Q 01/05

A herd of which animals roams Fermilab, the Department of Energy's particle physics laboratory on the Illinois prairie?

A) Elk

B) Bison

C) Horses

D) Llamas

Answer · why

B) Bison

Bison arrived with the lab's first director, Robert Wilson, who brought a bull and four cows to the site. Some neighbors wrongly suspected the herd wa...

Q 02/05

Which Texas governor forgot the Department of Energy's name in a 2011 debate, then ran it six years later?

A) Rick Perry

B) George W. Bush

C) Greg Abbott

D) Ann Richards

Answer · why

A) Rick Perry

Rick Perry blanked on the third agency he wanted to scrap during a Republican primary debate. In 2017 he took charge of that very department under Don...

Q 03/05

A Brookhaven National Laboratory physicist built one of the first video games in 1958 to simulate which sport?

A) Bowling

B) Baseball

C) Tennis

D) Golf

Answer · why

C) Tennis

Tennis for Two was played on a small oscilloscope screen, and hundreds of visitors lined up for a turn. Brookhaven is now one of the Department of Ene...

Q 04/05

Sandia National Laboratories, an Energy Department weapons lab, shares its name with the Spanish word for which fruit?

A) Pomegranate

B) Pineapple

C) Grapefruit

D) Watermelon

Answer · why

D) Watermelon

Watermelon is "sandía" in Spanish, and the lab borrowed the name from the nearby Sandia Mountains, which are said to glow that color at sunset.

Q 05/05

Which folk singer was hired in 1941 to write songs promoting the Bonneville Power Administration's river dams?

A) Pete Seeger

B) Woody Guthrie

C) Burl Ives

D) Big Bill Broonzy

Answer · why

B) Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie wrote 26 songs in a single month on the job, among them "Roll On, Columbia". The agency he sang for now sits inside the Department of En...