4th June is the anniversary of the last day those little ships went into action. That's worth remembering.
Q1)4th June was the last day of the evacuation of Dunkirk. During which war … ?
Q2)In which year of the war was the evacuation: 1940, 1941 or 1942 … ?
Q3)What was the evacuation code-named: Dynamo, Generator or Grinder … ?
Q4)What name was given to British forces evacuated from Dunkirk … ?
Q5)Who was the general in charge of that force … ?
Q6)Roughly how many were evacuated: 338000, 438000 or 538000 … ?
Q7)How many private boats were in the flotilla of Little Ships: 500, 600or 700 … ?
Q8)The one Royal Navy cruiser that took part was the HMS … what … ?
Q9)Spell 'Dunkirk'. In French.
Q10)Finally … What's the name of Churchill's speech to the House Of Commons, about Dunkirk?
Here's last week's questions and answers …
Questions.
Q1)28th May, 1936 saw scientist Alan Turing publish his paper that defined modern computers; he and his computers were used to break codes in which war?
Q2)The paper is commonly known as 'On Computable …' what …?
Q3)We call them computers: what did Turing call them?
Q4)Turing worked at Britain's code-breaking centre, in Bletchley Park: what was that centre's formal name … ?
Q5)More to the point, name the German cipher machine which he helped crack: apart from the Lorenz … ?
Q6)Which of the German Armed forces was using that machine?
Q7)The computer chip at the heart of a computer — smartphone, laptop, embedded, server, desktop or tablet — is a CPU: or Central Processing … what?
Q8)One feature of the computers conceived by Turing is short and long term … what?
Q9)The Turing Test is one the scientist devised: to test for artificial what?
Q10)And finally … Turing eventually committed suicide by eating a poisoned what …?
Answers.
A1)World War 2.
A2)Numbers. (The full title is 'On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem'.)
A3)Universal Machines. (Your laptop's one, as is your smartphone, tablet, desktop computer and the embedded computer in the till your money went into, to pay for your copy of the Gazette: in other words, it's a machine that could be programmed to do one thing, then programmed to do another. I think the man who made such such a major contribution to Britain's war effort, and to modern life, should have been given a medal: rather than just the pardon he got.)
A4)The Government Code and Cypher School.
A5)The Enigma Machine.
A6)The German Navy.
A7)Unit.
A8)Memory.
A9)Intelligence. (The Turing test is blind, and goes like this: you're talking to two individuals, via (say) Facebook Chat, iMessenger, BBM, what-have-you. One is a person: the other an artificially intelligent computer. If you cannot tell which is which, the AI can be said to have passed the test. That, or you're really bad at this sort of thing.)
A10)Apple. (Apple's logo was said to be a mark of respect to Turing.)
Readers who want a frequent challenge can visit my blog — Nik Nak's Old Peculiar — and try the Daily Teaser: today's is at the top.Anyone needing a pub quiz in a hurry — pub and charity pub quizzes, included — are also welcome: you'll find the free Friday Questions Sets — covered by the Creative Commons License* — very handy.Movie fans are welcome, too: as are Dr Who fans. I tend to write about them, too …
Enjoy the week, folks.
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