Q 01/05

The word 'engine' descends from which Latin word, the same root that gives English 'ingenious'?

A) Ignis

B) Ingenium

C) Machinatio

D) Impetus

Answer · why

B) Ingenium

Ingenium, Latin for inborn talent, reached English as Old French 'engin', so an engine was at first any clever contrivance rather than a motor.

Q 02/05

What became of Rudolf Diesel in September 1913, on his way to a business meeting in London?

A) Died in an engine explosion

B) Vanished from a steamship

C) Killed in a motor race

D) Shot in a duel

Answer · why

B) Vanished from a steamship

Diesel vanished from a steamship, the Dresden, overnight between Antwerp and London; ten days later a Dutch pilot boat found a body whose pockets held...

Q 03/05

James Watt's horsepower, devised to compare steam engines with draft horses, equals about how many watts?

A) 746

B) 1,000

C) 1,250

D) 1,500

Answer · why

A) 746

One horsepower is about 746 watts, so a 100-horsepower car engine is a 75-kilowatt machine; Watt pegged a horse at 33,000 foot-pounds per minute.

Q 04/05

Which fuel lets a Top Fuel dragster's supercharged V8 produce more than 11,000 horsepower?

A) Methanol

B) Ethanol

C) Nitromethane

D) Racing petrol

Answer · why

C) Nitromethane

Nitromethane blends, capped at 90 percent by NHRA rules with the rest mostly methanol, were measured at over 11,000 horsepower in 2015 sensor tests on...

Q 05/05

Which Scottish minister's 1816 engine, run by external heat, is fitted to Sweden's Gotland-class submarines?

A) William Murdoch

B) James Nasmyth

C) John Ericsson

D) Robert Stirling

Answer · why

D) Robert Stirling

Robert Stirling's closed-cycle engine heats and cools a sealed gas instead of burning fuel inside, which is why submarines use it: it runs exceptional...