Science Trivia Questions XV

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


What is the value of 5! (ie, 5 factorial)?

       a. 15
       b. 3125
       c. 120
       d. 0


A heavy-duty style of number crunching called sabermetrics gets its name from SABR, founded by a warehouse security guard named Bill James. What is the SABR?

       a. South Atlanta Brotherhood of Railroaders
       b. Statistical Analysis of Backward Records
       c. Society for American Baseball Research
       d. Stars-and-Bars Resurgent


The periodic table is based on the atomic number of the elements. But what is the atomic number based on?

       a. Electrons
       b. Neutrons
       c. Protons
       d. Bygones


A staple of science fiction, what theoretical particle can theoretically go faster than light?

       a. Quark
       b. Tachyon
       c. Baryon
       d. Photon


In the 1986 book "Engines of Creation," Eric Drexler described what then-futuristic technology?

       a. Cloning
       b. Nanotechnology
       c. Fiber optics
       d. Robotics


Although popularized by Leonard Euler, what symbol was first used in 1706 by William Jones, who picked it because it was the first letter in the Greek word for perimeter?

       a. Rho
       b. Chi
       c. Pi
       d. Iota


What pioneer of computing also backed SpaceShipOne, the private spacecraft that won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004?

       a. Paul Allen
       b. Steve Jobs
       c. Steve Wozniak
       d. Steve Ballmer


There's 3D and Einstein added time. The Fifth Dimension took us "Up, Up and Away". But how many dimensions are required by superstring theory?

       a. Ten
       b. An infinite number
       c. Six
       d. None


What unit of electrical charge is named for a French pioneer in electrical theory who was once a military engineer in the West Indies?

       a. Ampere
       b. Coulomb
       c. Joule
       d. Ohm


What element did its discoverer, Paul Lecoq de Boisbaudran, name for both his native country and as a pun on the Latin translation of his name?

       a. Gallium
       b. Francium
       c. Polonium
       d. Americium


In math, what word describes the average of a group of numbers?

       a. Mean
       b. Median
       c. Mode
       d. Middle


Sometimes, you find a beautiful bit of glass called a fulgurite. What created it?

       a. Pressures of the earth
       b. Constant flow of saltwater
       c. A bolt of lightning
       d. Volcanic reactions


Eratosthenes of Cyrene is said to be the first to estimate accurately the diameter of the earth. What does the Sieve of Eratosthenes do?

       a. Finds prime numbers
       b. Calculates pi
       c. Helps divide large numbers
       d. Estimates square roots


What Apple computer, the first commercial PC with a mouse, was purportedly named for Steve Jobs' illegitimate daughter?

       a. Lisa
       b. Jennifer
       c. Michelle
       d. Kathleen


Where did the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft land on February 12, 2001?

       a. The asteroid 433 Eros
       b. The comet Borrelly
       c. The International Space Station
       d. Pluto




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