Forensics For Instance Trivia Quiz

Answer: Latin

Forensis, in Latin, means 'from the forum'. In ancient Rome, a criminal charge was presented to a group of individuals in the forum. The accuser and the accused each gave speeches, and the better arguer was generally determined the winner. He said/she said, but who said it best? Many guilty, but eloquent, people went free, while the innocent tongue-tied or shy speaker might easily be convicted.

But we live in a much more complex world, one that is both smaller (via instant communication) and larger (we number in the billions), so concrete evidence is necessary.

In criminal courts, the standard is belief 'beyond a reasonable doubt', while in civil cases it is 'preponderance of the evidence'.

Answer: Related to law

The modern interpretation has come to mean related to court{s} or law. As forensics is based on science, and has successfully revealed the facts in many cases, it has come to be regarded by many as positive proof. It is not, however, infallible, just as those who practice it are not.

The simple accepted method of identification by fingerprints has been called into question. The original theory was that there are no two identical fingerprints (or footprints or other markings), but there is no absolute proof of this. Just as with no two identical snowflakes, how high a number determines the breakdown of this concept? How many infinite number of snowflakes have fallen on our planet, and how can we be sure there are no two alike? We just haven't found them.

Answer: Arthur Conan Doyle

Doyle had Holmes study tobacco ash, fingerprints and other clues that would be considered forensic evidence many years later, and are still in use. Holmes' forte was his vast knowledge of many subjects and his powers of observation. His logical statement, 'when you have eliminated the impossible, what is left is the answer' does not hold water any longer. Things happen and crimes are committed now for illogical reasons that were not considered applicable in his time. Serial killers, said to be 'out there' in the hundreds at any given time, are profiled and may even be known, but many are never caught.

Answer: Astrology

Although forensics may have some indirect relation to psychology (study of the mind and behavior), the other sciences benefit directly from forensics. Carbon dating, for example, is regarded as accurate, as the half-life of the element has been proved.

Answer: Watson and Crick

The elegant structure of the double helix made an exceptional identification tool with positive conclusions possible as well as the tracing of ancestry and lineages. Now humans can compare their DNA to the species they believed to be closest to themselves, and we learn that what we considered simple organisms have very complex DNA structure.

The double helix structure was discovered by Watson and Crick, while DNA itself was first discovered by Miescher in the nineteenth century.

Answer: With his 'displacement theory'

He had to figure it out without damaging the crown: he suspended a block of gold the same mass as the crown was allegedly made of, from one side of a hanger, and suspended the crown from the other side at exactly the same distance from middle to end. They appeared to be equal in the air, but when dipped in water the gold block displaced more water than the crown, proving that the crown was not made from the pure gold provided by the king.

The fate of the goldsmith is not known, but can be surmised by using the little grey cells.

Answer: Flies

The investigator had compared the fatal wounds to the results of using various implements on a dead animal, to determine that a sickle had been used in the crime. He had all the men who worked with sickles brought together and had them lay their tools down. Little by little, flies were attracted to one particular sickle.

The murderer realised they had smelled blood and confessed to the crime. The book was written by Song Ci (1186 - 1249) and was named "Washing Away of Wrongs". In the same book he tells of ways to determine whether a person had drowned or been strangled and other helpful info. There were many ancient methods used to determine guilt or innocence, based on the ideas and values of the times, but you wouldn't want to risk your life on most of them.

It's difficult to prove a negative, like how can we be sure you're not a witch?

Answer: Arsenic

Scheele, the Swede, could detect arsenic in large doses in a cadaver, and Ross, the German, found it in smaller doses in the lining of the stomach. By 1836 James Marsh, an English chemist, confirmed that it was the poison used for murder in a trial. Later trials convicted other killers by the use of ballistics and fabric evidence supporting it. By 1909, Archibald Reiss founded the 'Institut de police scientifique' in Lausanne, Switzerland, the first of its kind in the world.

It still offers a complete comprehensive course in forensic sciences.

Answer: JFK assassination

The bullet-lead analysis used in the 1960s by the FBI and others proved to be inconclusive and was discarded; the test was no longer used after 2005.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were gunned down in plain sight by police in 1934.

Al Capone died of syphilis. The killer of Archduke Ferdinand and his pregnant wife, Sofia, was caught at the event in 1914. Gavrilo Princip was the head of the assassins, and after a failed attempt by another of the gang with a bomb, he managed to shoot the pair in their car, where they died.

Answer: Paint, fiber, glass, hair

There are many subcategories and each has its own specialists. Forensic specialties include computational forensics, digital forensics (recovering evidence from digital and electronic media), forensic accounting, anthropology, aerial photography, geophysics, entomology, chemistry, psychology and psychiatry, odontology, optometry and a slew of others. Blood spatter analysis is another fairly new field, and the more we know the more there is to find out. Even DNA, which was the 'golden boy' of the science, has come under scrutiny, as it has been found to be fabricated in some cases.