What is Qwikipedia?
Ever been on Wikipedia to look up an article? More often than not, we start with one topic, click a few links and within no time are reading about something else.
Qwikipedia is a game that tries to quench this curiosity in us. The objective is to get to a particular Wiki page, starting from a specific article, using minimal clicks. There is no single correct answer, so we might surprise ourselves by finding new routes each time!
Thursday’s Trekker
>Thomas Edison —> >Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Imagine a world without the light bulb, where all activity stops when night falls. This would have been the state of the world had it not been for Thomas Edison and his invention of the light bulb. The American inventor was born in Ohio and his first business was one of printing and selling a newspaper. His other inventions include the phonograph and the motion picture camera.
In this age of iPods and YouTube, how many of you know what a phonograph looks like? Also known a gramophone or turntable, it was an early device used for recording and reproduction of sound. Like a CD it used a rotating cylinder or disc, but a much bigger disc known as a gramophone record. Invented by Edison in 1877, many improvements were made by others and it was the most commonly used audio recording format in the 20th century.
A gramophone record or vinyl record is a polyvinyl chloride disc with an inscribed, modulated and spiral groove. It was used to play music and other audio recordings and was hugely popular. The first album on a record was said to be Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky.
He was a Russian composer who composed an array of works including symophonies, concertos, ballets and more. His works are still used and appreciated across the world, like they were at the time of their composition in the 19th century.
So the path we have travelled today is:
Thomas Edison —> phonograph —> Gramophone record —> Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Three clicks! Hop over. It’s time for the next question:
Monday’s Marauder
>Papua New Guinea —> >LinkedIn
Send in your paths for the above to school@thehindu.co.in with the subject “Qwikipedia”.
