Q 01/05

Which one-atom-thick material did two Manchester physicists first isolate using sticky tape?

A) Borophene

B) Graphene

C) Stanene

D) Phosphorene

Answer · why

B) Graphene

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms, and Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov first pulled it from graphite with adhesive tape in 2004.

Q 02/05

Which fiber, five times stronger than steel by weight, did chemist Stephanie Kwolek invent?

A) Kevlar

B) Lycra

C) Dacron

D) Nomex

Answer · why

A) Kevlar

Kevlar was first sold in the early 1970s to replace the steel in racing tires, long before it became the standard fiber of bulletproof vests.

Q 03/05

Which material did chemist Roy Plunkett find by accident as white powder inside a gas cylinder?

A) Formica

B) Neoprene

C) Teflon

D) Lucite

Answer · why

C) Teflon

Teflon, or PTFE, formed when the gas Plunkett was storing for refrigerant research polymerized inside its cylinder, leaving one of the slipperiest sol...

Q 04/05

Which metal, then priced like silver, forms the small pyramid capping the Washington Monument?

A) Platinum

B) Titanium

C) Magnesium

D) Aluminum

Answer · why

D) Aluminum

Aluminum stopped being a precious novelty in 1886, two years after the cap was set, when the Hall–Héroult process made it cheap enough for mass produc...

Q 05/05

Which rubber seals did Richard Feynman dunk in ice water to explain the Challenger disaster?

A) Washers

B) O-rings

C) Grommets

D) Bellows

Answer · why

B) O-rings

O-rings in the booster joints lost their springiness in the cold of launch morning, and Feynman proved it at a televised hearing with a clamp and a gl...