Q 01/05

Which 1687 book by Isaac Newton set out the laws of motion and universal gravitation?

A) Opticks

B) De Motu Corporum

C) Principia Mathematica

D) Arithmetica Universalis

Answer · why

C) Principia Mathematica

Its full title is Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica; it achieved the first great unification in physics.

Q 02/05

With which German mathematician does Newton share credit for inventing calculus?

A) Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

B) Carl Friedrich Gauss

C) Leonhard Euler

D) Johannes Kepler

Answer · why

A) Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Newton developed it years earlier but the bitter priority dispute poisoned relations between British and continental mathematics for a century.

Q 03/05

What government post did Newton hold for the last 30 years of his life?

A) Astronomer Royal

B) Lord Chancellor

C) Surveyor of the Navy

D) Master of the Mint

Answer · why

D) Master of the Mint

He took the job in 1699 on the death of Thomas Neale and pursued counterfeiters with relish.

Q 04/05

Einstein's 1921 Nobel Prize was awarded specifically for which discovery?

A) Special relativity

B) The photoelectric effect

C) General relativity

D) Brownian motion

Answer · why

B) The photoelectric effect

Relativity was still too controversial for the committee; the photoelectric work helped launch quantum theory.

Q 05/05

Where was Einstein working when he published his four groundbreaking papers of 1905?

A) The University of Zurich

B) The Swiss Patent Office in Bern

C) The Prussian Academy in Berlin

D) Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study

Answer · why

B) The Swiss Patent Office in Bern

The 'annus mirabilis' papers came from a patent clerk who had just submitted his PhD to Zurich.