Q 01/05

Rutherford, a physicist, won his 1908 Nobel Prize in which other subject?

A) Chemistry

B) Medicine

C) Literature

D) Peace

Answer · why

A) Chemistry

Chemistry. The prize honoured his work on how radioactive elements change, and he joked that the quickest transformation he had ever seen was his own,...

Q 02/05

Rutherford is widely known as the father of which field?

A) Modern chemistry

B) Radio astronomy

C) Nuclear physics

D) Quantum theory

Answer · why

C) Nuclear physics

Nuclear physics. He showed that an atom's mass is packed into a tiny central nucleus, then ran the Cambridge laboratory where his students first split...

Q 03/05

How was Rutherford's first name mistakenly written on his birth certificate?

A) Ernst

B) Earnest

C) Ernie

D) Ernesto

Answer · why

B) Earnest

Earnest. He was officially registered with the stray 'a', but the misspelling never stuck, and to his family he was simply Ern.

Q 04/05

Before raising twelve children, Rutherford's mother, Martha, had worked as what?

A) Housekeeper

B) Seamstress

C) Schoolteacher

D) Postmistress

Answer · why

C) Schoolteacher

Schoolteacher. Martha Thompson had taught at the Spring Grove school, and all her own children learned their reading and writing from her.

Q 05/05

Rutherford won the scholarship that took him to Cambridge only after the first-choice candidate did what?

A) Failed a medical

B) Turned it down

C) Missed the deadline

D) Was disqualified

Answer · why

B) Turned it down

Turned it down. The examiners ranked James Maclaurin of Auckland first, but he could not accept the scholarship's terms, so it passed to Rutherford, t...