Miscellaneous Science Trivia

31. "De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure" was published in the year 1600 and was the first foray into the world of electricity. What English scientist wrote it?

From Quiz Back to Square One

Answer: William Gilbert

Prior to Gilbert's forays into the science of electricity, the only real understanding of anything similar was the magnetic properties of lodestone, and that when rubbed together, amber and jet would attract small articles (what we now know as static electricity). It was from the Greek word for amber that Gilbert coined the term 'electricus' to describe the effects he observed in his experiments. "De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure" ("On the Magnet and Magnetic Bodies, and on That Great Magnet the Earth") also described for the first time the concept of the Earth's magnetic field, and an explanation of why a compass needle points north. Prior to that, it was believed that the North Star was what attracted the needle.

From Quiz Summing Up Science With Headlines

Answer: Asteroid Killed Dinosaurs

Of the various theories for how the reign of the dinosaurs came to an end, the asteroid theory seems to be supported by the greatest amount of evidence. One major finding (and that which is referred to in the question) was that a thin layer of clay lying between the cretaceous and the tertiary rock strata contained abnormally high levels of iridium. This became known as the K-T boundary, owing to the single letter designations for these two geological periods (cretaceous is designated K rather than C since C designates the carboniferous period). Whilst iridium levels on Earth are very low, they are much higher in asteroids, and it was thought that the vaporised rock formed upon impact had settled to become the K-T boundary, as described by Luis Alverez and his son Walter. Furthermore, an impact site consistent with the size and age of such an asteroid had also been identified - Chicxulub crater in Mexico.

From Quiz That's Not a Letter

Answer: acceleration

The acceleration of an object is the rate of change of an object's velocity. In turn, an object's velocity is the rate of change of its position. Therefore, acceleration can be thought of as the rate of change of an object's rate of change. In calculus and physics, acceleration is defined as the second derivative of an object's position function: a(t) = d^2/dt^2 [s(t)]. The value of an object's acceleration can be positive or negative, and it is a pet peeve of many physicists when negative acceleration is described as "deceleration." A can also refer to the a side of a triangle, a measurement of a conic curve, the area of a shape, or the apothem of a regular polygon.

From Quiz A Trip to a Science Fair

Answer: Spectrum

The rainbow, or colour band is called spectrum. When white light is incident on (falls on) the first surface of a prism and enters in glass, light of different colours due to different speeds (wavelengths vary) in glass, is refracted (deviated) at different angles. This deviation gets added up due to refraction at both surfaces of the prism and the colours get separated. Hence, the emergent light beam has all the colours of white light arranged in a definite order, and when that light is received on a screen, a spectrum is formed. This phenomenon is called dispersion.

From Quiz Marine Navigation

Answer: American Practical Navigator

Bowditch taught himself calculus at the age of 14. His seagoing career ended by his 30th year, and he devoted himself thereafter to study, teaching and insurance actuarial work.

From Quiz Big, Bigger, Biggest

Answer: Gravity

The whole purpose of building up in a confined area of land is to maximise the space available. Unfortunately, the higher up you go the larger your support structure needs to be at the base. As an example, stand a brick on its end and it is quite stable. Now the more bricks you place on top of the first, the less stable your structure becomes. To rectify this you need to add support bricks at the base and the higher you go the wider the base will need to be. During the early 1800s bricks and mortar were the basis for construction, which limited the number of storeys that could be added. Eventually they would reach a point where the space gained by going upwards would be matched or, worse, less than the space lost in the base being used for support.

From Quiz Paints and Coatings

Answer: both protection and decoration

Paints and coatings account for $80 billion in sales worldwide in 2010. They are applied for corrosion protection and for beautification.

From Quiz Interesting Research Findings In 2010

Answer: Touch food with contaminated utensils.

Using video cameras placed in commercial kitchens, researchers from North Carolina State University, the University of Guelph and Kansas State University found that workers are averaging one cross-contamination violation every hour. Cross contamination happens when pathogens are transferred from contaminated food to uncontaminated food. For example, if someone used a knife to cut up some fish and then used the same knife to cut a sandwich. If a kitchen has four workers, and they are each working eight-hour shifts, that means an average of 32 cross-contamination violations are taking place every day. Yuck. The study was published in the June 2010 issue of the Journal of Food Protection.

From Quiz The Beauty of Science

Answer: refraction

Rainbows occur when sunlight enters water droplets (usually rain) and is refracted, or bent. Each wavelength is bent at a slightly different angle making the colors appear separately and creating a rainbow.

From Quiz The Stalker is Always There...

Answer: Opaque

An opaque object, like a human body, blocks the light. The shadow then comprises the silhouette of the obstructing object not exposed to the direct light.

From Quiz Powering the World - Petroleum Refining 101

Answer: Crude distillation unit

Crude distillation is usually the first step in the refining of crude oil, and is designed to separate the various boiling point "cuts" in crude oil.

From Quiz Science Analogies

Answer: blood pressure

Thermometer and sphygmomanometer are used to measure specific vital signs (temperature, pulse rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure of a person). The types of sphygmomanometer are manual, digital with manual or automatic inflation, and digital portable finger blood pressure monitor with automatic inflation.

From Quiz Science All Around You

Answer: Cell phones use shorter wavelengths than radio

Cell phones use wavelengths measured in inches, compared to several feet for radio. Long wavelengths can bend around obstacles like hills, whereas short wavelengths require a line-of-sight between your cell phone and the tower.

