Q 01/05

Vermont farmer Wilson Bentley attached a camera to his microscope in 1885 to photograph what?

A) Snowflakes

B) Pollen grains

C) Insect wings

D) Pond algae

Answer · why

A) Snowflakes

Snowflakes: after photographing crystal after crystal before it could melt, Bentley argued that no two snow crystals are alike, an idea that caught th...

Q 02/05

Robert Brown saw pollen particles jiggling in water under his microscope; who explained the motion in 1905?

A) Albert Einstein

B) Max Planck

C) Niels Bohr

D) Marie Curie

Answer · why

A) Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein showed the particles were being jostled by individual water molecules, and his explanation became convincing evidence that atoms and m...

Q 03/05

Which Dutch spectacle-maker is claimed, by his own son, to have invented the compound microscope in 1590?

A) Christiaan Huygens

B) Hans Lippershey

C) Cornelis Drebbel

D) Zacharias Janssen

Answer · why

D) Zacharias Janssen

Zacharias Janssen's son made the claim in 1655, about twenty years after his father's death, and historians suspect the story may have been invented.

Q 04/05

Which Dutch town housed, as neighbours, the spectacle-makers credited with the microscope and telescope?

A) Middelburg

B) Haarlem

C) Delft

D) Rotterdam

Answer · why

A) Middelburg

Middelburg, capital of Zeeland, housed both rival spectacle-making households, yet their claims were never settled and the microscope's true inventor ...

Q 05/05

What name did Galileo give to the compound microscope he built, before 'microscopio' was coined?

A) Lente doppia ('double lens')

B) Perspicillum (Latin, 'spyglass')

C) Cannocchiale ('tube-glass')

D) Occhiolino ('little eye')

Answer · why

D) Occhiolino ('little eye')

Occhiolino ('little eye') was Galileo's name for the instrument he sent Prince Federico Cesi in 1624; a year later fellow Lincean Giovanni Faber coine...