Need help with astrophysics terminology

In summary, a group of individuals from a piano forum have come together to solve analogies from a high-IQ test called the Titan Test. They are seeking help for some analogies they have not been able to answer, including the analogy "UNIVERSE : COSMO- :: UNIVERSAL LAWS : ?" which they believe is related to the prefix for "universal laws." They have also shared their answers for other analogies and discussed the difficulty and obscurity of the test. Some individuals have provided possible answers and explanations for the analogies. The conversation ends with a request for a link to the test which is provided.
  • #1
Soliloquy
4
0
Hi all. This is going to sound a bit odd, but I'm actually coming over from a piano forum of all places XP Me and a couple of friends are trying to solve some analogies off a very high-ceiling IQ test (the Titan Test) for fun and a question has arisen that none of us will ever be able to answer, but will probably be easy for anyone who is a member here. The analogy is:19. UNIVERSE : COSMO- :: UNIVERSAL LAWS : ?What would a prefix for "universal laws" be? Also, if anyone is interested, the ones that we have not managed to answer are:3. LACKING MONEY : PENURIOUS :: DOTING ON ONE'S WIFE : ?
8. THING : DANGEROUS :: SPRING : ?
9. HOLLOW VICTORY : PYRRHIC :: HOLLOW VILLAGE : ?
10. PILLAR : OBELISK :: MONSTER : ?
13. EASY JOB : SINECURE :: GUIDING LIGHT : ?
17. ASTRONOMY AND PHYSICS : ASTROPHYSICS :: HISTORY AND STATISTICS : ?
19. UNIVERSE : COSMO- :: UNIVERSAL LAWS : ?
21. TEACHING : UPLIFTING :: PEDAGOGIC : ?
24. SWEETNESS : SUFFIX :: BOATSWAIN : ?On #8 we currently have splendiferous, but I feel this is likely not the correct answer. Also on No. 10 we have basilisk en lieu of a retracted "cyclops", as we were under the impression that the point of an obelisk was called an "eye". I'm sure a lot of you guys are into some serious geometry so if anyone can verify the terminology of the point of an obelisk that would be fantastic. Also for #24 we have suprafix, but I personally feel this is not correct.
Anyway, hope you guys don't think I'm being a spammer or something XD We would mostly just really like to know what the prefix for "universal laws" is. Have fun with the analogies though!
 
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  • #2
Here's what I was able to come up with on the Titan

1 Klein
2 Compulsive
3 Uxorious
4 Kings
5 Palimpsest
6 Egoism
7 Procrustes
8 Pierian (Quote - A.Pope)
9 Potemkin
10 Basilisk (Greek origins)
11 Span (Biblical meas. Inches)
12 Brittle
13 Cynosure (commonly misused)
14 Brachiate
15 Kuru (a prion disease spread by eating flesh)
16 Occipital
17 Cliometrics
18 Morlock
19 Cosmologo (?)
20 Olbers (Olbers Paradox)
21 Anagogic
22 Paul (first name, same last, one-handed.)
23 Metaphysics
24 Syncope (?)

As noted, I am not very sure about 19 or 24.
While this Titan Test was supposed to be an IQ test, I found some of these references and analogies so ridiculously obscure (especially 9, 15, 20, 22), I felt it to be a test of your researching skills more than pure intelligence.

P.S. Have you tried the Math & spatial side of the Titan?

Best Regards,
G1978
 
  • #3
Ok the forum I've got all our answers on is down, so let's see how many I can just remember off the top of my head. Btw, are those the answers you got or are those like... definitely correct? Cause if they're 4sure right then we have some wrong ones =/ We finished it a while ago though so I'm not sure I can come up with them all off the top of my head...1- Klein
2- Compulsive
3- uxorious
4- Kings
5- palimpsest
6- solipsism
7- procrustes
8- splendiferous
9- potemkin
10- basilisk
11- span
12- immutable
13- cynosure
14- pendulate
15- kuru
16- occipital
17- archaeostatistics
18- Morlocks
19- axio-
20- Olber
21- Demagogic
22- Paul
23- Genealogy
24- Root

6, 14, 21 and 23 I'm like 99% sure you've got wrong, and then 8 and 12 I think you have right, although I don't know about the immutable/brittle one; that was someone else's answer and is not within the scope of my personal expertise. 17, 19 and 24 I really don't know. 24 we're probably more confident on than the other two; the morphology of boatswain LOOKS like unbound morpheme + root. And yes we had gotten through a couple sections of the math part. We did all of the number sequences (that would be my area of expertise) and the first three where it asks for the least number of squares used to create the image. Then we sort of lost interest XD If you want we can do the others on here? The number sequence answers are:43- 25
44- 2530
45- (-)4697
46- 95041567
47- 3
48- (1/2)(pi^2)(r^4)Obv can't come up with the other answers off the top of my head. We also did No. 30(?). Or maybe it was 29. Will get back to you.
 
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  • #4
Can't comment on the questions I don't see, but on 21, the correct answer is definitely 'demagogic'. 8 is 'Pierian spring'. For 24, I was thinking 'head' (since 'swain' is the head lexeme of an endocentric compound - this is a more specific description than the root morpheme). 19 is really difficult, but I don't think 'axio-' is correct.
 
