Q 01/05

Nitrogen sits between which two elements in the periodic table?

A) Boron and carbon

B) Carbon and oxygen

C) Oxygen and fluorine

D) Fluorine and neon

Answer · why

B) Carbon and oxygen

Carbon and oxygen. Nitrogen, atomic number 7, is the quiet one of the trio: carbon burns and oxygen feeds the fire, while nitrogen gas barely reacts w...

Q 02/05

Roughly what percentage of Earth's atmosphere is nitrogen?

A) 0.04%

B) 1%

C) 21%

D) 78%

Answer · why

D) 78%

78%. Yet almost none of it is usable as it stands: plants and animals depend on the small part that soil bacteria have first 'fixed' into compounds.

Q 03/05

What is the name for the group of elements headed by nitrogen?

A) Alkali metals

B) Halogens

C) Pnictogens

D) Noble gases

Answer · why

C) Pnictogens

Pnictogens. The same column of the periodic table holds nitrogen and phosphorus, which every living cell needs, and arsenic, notorious as a poison.

Q 04/05

Which Scottish physician is credited with discovering nitrogen in 1772?

A) Joseph Black

B) Daniel Rutherford

C) William Cullen

D) James Hutton

Answer · why

B) Daniel Rutherford

Daniel Rutherford. He stripped trapped air of its oxygen and carbon dioxide and found that the gas left over put out flames, yet he never realised he ...

Q 05/05

Which nitrogen-rich fertiliser, left for years in a port warehouse, caused the 2020 Beirut explosion?

A) Ammonium nitrate

B) Sodium nitrate

C) Ammonium phosphate

D) Sodium phosphate

Answer · why

A) Ammonium nitrate

Ammonium nitrate. About 2,750 tonnes of it had been taken off a stranded cargo ship and sat in the port for six years before a fire set it off.