QUES: Ancient tables provided the sun's mean longitude. Christopher Clavius, the architect of the Gregorian calendar, noted that the tables agreed neither on the time when the sun passed through the vernal equinox nor on the length of the mean tropical year. Tycho Brahe also noticed discrepancies. The Gregorian leap year rule (97 leap years in 400 years) was put forward by Petrus Pitatus of Verona in 1560. He noted that it is consistent with the tropical year of the Alfonsine tables and with the mean tropical year of Copernicus (De revolutionibus) and Reinhold (Prutenic tables). The three mean tropical years in Babylonian sexagesimals as the excess over 365 days (the way they would have been extracted from the tables of mean longitude) were 14,33,9,57 (Alphonsine), 14,33,11,12 (Copernicus) and 14,33,9,24 (Reinhold). All values are the same to two places (14:33) and this is also the mean length of the Gregorian year. Thus Pitatus' solution would have commended itself to the astronomers.
Who suggested ninety-seven leap years in 400 years during the fifteenth century

ANS: unanswerable

QUES: Rurik led the Rus' until his death in about 879, bequeathing his kingdom to his kinsman, Prince Oleg, as regent for his young son, Igor. In 880-82, Oleg led a military force south along the Dnieper river, capturing Smolensk and Lyubech before reaching Kiev, where he deposed and killed Askold and Dir, proclaimed himself prince, and declared Kiev the "mother of Rus' cities." Oleg set about consolidating his power over the surrounding region and the riverways north to Novgorod, imposing tribute on the East Slav tribes. In 883, he conquered the Drevlians, imposing a fur tribute on them. By 885 he had subjugated the Poliane, Severiane, Vyatichi, and Radimichs, forbidding them to pay further tribute to the Khazars. Oleg continued to develop and expand a network of Rus' forts in Slav lands, begun by Rurik in the north.
Who declared Kiev "The mother of Rus citis'?

ANS: Prince Oleg

QUES: Various music journalists, critical theorists, and authors have deemed Madonna the most influential female recording artist of all time. Author Carol Clerk wrote that "during her career, Madonna has transcended the term 'pop star' to become a global cultural icon." Rolling Stone of Spain wrote that "She became the first viral Master of Pop in history, years before the Internet was massively used. Madonna was everywhere; in the almighty music television channels, 'radio formulas', magazine covers and even in bookshops. A pop dialectic, never seen since The Beatles's reign, which allowed her to keep on the edge of tendency and commerciality." Laura Barcella in her book Madonna and Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop (2012) wrote that "really, Madonna changed everything the musical landscape, the '80s look du jour, and most significantly, what a mainstream female pop star could (and couldn't) say, do, or accomplish in the public eye." William Langley from The Daily Telegraph felt that "Madonna has changed the world's social history, has done more things as more different people than anyone else is ever likely to." Alan McGee from The Guardian felt that Madonna is a post-modern art, the likes of which we will never see again. He further asserted that Madonna and Michael Jackson invented the terms Queen and King of Pop.
Who said that Madonna changed the world social history?

ANS: William Langley from The Daily Telegraph

QUES: As early as 1934, Popper wrote of the search for truth as "one of the strongest motives for scientific discovery." Still, he describes in Objective Knowledge (1972) early concerns about the much-criticised notion of truth as correspondence. Then came the semantic theory of truth formulated by the logician Alfred Tarski and published in 1933. Popper writes of learning in 1935 of the consequences of Tarski's theory, to his intense joy. The theory met critical objections to truth as correspondence and thereby rehabilitated it. The theory also seemed, in Popper's eyes, to support metaphysical realism and the regulative idea of a search for truth.
What did Tarski write about the search for truth in 1934?

ANS:
unanswerable