Q 01/05

Mendeleev wrote each element on a card and laid them out like which card game until a pattern emerged?

A) Bridge

B) Rummy

C) Solitaire

D) Blackjack

Answer · why

C) Solitaire

Solitaire, called patience in Europe: he kept rearranging the cards by weight until elements with similar properties lined up at regular intervals.

Q 02/05

Mendelevium, element 101, was first made in 1955 by a team at which Californian university?

A) Stanford

B) Caltech

C) Berkeley

D) UCLA

Answer · why

C) Berkeley

Berkeley's team made it one atom at a time by firing alpha particles at einsteinium, detected just seventeen atoms, and named the element for a Russia...

Q 03/05

Which three elements, unknown in 1869, did Mendeleev correctly predict the properties of?

A) Helium, neon and xenon

B) Silicon, aluminium and boron

C) Germanium, gallium and scandium

D) Radium, polonium and actinium

Answer · why

C) Germanium, gallium and scandium

Germanium, gallium and scandium all turned up within 17 years; when gallium's discoverer reported a lower density than forecast, Mendeleev told him to...

Q 04/05

Mendeleev was born in Tobolsk, a town in which region of the Russian Empire?

A) Crimea

B) Siberia

C) The Caucasus

D) Karelia

Answer · why

B) Siberia

Siberia: he was the last child of the headmaster of the local school, and left the region at fifteen when his widowed mother took him west in search o...

Q 05/05

How did Mendeleev's father, born Ivan Sokolov, come by the surname Mendeleev?

A) A reward from the Tsar

B) Assigned to him at seminary

C) Taken from his wife's family

D) Chosen when he became a teacher

Answer · why

B) Assigned to him at seminary

Assigned to him at seminary, where priests' sons were routinely renamed: his was borrowed from a neighbouring landowner, and two of his brothers were ...