Q 01/05

Mr. Yuk, a green grimacing face, was put on US poison labels because children linked the skull and crossbones to what?

A) Pirates

B) Halloween

C) Cartoons

D) Sailors

Answer · why

A) Pirates

Pirates had made the skull and crossbones look like fun, so the Pittsburgh poison centre tried faces on young children and picked the one they liked l...

Q 02/05

The three chasing arrows of the recycling symbol, drawn by 23-year-old student Gary Anderson, trace what shape?

A) A Klein bottle

B) A Möbius strip

C) A trefoil knot

D) A figure eight

Answer · why

B) A Möbius strip

A Möbius strip is what the arrows fold into; the Container Corporation of America, whose 1970 contest Anderson won, never held a trademark on it, so a...

Q 03/05

Often said to mean 'save our souls', what was SOS really when it became the distress call in 1906?

A) A distinctive Morse sequence

B) A German ship's initials

C) A telegraph firm's callsign

D) A Latin phrase's initials

Answer · why

A) A distinctive Morse sequence

A distinctive Morse sequence, three dots, three dashes, three dots, was picked because it is easy to send and hard to mistake; the 'save our souls' re...

Q 04/05

The European Commission says the two parallel lines through the euro sign stand for what quality?

A) Unity

B) Prosperity

C) Security

D) Stability

Answer · why

D) Stability

Stability is the official reading of the double bar, while the curve around it is a Greek epsilon, chosen to echo the first letter of the word Europe.

Q 05/05

Which Swedish naturalist first used the Mars and Venus symbols to mark male and female flowers, in the 1750s?

A) Carl Linnaeus

B) Anders Celsius

C) Jöns Jacob Berzelius

D) Olof Rudbeck

Answer · why

A) Carl Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus, sorting flowers by their stamens and pistils, was first to press the astronomers' planet signs into service for the sexes, and biology ...