Computer Science trivia
Name a famous computer scientist or computing pioneer
“Name a famous computer scientist or computing pioneer” is one of 47 computer science prompts in Icillion. Of its 115 accepted answers, 5 are the ones nearly everyone says first; the rest sink deeper the rarer they are.
The tip of the iceberg
Say one of these and you stay near the surface, with 10 points.
- Alan Turing
- Ada Lovelace
- Grace Hopper
- Charles Babbage
- Tim Berners-Lee
One step down
Second thoughts land here, at 25 points:
- John von Neumann
- Linus Torvalds
- Dennis Ritchie
- Ken Thompson
- Bjarne Stroustrup
- Donald Knuth
- Edsger Dijkstra
- Claude Shannon
- John McCarthy
- Marvin Minsky
- Vint Cerf
- Richard Stallman
- Guido van Rossum
- Konrad Zuse
- Geoffrey Hinton
Answers by level
- The Tip5 answers · 10 ptsAlan Turing · Ada Lovelace · Grace Hopper
- Below the Surface15 answers · 25 ptsJohn von Neumann · Linus Torvalds · Dennis Ritchie …
- The Deep35 answers · 50 ptsHidden until you play
- The Abyss59 answers · 85 ptsHidden until you play
- Below the Iceberg1 answer · 100 ptsOne legendary answer, waiting in the game
The Deep holds 35 answers starting with A, B, D, G, H, J, L, M, N, R, S, T, W and Y. The Abyss has 59 more, and one legendary answer waits below them all.
Inside the answer list
- 115 answers in total, 115 of them longer than one word.
- Shortest: “Alan Kay”. Longest: “Joseph Marie Jacquard”.
- J, R and A are the most common first letters; together they start 35% of the answers.
- 44 answers can be typed more than one way: “Hassabis” counts as Demis Hassabis.
Getting below the surface
- Start with J: 17 of the answers begin with it.
- Alan Turing, Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper are safe but shallow. Aim past them.
- Older and academic tools are rare answers.
Play computer science trivia nowSee all 115 answers A–Z
Questions about this prompt
- What do most people say for “Name a famous computer scientist or computing pioneer”?
- The usual first answers are Alan Turing, Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Charles Babbage and Tim Berners-Lee. In Icillion they are worth 10 points each, the least of any level.
- How many answers are there to “Name a famous computer scientist or computing pioneer”?
- 115 in all: 5 on The Tip, 15 Below the Surface, 35 in The Deep, 59 in The Abyss, and a single legendary answer Below the Iceberg.
- Which answers to “Name a famous computer scientist or computing pioneer” are the shortest and the longest?
- The shortest accepted answer is “Alan Kay” and the longest is “Joseph Marie Jacquard”.
- How hard is “Name a famous computer scientist or computing pioneer”?
- Medium. It takes some general knowledge. It comes up in Free play on Medium and Mixed.
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All 47 computer science prompts · Medium trivia questions · General knowledge
How deep does your knowledge go?
Seven prompts a day, twenty seconds each. Obvious answers float on the tip of the iceberg; rare ones sink all the way to the trench.
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