Q 01/05

Which scientist coined the word radioactivity and is the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences?

A) Linus Pauling

B) Marie Curie

C) Dorothy Hodgkin

D) Albert Einstein

Answer · why

B) Marie Curie

Marie Curie took the physics prize in 1903 and the chemistry prize in 1911. Her notebooks, and even her cookbooks, are still radioactive.

Q 02/05

Which glowing element did American factory women paint onto watch dials in the 1920s before suing over their poisoning?

A) Radium

B) Phosphorus

C) Uranium

D) Mercury

Answer · why

A) Radium

Radium was in the luminous paint, and the women were told to sharpen their brushes on their lips. Their lawsuits brought major improvements in industr...

Q 03/05

Which fruit gives its name to an informal unit of radiation dose because of the potassium it naturally contains?

A) Avocado

B) Coconut

C) Banana

D) Apricot

Answer · why

C) Banana

Banana equivalent dose compares an exposure to eating one banana, whose potassium-40 is very slightly radioactive. The body sheds surplus potassium, s...

Q 04/05

Which isotope, with a half-life of about 5,730 years, lets archaeologists date ancient wood, bone and cloth?

A) Uranium-238

B) Potassium-40

C) Rubidium-87

D) Carbon-14

Answer · why

D) Carbon-14

Carbon-14 is taken up by every living thing until it dies, and then the clock starts ticking. Willard Libby won the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for ...

Q 05/05

Which nuclear power plant's 1986 reactor explosion forced the permanent evacuation of the nearby city of Pripyat?

A) Chernobyl

B) Fukushima Daiichi

C) Three Mile Island

D) Windscale

Answer · why

A) Chernobyl

Chernobyl's reactor 4 exploded on 26 April 1986. Pripyat's 49,000 or so residents were bussed out the next day, and the city has stood empty ever sinc...