Q 01/05

Germanium expands as it freezes solid, a rare quirk it shares with which everyday liquid?

A) Mercury

B) Olive oil

C) Water

D) Ethanol

Answer · why

C) Water

Water is the best-known member of this small club, which is why ice floats. Silicon and bismuth also swell as they solidify, while most molten materia...

Q 02/05

Germanium's discoverer first wanted which name, honoring a planet found by mathematical prediction?

A) Neptunium

B) Uranium

C) Plutonium

D) Cerium

Answer · why

A) Neptunium

Neptunium was his first pick, because Neptune had also been predicted before anyone saw it. The name was already claimed for another supposed element,...

Q 03/05

The first working transistor was built in 1947 on a slab of germanium at which American lab?

A) RCA Laboratories

B) Los Alamos

C) Xerox PARC

D) Bell Labs

Answer · why

D) Bell Labs

Bell Labs researchers John Bardeen and Walter Brattain got it working in December 1947. For the next decade, transistor electronics ran almost entirel...

Q 04/05

Germanium lenses look like solid gray metal, yet they are transparent to which kind of radiation?

A) Ultraviolet

B) Infrared

C) X-rays

D) Microwaves

Answer · why

B) Infrared

Infrared light passes straight through germanium even though visible light cannot. That makes it the standard lens material for thermal cameras and ni...

Q 05/05

Germanium honors Germany; which element did Marie Curie name after her own homeland?

A) Radium

B) Francium

C) Polonium

D) Curium

Answer · why

C) Polonium

Polonium was named for Poland in 1898, when the country was partitioned between three empires and missing from the map. Germanium had been named for i...