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My Indian friend Jamal recently participated in the well-known TV quiz show Who wants to be a millionaire?. You might have heard or read about Jamal's spectacular success; the media reported on it extensively.

Here is what Jamal told us about the 16.000 Euro question:

The 16.000 Euro question brought up my area of expertise. I was familiar with the first technical term mentioned in the question, but its second technical term seemed somewhat obscure. I noticed that all the answers were consecutive powers of two and that they were listed in increasing order as well. I figured that programmers and computer scientists usually enjoy play-of-words, and after some thought I hesitatingly chose B.

What was the 16.000 Euro question?
What were the four possible answers A, B, C, D?

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    $\begingroup$ We sure do love wordplay Q: What are you waiting for? A: 2 B: 4 C: 8 D: 16 $\endgroup$
    – NeedAName
    Oct 22, 2015 at 18:22

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The question was:

"How many bits make a nibble?"

Justification:

The wikipedia says: The term "nibble" originates from its representing "half a byte", with "byte" a homophone of the English word "bite". Computer scientists enjoy the play-of-words with biting and nibbling.

Jamal says: "I was familiar with the first technical term mentioned in the question, but its second technical term seemed somewhat obscure." The term "bit" is very common, while the term "nibble" is not so well-known and somewhat obscure.

Then the four answers were:

A. $~~~~~2$
B. $~~~~~4$
C. $~~~~~8$
D. $~~~16$

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The question and the answers:

How many bytes go in a kibibyte?
A. 512
B. 1024
C. 2048
D. 4096

There are some variations possible:
- How many bits go in a kibibyte?
- How many bits go in a mebibyte?
- How many bytes go in a mebibyte?

Answers are the corresponding powers of 2 of course.

Justification:

kibi is a wordplay on kilo and binary, and mebi is a wordplay on mega and binary.
Therefore this answer does statistify the wordplay requirement.

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I think the answers were:

binary, quadral, octal, hexadecimal

The question might be:

Which number system is not commonly used by programmers?

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    $\begingroup$ How does this statistify: I was familiar with the first technical term mentioned in the question, but its second technical term seemed somewhat obscure. ? $\endgroup$
    – wythagoras
    Oct 22, 2015 at 18:31
  • $\begingroup$ @wythagoras Because programmers don't use a quadral number system, but commonly use the other three. $\endgroup$
    – Sleafar
    Oct 22, 2015 at 18:34
  • $\begingroup$ But that are the terms in the answers, not the terms in the question. But I guess it is a reasonable answer, as that might be open to interpretation whether the terms in the answer count. $\endgroup$
    – wythagoras
    Oct 22, 2015 at 18:36

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