Q 01/05

Which Hollywood star of the 1940s co-invented a frequency-hopping radio system to guide Allied torpedoes?

A) Greta Garbo

B) Ingrid Bergman

C) Hedy Lamarr

D) Marlene Dietrich

Answer · why

C) Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr shared the patent with composer George Antheil. The same spread-spectrum principles are used today in Bluetooth and early versions of Wi-F...

Q 02/05

Which element was detected in sunlight during an 1868 eclipse, decades before chemists isolated it on Earth?

A) Hydrogen

B) Helium

C) Neon

D) Argon

Answer · why

B) Helium

Helium takes its name from helios, the Greek word for the Sun, where its yellow spectral line was first spotted. Chemists found it in a uranium ore in...

Q 03/05

Who coined the word radioactivity and remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences?

A) Marie Curie

B) Linus Pauling

C) Frederick Sanger

D) John Bardeen

Answer · why

A) Marie Curie

Marie Curie won the Physics prize in 1903 and the Chemistry prize in 1911. She was also the first woman to win a Nobel Prize at all.

Q 04/05

Which theory of the universe's origin got its name from astronomer Fred Hoyle, who rejected it, on BBC radio?

A) Steady State

B) Big Bang

C) Cyclic universe

D) Cosmic inflation

Answer · why

B) Big Bang

The Big Bang was Hoyle's own phrase for an idea he argued against, preferring a steady-state universe. He later denied that he had meant the name as a...

Q 05/05

Albert Einstein won his Nobel Prize in Physics for explaining which phenomenon, not for relativity?

A) Brownian motion

B) Blackbody radiation

C) Electromagnetic induction

D) Photoelectric effect

Answer · why

D) Photoelectric effect

The photoelectric effect earned Einstein the 1921 prize at a time when some physicists still doubted relativity. The award was handed over a year late...