Capital Nations, Elementally Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gold

As the politicians couldn't decide between Melbourne and Sydney, Canberra was chosen as a compromise for the capital city of Australia (country abbreviation: AU). After a design competition, construction started in 1913.

Gold got its chemical symbol Au from the Latin word for gold, namely aurum.

Answer: Silver

The Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda (country code: AG) were colonised in 1632. St. John's has been the focal point of the islands since at least then. The islands are in the middle of the Leeward Islands and were discovered (and named) by Christopher Columbus.

Silver (Ag) takes its name from the Latin word argentum. Silver is the metal with the highest conductivity.

Answer: Sodium

Windhoek, Namibia (country code: NA) was established in 1840 and then again in 1890 after the city had disappeared in the meantime as a result of wars. It is not clear where the city's name comes from. The traditional names refer to the hot springs in the area.

Sodium (Na) is not found by itself in nature. Common table salt is how most people encounter it. The Latin name natrium is the source of the chemical symbol. Natrium comes from an Egyptian word for a mineral including hydrated sodium carbonate. Sodium carbonate was recognised in mediaeval times as a headache remedy and had the Latin name sodanum. This word in turn comes from the Arabic word suda (meaning headache) which is the source of the word sodium.

Answer: Lawrencium

Monrovia, Liberia (LR) was named after the US president. The city itself was established in 1822 (initially called Christopolis) as part of the efforts by the American Colanization Society's to rehome freed slaves from America and the Caribbean. James Munroe was a supporter of the Society and its aims.

Lawrencium (Lr) is a synthetic element which takes its name from Ernest Lawrence, the inventor of an early particle accelerator known as the cyclotron and for which he received a Nobel prize. Particle accelerators have been used in the creation of a number of synthetic elements such as lawrencium.

Answer: Tin

End point for the Dakar Rally until it was moved to South America in 2009 as a result of security concerns, Dakar is the capital of Senegal (SN). The name was given to it by French colonists, although the source of the name is unclear. One possibility is that it comes from the Wolof word for the tamarind tree which is plentiful there.

Tin (symbol Sn, coming from the Latin word for the metal 'stannum') was initially used in alloys such as bronze and pewter. It used to be used extensively in coating steel cans for food preservation, hence the term 'tin can'.

Answer: Meitnerium

The French nobleman Jean Valetta was the Grand Master in charge of the Order of St John who were successful in repelling the Ottomans during the Great Siege of Malta (abbreviation: MT) in 1565. His name was given to the city built after the siege.

Meitnerium (Mt) is another radioactive synthetic element. The element was named after the Austrian physicist Lise Meitner who, along with Otto Hann, discovered the nuclear fission process in the late 1930s. He got the Nobel prize and she got a chemical element named after her posthumously.

Answer: Germanium

Founded in the 5th century, it has been capital of Georgia (GE) in its various forms on and off since then. The name refers to the hot springs in the area.

Germanium (Ge) was named after the country by its discoverer Clemens Winkles. Its existence was predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev when he put together his periodic table of elements and was originally given the name ekasilicon. Mendeleev used the Sanskrit words for 1,2 and 3 (eka, dvi and tri) as prefixes for undiscovered elements in his table. Which prefix he used depended on how many places away the element was from a known element in the same group.

Answer: Gallium

The name of Gabon's (GA) capital Libreville was chosen because a group of slaves rescued from a slave ship by the French were resettled there. The name is the French translation of Freetown, which was given to a similar settlement founded in Sierra Leone some fifty years earlier.

Gallium (symbol Ga) was another element predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev (which he named eka-aluminium). Lecoq, the French chemist who found it, used the Latin name for Gaul (Gallia) as his name for the element. Gaul was the Iron Age name for the region which included modern-day France. Gallium is mostly used in the electronics industry.

Answer: Astatine

Opinions differ on the origin of the name of Austria's (AT) capital Vienna (and the German equivalent Wien). Its recorded history as a settlement dates to Roman times when it had the name Vindobona but it probably has an earlier Celtic history.

Rarest naturally-occurring element, radioactive astatine (At) has a half-life of 8.5 hours. First given the name of eka-iodine, astatine comes from the Greek for 'unstable'. As there is less than one gram of naturally-occurring astatine present in the Earth's crust at any one time, it is perhaps not surprising that the medically-useful astatine-211 is synthesised.

Answer: Americium

Yerevan in Armenia (AM) has been continuously inhabited since the 8th century BC, with evidence of settlements back to the 4th millennium BC. The name probably derives from the citadel of Erubuni built by Argishti I in 782 BC.

Another synthetic element, americium (Am) is named after the Americas. The discovery was made in 1944 as part of the Manhattan Project, the programme resulting in the atomic bombs used to help end the Second World War.