Q 01/05

Which OutKast hit told listeners to "shake it like a Polaroid picture"?

A) Ms. Jackson

B) Hey Ya!

C) Roses

D) The Way You Move

Answer · why

B) Hey Ya!

Hey Ya! made the line a catchphrase, and Polaroid had to post a notice that modern prints dry behind a plastic window and need no shaking at all.

Q 02/05

In which Massachusetts city did Polaroid keep its headquarters for most of the twentieth century?

A) Worcester

B) Cambridge

C) Springfield

D) Lowell

Answer · why

B) Cambridge

Cambridge is where Land rented his first lab, a garage, in 1932, and the company that grew out of it kept its headquarters in the city into the 1990s.

Q 03/05

Which product was an early money-maker for Polaroid in the 1930s, long before it made cameras?

A) Flashbulbs

B) Binoculars

C) Sunglasses

D) Projectors

Answer · why

C) Sunglasses

Sunglasses with Land's glare-cutting lenses went on sale in the mid-1930s, and the money they brought in helped pay for the research that followed.

Q 04/05

Which university did Edwin Land drop out of to pursue his research on polarised light?

A) Yale

B) Princeton

C) MIT

D) Harvard

Answer · why

D) Harvard

Harvard lost him twice, the second time in 1932 without a degree, yet it later gave its dropout an honorary degree.

Q 05/05

Whose question during a holiday in Santa Fe gave Edwin Land the idea for instant photography?

A) Land's three-year-old daughter

B) Land's business partner

C) A camera-shop salesman

D) A newspaper photographer

Answer · why

A) Land's three-year-old daughter

Land's three-year-old daughter asked why she couldn't see the picture he had just taken of her, and he later said that within the hour he had worked o...