Q 01/05

Who coined the word 'parachute' in 1785, two years after making the first recorded public jump?

A) Louis-Sébastien Lenormand

B) André Garnerin

C) Jean-Pierre Blanchard

D) Jérôme Lalande

Answer · why

A) Louis-Sébastien Lenormand

He fused the Italian 'para' (to shield) with the French 'chute' (fall), and had been inspired by a 1691 account of umbrella jumpers in Siam.

Q 02/05

The word 'parachute' combines an Italian prefix meaning 'to shield' with the French word for what?

A) sky

B) fall

C) cloth

D) wind

Answer · why

B) fall

The same French word gives us 'chute' as in a laundry chute.

Q 03/05

In AD 852 Armen Firman jumped from a tower with a cloak to slow his fall in which Spanish city?

A) Seville

B) Toledo

C) Córdoba

D) Granada

Answer · why

C) Córdoba

The chronicle records that 'there was enough air in the folds of his cloak to prevent great injury when he reached the ground'.

Q 04/05

Leonardo da Vinci's parachute sketch used a square wooden frame that gave the canopy what shape?

A) conical

B) spherical

C) cylindrical

D) pyramidal

Answer · why

D) pyramidal

The design was successfully tested in 2000 by Adrian Nicholas and again in 2008 by Olivier Vietti-Teppa.

Q 05/05

The oldest known parachute design, from a 1470s manuscript, is attributed to which Italian engineer?

A) Francesco di Giorgio Martini

B) Filippo Brunelleschi

C) Mariano Taccola

D) Leon Battista Alberti

Answer · why

A) Francesco di Giorgio Martini

It shows a man clutching a crossbar under a conical canopy; the surface area is far too small to have worked.