Q 01/05

Percy Spencer, whose candy bar reportedly melted beside a radar set, first deliberately microwaved which food?

A) Potatoes

B) Eggs

C) Popcorn

D) Peanuts

Answer · why

C) Popcorn

Popcorn was the first food Spencer cooked on purpose; the second was an egg, which exploded in the face of a fellow experimenter.

Q 02/05

The first X-ray photograph of a human body, taken in December 1895, showed which part of the physicist's wife?

A) Her hand

B) Her foot

C) Her skull

D) Her ribcage

Answer · why

A) Her hand

Her hand was the subject, and on seeing her own skeleton Anna Bertha is said to have exclaimed, "I have seen my death!"

Q 03/05

Which nutrient, needed for strong bones, does human skin make when ultraviolet B rays in sunlight strike it?

A) Vitamin A

B) Vitamin C

C) Vitamin E

D) Vitamin D

Answer · why

D) Vitamin D

Vitamin D forms when UVB strikes a cholesterol-like compound in the skin, and because window glass blocks almost all UVB, sunshine through a window do...

Q 04/05

Which space telescope, launched on Christmas Day 2021, has a gold-coated mirror built to observe infrared light?

A) Hubble

B) James Webb

C) Kepler

D) XMM-Newton

Answer · why

B) James Webb

James Webb carries 18 hexagonal mirror segments plated in gold, a metal chosen because it reflects infrared light so well.

Q 05/05

Which short-range radio technology is named after a tenth-century king who united Denmark's tribes?

A) AirDrop

B) Zigbee

C) Bluetooth

D) Chromecast

Answer · why

C) Bluetooth

Bluetooth takes its name from King Harald Bluetooth, and its logo is a bind rune that merges the runes for his two initials.