Q 01/05

The word 'engine' descends from which Latin word, meaning inborn talent or cleverness?

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; 'ingenious' grew from the ...

Q 02/05

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

A) Died in a rail crash

B) Vanished from a steamship

C) Arrested as a spy

D) Killed in a car crash

Answer · why

B) Vanished from a steamship

Diesel vanished from a steamship, the Dresden, on an overnight crossing from Antwerp; ten days later a Dutch pilot boat found a body whose pockets hel...

Q 03/05

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

A) 187

B) 373

C) 746

D) 1,492

Answer · why

C) 746

One horsepower is about 746 watts, yet Watt's benchmark of 33,000 foot-pounds a minute is more than most horses can keep up through a working day.

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 carries oxygen in its own molecule, so a cylinder can burn about eight times as much of it as petrol with each charge of air; NHRA rules ...

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...