the bottom of the page.

 

1. Which MPLS department is home to:

(a) A Boy Riding a Tortoise?

(b) A Praelector?

(c) The view from his office window, painted by a Nobel Laureate?

(d) A proto-quasicrystal designed by a Nobel Laureate?

(e) Linnaean leaves?

(f) Ambafroger?

(g) An ancient pile, more than ten billion tings old?

(h) Melodious Research Fellows (Usignoli, one might say)?

(i) Pillars in Arithmetic Progression?

(j) A Brunsviga Machine?

 

2. In which MPLS department might you find expertise in:

(a) Ethology?

(b) Ontologies?

(c) Petrology?

d) Ptychography?

(e) -  ....  .  ---  .-.  -.--  ?

(f) Boojums?

(g) Both knot theory and string theory?

(h) p, Q-Q, R, S+, t, U(a.b)?

(i) Pteridology?

 

3. In which MPLS department is there a professorship that:

(a) Is of Natural Philosophy?

(b) Is of Experimental Philosophy?

(c) Was last out of the box (bearing more than expected)?

(d) Is, operatically, the subject of Tales?

(e) Derives from the original Plinian source?

(f) Is nominative-deterministic?

(g) Used to come with an official Residence, handy for the Turf?

(h) Used to have one of two official Residences, one handy for the Turf and one for the Royal Oak?

(i) Commemorates the Man Who Drew Infinity?

(j) Is both a Duck and a fish?

 

4. (a) Given that the zenzic of 3 is the street number of the Divisional Office, the zenzizenzic of 2 is the zenzic of 4, and the zenzizenzizenzic of 3 is the zenzic of the zenzic of 9, what is the zenzizenzizenzic of 2?

(b) The zenzic terminology (real, but obsolete) is given in The Whetstone of Witte (1557) by Oxford mathematician Robert Recorde. What pivotal and still current mathematical notation is premiered in that book?

 

Answers