  • #5
Gokul43201 said:
Can't comment on the questions I don't see, but on 21, the correct answer is definitely 'demagogic'. 8 is 'Pierian spring'. For 24, I was thinking 'head' (since 'swain' is the head lexeme of an endocentric compound - this is a more specific description than the root morpheme). 19 is really difficult, but I don't think 'axio-' is correct.
This test seems to be way over my head— I don't think I understand why any of those answers even work.

Shouldn't the ideal IQ test be able to measure intelligence and ability with disregard for knowledge?
 
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  • #6
Mk said:
This test seems to be way over my head— I don't think I understand why any of those answers even work.
Most pairs (3, 9, 10, 13, 17, 21) are synonyms, with the last word having some phonetic similarity to the second word (with 21, the order is changed).

8 is from an Alexander Pope poem that begins "A little learning is a dangerous thing/drink deep <something something> the Pierian spring".

Does someone have a link to this test? It looks fun.
 
  • #7
Gokul43201 said:
Does someone have a link to this test? It looks fun.

The test is on this page. It looks like the same one.

http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/titan.html

One has to pay a fee if you want it marked but of course you can just do it without having it marked.
 
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  • #8
I got Sleepy for #9.
 
  • #9
UNIVERSE : COSMO- :: UNIVERSAL LAWS : ?


Interesting... anyone have any ideas yet?
 
  • #10
...sorry...#21 is definitely Anagogic, not Demagogic.
Demagogic is the general distorting of perceptions based on appeal to emotions and prejudices. While Car Salesmen use this on the positive side, Politicians use it on the negative side.

Anagogic by contrast, refers to a all-positive effect regarding spirit and after life.

I defer to Webster's:

an·a·go·ge also an·a·go·gy (ān'ə-gō'jē) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. an·a·go·ges also an·a·go·gies
A mystical interpretation of a word, passage, or text, especially scriptural exegesis that detects allusions to heaven or the afterlife.

[Late Latin anagōgē, from Late Greek, spiritual uplift, from anagein, to lift up : ana-, ana- + agein, to lead; see ag- in Indo-European roots.]

Note the "spiritual uplift" phrase.
Don't feel bad, this was the 2nd most-missed Analogy on the Test. Only 40 of 504 got it. The crazy "Boatswain" one was the only one tougher.

Regarding the SPATIAL:
The Patterns (25-26-27) seemed to have instructions too vague. If you consider (A) all lines in the pattern had to be exposed at the top level, but (B), none of the squares used could have 'leftover' lines and areas outside the basic pattern, the exercise was obvious and trivial. If you relaxed (B) and allowed 'leftover' parts outside the required pattern, then it got a little more interesting but still not really challenging as there is only so much "efficiency" you can get from sharing lines with all the details of the patterns. I even e-mailed the Host of that site for clarification but got back nothing of any help - same vagueness. I guess it's hard to explain the rules on a visual problem without sitting down side by side and drawing examples...
For these three I came up with 9, 11 and 15 respectively. Anyone there get any of those # of squares, close to those, or have any gems of clarification so those problems make a little more sense?

G1978.
 
  • #11
Hi,

are your results (9,11,15) those with relaxed conditions or not? I got similar numbers, so I wonder...

Thanks
 
  • #12
(B). I allowed parts of squares to go outside the outer boundary, reasoning that the point was to generate a "pattern", i.e. something that would go on and on, and not simply create a single instance.

P.S. I still think that these are some of the 'worst' questions on Hoeflin's tests as they are so vague. I don't know why he didn't give a very simple example as I CAN'T be the only person that had questions about the overlap and boundary.
 
  • #13
Thanks.

Do you (or anyone else) know if he still grades that test? I sent an e-mail a while ago, but got no response...
 
  • #14
By the way, my results were 10,12 and 14. But I created a single square, not the whole spatial pattern. I kinda thought it should be that way because of the example shown on the test --- it shows just a square (even though the word he uses IS pattern)!
 
  • #15
I found another one of this guy's test called the Ultra Test and came across a problem I found very interesting:

9. Space : Hyperspace :: Vector : ?

Anybody know the answer? Also, if somebody could figure out ALL the verbal analogies that would be greatly appreciated as they are driving me nuts.
 
  • #16
Does anybody know the answers to problems 25-42 on this test? In addition, I came across another one of Hoeflin's Tests, the Ultra Test, and found a very interesting analogy:

9. Space : Hyperspace :: Vector : ?

Anybody know the answer?

By the way, the answer to 24 is stem
 
  • #17
Polymath101 said:
Does anybody know the answers to problems 25-42 on this test? In addition, I came across another one of Hoeflin's Tests, the Ultra Test, and found a very interesting analogy:

9. Space : Hyperspace :: Vector : ?

Anybody know the answer?

By the way, the answer to 24 is stem

Hypervector?
 
  • #18
Gear300 said:
Hypervector?

I feel like the answer might be tensor. The difficulty with this question lies in the fact that "space" explicitly implies 3-dimensional, and hyperspace is the generalization into higher dimensions. Vector on the other hand, is inherently n-dimensional. The definition of a vector includes every possible dimension unless you explicitly specify it. It's for this same reason that I think hypervector is wrong, and I've never heard that anyway. So the generalization must lie somewhere else, which is why I feel like tensor is the best fit.

That being said, I really think this entire thread should be deleted. Remember when the mega test got removed? Yea, I would really rather not see that happen with these.
 

FAQ: Need help with astrophysics terminology

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