Q 01/05

Which country, then carved up between three empires, gave polonium its name as the homeland of its co-discoverer?

A) Lithuania

B) Poland

C) Hungary

D) Bohemia

Answer · why

B) Poland

Poland had no state of its own in 1898, and the element's Warsaw-born discoverer hoped the name would draw attention to that. It may be the first elem...

Q 02/05

Which co-discoverer of polonium is the only person to have won Nobel Prizes in two different sciences?

A) Marie Curie

B) Ernest Rutherford

C) Henri Becquerel

D) Wilhelm Röntgen

Answer · why

A) Marie Curie

Marie Curie found polonium with her husband Pierre by chasing radiation far too strong for the uranium in their ore to explain. It was the first eleme...

Q 03/05

Which former Russian FSB officer died in 2006, three weeks after being poisoned with polonium-210 at a hotel bar?

A) Sergei Skripal

B) Boris Berezovsky

C) Alexander Litvinenko

D) Alexander Perepilichny

Answer · why

C) Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko was the first person confirmed to have been deliberately killed with polonium. A photograph of him in his hospital bed, his hair ...

Q 04/05

Polonium-210 is found in the smoke of which everyday product, whose makers privately studied the problem for 40 years?

A) Cigarettes

B) Incense sticks

C) Scented candles

D) Barbecue charcoal

Answer · why

A) Cigarettes

Cigarettes carry polonium because tobacco leaves gather it from the air and from phosphate fertilisers. Tobacco firms spent decades trying to remove i...

Q 05/05

A concentrated sample of polonium-210 energises the surrounding air so strongly that it glows which colour?

A) Green

B) Blue

C) Orange

D) Violet

Answer · why

B) Blue

Blue is the colour of the glow, which comes from the air around the sample rather than from the metal itself. The same radiation heats a single gram o...