A Brief History of Science Trivia Quiz

Answer: Peas

Between 1856 and 1863 Gregor Mendel experimented with peas, studying such traits as seed and pod shape, flower colour and plant height. He used more than 29,000 plants in his observations, and realised that some traits were dominant, others recessive. From this he was able to formulate what became known as Mendel's Laws of Inheritance.


Question by invinoveritas.

Answer: John Dalton

The theory that all matter was made up of individual atoms was first proposed in 1803 by John Dalton. He also wrote influential papers on the properties of steam and gasses in vacuums and in air, the pressure of steam, and the law of multiple proportions. Today though he is best remembered for the discovery of colour blindness, which still bears his name -- Daltonism.


Question by christinap.

Answer: Mastodon

Cuvier's work on paleontology and comparative anatomy was significant in propagating the acceptance of extinction; it was widely believed at this time that no species had ever become extinct! Cuvier's work led him to conclude that in fact most of the fossils he examined were of extinct species, rather than the views of others, such as that mammoth fossils found in Europe represented elephants that had since migrated to Africa and Asia seeking warmer climate.

He named the mastodon ("nipple tooth") based on the cone-shaped cusps of its teeth, which are similarly shaped to nipples. Mastodons are part of the genus Mammut, and inhabited North and Central America during the Pleistocene epoch (2.5 million - 12,000 years ago). Like mammoths, mastodons had thick fur coats for protection against the cold; however, unlike mammoths, mastodons were solitary creatures who browsed for food on shrubs and trees rather than grazing on grass. Mastodons went extinct during the Ice Age, and the exact cause is unknown; it is thought to have been a combination of climate change and hunting by humans, and there is also evidence in the bone records of tuberculosis, perhaps brought to the New World by human settlers.

Question by reeshy.

Answer: Continental Drift

Wegener observed that the outlines of the Earth's land masses would fit together rather like a jigsaw, and formulated the theory that there must once have been a giant supercontinent which had split apart millions of years ago. This supercontinent became called 'Pangaea', a named coined in 1927 during a symposium on Wegener's work. His theory of Continental Drift was not generally accepted until the 1960s, when it was re-named Plate Tectonics. Wegener died in 1930 and thus did not live to see his ideas fully accepted.

Question by invinoveritas.

Answer: Penicillium notatum

The use of molds to treat infections was known to the peoples of the ancient world, but they had no idea why or how the treatment worked. During the late 1800s scientists were studying the Germ Theory of Disease, notably Joseph Lister who discovered that if you contaminated urine with mold, bacteria would not develop. In the 1890s two German scientists, Emmerich and Low, made the first effective medicine using microbes, which they called Pyocyanase, but it was inconsistent in action and did not always work.

In 1928 Alexander Fleming discovered by accident, after leaving an uncovered petri dish on a workbench while he went on holiday, that Staphylococcus aureus was destroyed by contamination with Penicillium notatum. This was the beginning of the development of antibiotics as we know them today.

Sadly, because antibiotics have been misused for many years, the effectiveness of some of the best is now severely compromised. Mankind must hope for another breakthrough of similar magnitude to defeat the 'superbugs' we have created.

Question by invinoveritas.

Answer: India

The Egyptians had several uses for the concept of nothing, with the notion seen in accounting texts more than 3500 years ago. They also had a symbol, called 'nfr' (not sure how you pronounce that one!) which was used to denoted the base level in plans of buildings such as pyramids.

However, Indian mathematicians in the 9th Century were already doing all kinds of arithmetic with zero, treating it as you would any other number. The 7th-century book "Brahmasputha Siddhanta" was the first known to lay out some of the rules we still use today when considering zero, for example "the sum of zero and zero is zero".

Question by pagea.

Answer: Vesalius

Andreas Vesalius, born Andries van Wezel in 1514, was unlike many of his contemporary anatomists, who were still strongly under the influence of Galen and propagated his errors. Many of Galen's observations had been made on animals and erroneously transferred to humans, so Vesalius encouraged the simultaneous dissection of a human cadaver and an animal cadaver in order to note the differences and avoid Galenic errors. It was very significant that Vesalius was bold enough to challenge the authority of Galen; the Catholic Church outlawed dissections, and so people continued to believe that the human body was very much like the ape's until Vesalius proved otherwise. His most famous publication is "De Corporis Fabrica", which contained many detailed illustrations and was dedicated to Charles V, to whom Vesalius was Imperial physician. He was also a professor at the University of Padua, where he taught his findings, and produced a dissection manual for them.

Question by Reeshy.

Answer: Radio

Up until that point, the standard telescope was purely for the visible spectrum, and used a system of mirrors to focus the light in the desired position. Radio telescopes typically consist of a large concave dish, similar to a shallow bowl, as opposed to the typical lens of an optical telescope. Radio astronomy is often improved by large collections of radio telescopes such as the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) in New Mexico which consists of ten 25-m telescopes. Infrared telescopes were developed in the 1960s and are also a key part of modern astronomy.

Question by pagea.

Answer: Anaximander

Anaximander is considered by some to be the first true scientist, who was the first to record his experiments. He is regarded as the founder of astronomy, and contributed to many fields, such as geometry, physics, and geography. Although naturally Anaximander's concept of evolution was wrong, it was surprisingly insightful for its time, when most believed in what was effectively intelligent design. He wrote of the first animals living in water, and that the ancestors of man must have lived first in water, spending some of their time on dry land and adapting to this new environment. He suggested that the first human must have been born to another type of animal, because a human cannot survive without prolonged nursing from a parent. Some of his stranger ideas include that men were born inside fishlike animals who had emerged onto land, and that humans stayed within the mouth of the fish until they had adapted to the climate of land.

Question by reeshy.

Answer: Voyager 1

Launched in 1977, it took Voyager 1 until August 2012 to cover the distance necessary to leave our solar system. NASA announced this in September 2013.

Although this was hailed as a milestone in space exploration, scientists have pointed out that if you include distant comets that orbit the sun as being part of our solar system, which under a strict definition some do, then it would take another 30,000 years for Voyager 1 to completely leave our system. NASA, however, do not include these distant objects in their definition of our solar system; their measurement relies on where the solar wind is so diffuse that it's undetectable. Although it travels at 38,000 miles per hour it will be another 40,000 years before Voyager 1 flies anywhere near another star.