The Green Vase Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bells of Ireland

Moluccella Laevis, commonly known as Bells of Ireland, has lovely green bell-shaped flowers seated on a long stem. Ireland, nicknamed "The Emerald Isle", is strongly associated with the colour green which accounts for the common name of this plant. However, it is native to the Caucasus.

Whilst "Turkish Dollar" and "Grass of Syria" are fake options, the Caucasian Meadow Viper actually exists (a snake of course, and not green at that).

Answer: islam

Mosques can be painted or heavily lit with green, or simply signaled by green light on their minarets. Green is the traditional colour of Islam. For example, take a look at the flags of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Bangladesh.

Answer: High concentration of argon

Argon is a colourless noble gas and as such cannot serve as a colouring agent. Glass can also be naturally green due to the presence of iron oxide impurities. Artificially green glass is produced with combinations of chromium, iron oxides, tin oxide, arsenic and even uranium.

Answer: Absinthe

Absinthe acquires its colour from naturally green ingredients such as anise, fennel and wormwood. It is widely believed that its bad reputation began when fast-to-market manufacturers started using toxic copper salts as replacements in the late 19th century.

The wrong options are words for green in Welsh ("gwyrdd"), Arabic ("akhdar") and Hindi ("hara").

Answer: A waiting room for performers

Among several other theories debated on the origin of the name, it is said that in olden times the lounge where performers spent their idle time before, during or after their part in the show was actually painted green. Green is also thought to have a calming psychological effect on humans.

Answer: Envy

The colour green has long been associated with negative emotions. In biblical Hebrew "a face gone green" is the face of a sinner or of an envious person (denoting the lack of red hue as a result of blood drain). In English, the accent was put on envy which came to be known as "the green sickness" (as mentioned in "Anthony and Cleopatra" 3:2) and "the green-eyed monster" (also mentioned in Shakespeare's "Othello" 3:3).

Answer: 495-570 nm

Even if you are not a physicist, you are probably aware of the terms ultraviolet and infrared which imply that violet and red belong to the edges of the visible spectrum. Ultraviolet light has shorter wavelengths, and as such carries more energy, which is a very good reason to protect yourself from it when your skin is exposed to direct sunlight.

Answer: Mr. Spock ("Star Trek")

Mr. Spock, made famous by the late Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015), is half-human half-vulcan. Vulcans have copper-based blood which accounts for the greenish colour. We know that Spock has inherited his Vulcan father's blood, because he had to give him a transfusion in one of the episodes.

Answer: utopia

Trichromacy, or normal colour vision, requires three cone types in the retina.
Three major categories of colour-blindness are anomalous trichromacy, dichromacy and monochromacy. Most colour-blind people suffer from dichromacy, a lack of one certain cone type. Protanopia, deuteranopia and tritanopia are dichromacy categories signifying an inability to process red, green and blue light respectively.

Answer: agartal yarok

In Hebrew, the noun precedes the adjective. Another thing is that the adjective is gender sensitive, e.g. "yarok" is for a green male object, while "yeruka" is for a green female object. Hebrew also uses the word "vaza" for vase, which is female. So you would either say "vaza yeruka" or "agartal yarok" to describe our green vase.