Science Trivia Questions XIV

Position your cursor over the question mark found beside each question for the answer.


Created by Mitch Kapor, what killer app spreadsheet was named for the padmasana yoga position?

       a. Microsoft Excel
       b. Lotus 1-2-3
       c. VisiCalc
       d. Quattro Pro


When the University of Cambridge was closed due to plague, I retreated to Woolsthorpe, where I did some of my most important work on motion, optics and mathematics. Who am I?

       a. Isaac Newton
       b. Michael Faraday
       c. John Locke
       d. Thomas Hobbes


Proving you can't be a genius all the time, William Shockley shocked folks with shocking racist theories. But he and his crew at Bell Labs also developed what invention, which replaced vacuum tubes and changed the technological world?

       a. Transistor
       b. Fiber optics
       c. Particle accelerator
       d. Microwave ovens


As a boy, Joseph Meister was the first person I saved from rabies. And he in turn became caretaker of the institute named for me. Who am I?

       a. Jonas Salk
       b. Joseph Lister
       c. Louis Pasteur
       d. Bernard Christian


The ceremonial first American AMPS cellular call was made on October 13, 1983, at Soldier's Field in Chicago, when Bob Barnett, Ameritech Mobile's president, called what inventor's grandson in Berlin?

       a. Werner Von Braun
       b. Alexander Graham Bell
       c. Nikola Tesla
       d. Thomas Edison


Possibly because it does less damage when it hits its targets, what less lethal metal does the Lone Ranger have his bullets made from?

       a. Silver
       b. Lead
       c. Gold
       d. Tin


What constellation would you take by the horns if you wanted to see the Crab Nebula and such star clusters as the Hyades and the Pleiades?

       a. Sagittarius
       b. Taurus
       c. Capricorn
       d. Ursa Major


Element 106 was the first element that IUPAC named for somebody still alive, although only after adamant Americans rejected any other compromise. Who?

       a. Glenn Seaborg
       b. Stephen Hawking
       c. Carl Sagan
       d. Ernest Lawrence


While working with a magnetron at Raytheon, Percy Spencer noticed that its rays melted the candy bar in his pocket. What rays were these?

       a. X-rays
       b. Gamma rays
       c. Microwaves
       d. Manta rays


Irving Kahn invented the TelePrompTer for what body, which wanted it for presentations to Congress?

       a. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
       b. National Bar Association
       c. US Army
       d. NAACP


What is 16, raised to the power of one half?

       a. -8
       b. 4
       c. 8
       d. 2


Found in the constellation Bootes, what third brightest star in the night sky is mentioned twice in Job, at 9.9 and 38.32, where it is called Ash?

       a. Arcturus
       b. Sirius
       c. Rigel
       d. Vega


Roy Plunkett was working on refrigerating coolants for Du Pont when he came across polytetrafluoroethylene. Marc Gregoire went fishing in France, and found that it helped keep his tackle from tangling. What is it?

       a. Lycra
       b. Velcro
       c. Teflon
       d. WD40


Brooklyn chemist Robert Chesebrough lived to be 96, crediting his longevity to daily ingestion of which product, which he invented in 1879?

       a. Rubber
       b. Corn flakes
       c. Vaseline
       d. Ice cream


In a famous ecology bet in 1980, economist Julian Simon bet biologist Paul Ehrlich that the price of a portfolio of $200 of each of five mineral commodities would fall over the next 10 years. He even let Ehrlich pick the metals - copper, chrome, nickel, tin, and tungsten. The loser would pay the difference in the 1990 price. What happened?

       a. Ehrlich paid Simon $576.07
       b. Simon paid Ehrlich $576.07
       c. Ehrlich paid Simon $57.60
       d. Simon paid Ehrlich $57.60




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