From Quiz Bizarre Experiments!

Answer: Shot a dart containing 297 milligrams of LSD into an elephant to see if it would trigger 'musth', a state where a bull elephant becomes aggressive

Tusco, the elephant died within minutes and the researchers efforts to revive him failed. The experiment caused outrage but the researchers protested that they had all taken L.S.D without any ill effects. However, poor Tusco was injected with enough to make 3000 humans hallucinate. Defending the experiment, while trying to find a useful contribution to science, Thomas claimed that it demonstrated that elephants are highly sensitive to the drug and it could be used in countries were elephants are a problem. No takers yet!

From Quiz Greek Letters in Science and Mathematics

Answer: Pi

When rounded to two decimal places, pi = 3.14, but can also be approximated as 22/7. The lower case of the letter is generally used to indicate the presence of the constant pi. Pi is also important in finding the volumes of spheres and cylinders.

From Quiz Scintillating Science!

Answer: Both blue and red

The pigments present in the leaves absorb mostly in the blue and red region of the visible spectrum. They are not capable of absorbing the green region of the spectrum. In other words, the green light is reflected by the plants and that's the reason why most of the flowering plants appear green.

From Quiz D in Science

Answer: Otto Diels

Otto Diels, a professor of chemistry at the University of Kiel in Germany and his student Kurt Alder shared the prize for their discoveries concerning the structure of organic matter. Their discovery is called the diene synthesis, and is also known as the Diels-Alder Reaction.

From Quiz General Science Inc.

Answer: Hydrogen

Oxygen: Greek for acid-former. Nitrogen: Niter (Greek) for saltpeter, combined with gen (Greek), meaning producing. Helium: Helios, the Greek name for the sun.

From Quiz General Science Vocabulary

Answer: agar

Believe it or not, this word comes to us from the Malay language for jelly. Also, agar is NOT gelatin as is commonly thought! Gelatin is made up of peptides (proteins) and bacteria love to eat it. Agar is virtually indigestible to bacteria and that is what causes them to create colonies.

From Quiz Blinding You With Science

Answer: New blood vessels formed in the eye leak blood.

Blood leaks from the immature newly formed blood vessels into and eventually under the retina, distorting vision. This condition is actually about 15% of all AMD (the other being dry AMD) and is more common in patients 60 years and older.

From Quiz A Science Mixture

Answer: Newton

A very common misconception among people is that 'weight' and 'mass' are one and the same thing. This is, however, not true! When we ask somebody what their "weight" is, we usually expect an answer in either pounds or kilograms. What we mean, however, is to ask what their *mass* is, not their weight, without knowing it! By convention, however, we now accept weight and mass to be "the same" quantities. 'Kilogram' is the SI unit of mass, and so it's not that my "weight" is 50 kilograms, but that my *mass* is 50 kilograms. HOWEVER -- there is a big difference between the two, While mass is defined as "the amount of matter contained in a body", weight is "the product of the mass of the body and the acceleration do to gravity", and is actually a type of force! The acceleration due to gravity varies, depending on where in the universe you happen to be, but on earth it is equal to approximately 10 m/s^2. And so on the earth, a body of mass 50 kilograms would "weigh": 50 kg * 10 m/s^2 = 500 And the unit of weight is 'newtons' and so a body of 50 kg "weighs" 500 newtons! While we all would have the same mass wherever in the universe we are, our weight would change, depending on our location. While my mass will remain 50 kg, wherever in the universe I am in (that is, unless I overdo the junk-food!), but my weight, in newtons would vary. I would, for example, weigh 1/6th of my weight (not mass) on earth, if on the moon.

From Quiz The Incredible Shrinking Science Quiz

Answer: Gibbon

Gibbons weigh about fifteen or twenty pounds. The closely related siamang, sometimes considered a type of gibbon, can reach a weight of twenty-five pounds. The bonobo, sometimes known as the pygmy chimpanzee, weighs about eighty pounds. Chimpanzees can weigh more than one hundred pounds. Orangutans can weigh more than two hundred pounds.

From Quiz Basic Mixed Science

Answer: Archimedes

Archimedes once said, "Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I can move the Earth." He also was famous for shouting "Eureka" when finding the relationship between water displacement and density: Archimedes Principle.

From Quiz The Scientific Spirit

Answer: Thomas Morgan

From Quiz Science Variety Questions

Answer: Ptyalin

Ptyalin, or salivary amylase, begins the digestion process of starches.

From Quiz Science for 11th Graders

Answer: asexual & asexual reproduction

Asexual reproduction typically involves cell division by mitosis. Many plants use asexual reproduction as it is easier than finding a mate, for example strawberry plants and potatoes. Typical examples of asexual reproduction allow less opportunity for variation -- so if there was a change in the environment of the plant, it would not be able to adapt. (Some variation is possible for, say, plants that pollinate themselves -- although you still don't get as much variation as you would if there were two separate plants involved.)

From Quiz Mixed Bag O' Science

Answer: Prehensile tail

Not all New World monkeys are able to use their tail as a '5th arm' but if a monkey does have one, it's from South America. They actually have more teeth then their African cousins (extra molars), and all primates have stereoscopic vision (3D).

From Quiz Science Type Questions

Answer: Rainfall

From Quiz Various Aspects of Science

Answer: 1

Reptiles have three chambered hearts, while humans have four.

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Last Updated Dec 21 2024 5:44 AM

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