This number, whose creation is attributed to ancient India, enabled the denominational number system and the basis upon which modern mathematics is built
What is zero?
100
In this famous film from the '80s, nuclear war is averted by having a computer play tic-tac-toe against itself to learn the consequences of mutually assured destruction
What is Wargames?
100
This man invented calculus. Not specific enough? He was also an amateur alchemist
Who is Sir Issac Newton?
100
IBM's new 6GB enterprise-class hard drives are filled with this lighter-than-air gas, to boost performance -- and price
What is helium?
100
The mid-20th century practice of keeping track of the year with two digits eventually led to this bug, which was over-publicized to the point of frightening the general public
What is the Y2K bug?
200
According to Douglas Adams’ novel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, this number is the result of the question: “What do you get when you multiply six by nine?”
What is 42?
200
This sentient computer, whose name might have been inspired by "IBM", has been listed by the American Film Institute as the 13th greatest film villain of all time
Who is HAL 9000?
200
A challenge based on the life of this French algebraist: 1. Complete a major mathematical work before turning 21. 2. Turn 21
Who is Evariste Galois?
200
In 1961, IBM delivered the IBM 7030 Stretch Supercomputer, which was the first time this type of now-commonplace processor was used
What is a 64-bit processor?
200
The 20th century logically began on this date
What is Jan 1st, 1901?
300
This number is fundamental to understanding both the makeup of molecules and their interactions and combinations; it is roughly equal to 279, and has absolutely nothing to do with small subterranean mammals
What is Avogadro's Number?
300
In one infamous episode, this popular television crime drama depicts two people typing on a keyboard at the same time while trying to stop a cyber attack
What is NCIS?
300
This mathematician, originally from Italy, was part of the committee in revolutionary France that tried to implement metric time
Who is Joseph-Louis Lagrange?
300
any keyboard layouts, including QWERTY, get their names from the first few letters in the top row. This popular alternative keyboard layout, however, gets its name from its creator, this man
Who is August Dvorak?
300
While decimal only needs eight digits to represent the standard date, binary requires this many
What is 20 digits?
400
These enormous numbers’ binary representations correspond to, well, I’d better not say more; jail might be your fate if you’re caught storing, transmitting, or even uttering one of these numbers
What is an illegal prime?
400
This underdog search engine used by Peter Parker, Felicity Smoak, and Colter Stevens
What is Bing?
400
Laplace said of this man, who did much of his work in St. Petersburg, “read [this man’s work], he is the master of us all”
Who is Leonhard Euler?
400
While students are taught about AND, OR, and NOT logic gates, most actual circuit implementations are made entirely of this type of gate, due to ease of fabrication
What is a NAND gate?
400
All Unix systems count the seconds since this date, termed the beginning of the “Unix epoch”
What is January 1st, 1970?
500
The nth element of this type of number is defined as the smallest number that can be expressed as a sum of two positive cubes in n distinct ways
What is a taxicab number?
500
This television show once had a character actually say “I'll create a GUI interface using Visual Basic. See if I can track an IP address.”
What is CSI:NY?
500
This mathematical genius’ mother was illiterate and did not record her son’s birthday -- he managed to derive it himself by devising a method to compute the date of Easter in past and future years
Who is Carl Friedrich Gauss?
500
The TRIM command, now implemented across many OSes, corrected for the differences in low-level operation between these and normal platter hard drives
What is an SSD?
500
The “Unix timestamp” datatype, which stores the seconds since the beginning of the “Unix epoch”, will roll over in the mid-21st century, creating problems in this year -- if you’re still using a 32-bit system, anyway