Inventing Questions Trivia Quiz

Answer: Chef

Nicolas Appert was a chef that came up with the idea for canning foods. He sterilized champagne bottles first and then put the food into them before sealing the jars in a hot water bath. By 1890, the United States became the world's leading producer and consumer of canned goods.

Answer: Tin Lizzie

When the Model T first came out of production on October 1, 1908, the vehicle cost $850. By 1922, over one million Model T's had been sold. When the Model T became obsolete there had been a record 15,007,033 sold. Henry Ford let buyers choose their own paint for the vehicle as long as it was black.

Answer: Howard Aiken

Around 800 BC, the Chinese people created the first counting device they called the Abacus. In 1937, Howard Aiken constructed the electronic calculator known as the IBM Mk7. The first real computer was built in 1943 with the help of Alan Turing. Turing's computer was built to help in wartime needs.

Answer: Flyer

Orville Wright kept "Flyer" in the air for 118 feet and 12 seconds. "Flyer" had a gas engine. Orville was known as the practical brother while Wilbur was known as the brainy brother. Moments after "Flyer" landed, a gust of wind wrecked the flying machine.

Answer: Roll of film

Arab astronomers were the first people to create an unusual camera. They tore a hole in the roof of their tent so they could witness the eclipses. This was known as a camera obscura. Before Eastman invented rolls of film, glass plates were used to obtain a picture.

The first rolls of film were made of paper, but after a lot of tweaking, Eastman created rolls of film that were made of a specially coated plastic in 1889. These new rolls of film made headway for the motion picture era.

Answer: Cathode ray tube

The first cathode ray television came out in 1932. This new television had a clearer picture than Baird's television. When Vladimir Zworkin's cathode ray television came out, the British Broadcasting Company purchased it and soon Baird's biscuit tin television became obsolete.

Answer: Illinois

Alexander Bell's long distance call was an average of 1,000 miles away from New York to Chicago, Illinois. He wasn't even thirty years old when he invented the telephone and by his seventies he was sick and tired of the phone. In 1877, a year after Bell's telephone was invented there were 2,600 telephones in the United States.

Answer: Carbolic acid

Joseph Lister was the professor of surgery at Glasgow University in Scotland when he started using carbolic acid in his operations. He got the idea from Crace Calvert who was using the acid to keep dead bodies from rotting. Lister also came up with an idea to pump diluted carbolic acid in water to use in operating rooms as an air purifier.

Answer: The Sunspot Letters

"The Sunspot Letters" were newsletters about the planets revolving around the sun and other scientific discoveries. Immediately upon publishing the newsletter, it was banned. When he wrote the newsletter in Italian, he was tried and convicted of heresy.

While studying medicine, Galileo was on his way to a lecture when he accidentally walked into the wrong lecture room. After listening to the lecture on science, Galileo decided he no longer wanted to study medicine and began to study science.

Answer: Polonium

Both elements were found in pitchblend ore. One thousand pounds of pitchblend ore was processed in order to get .0035 ounces of pure radium. Marie Curie died of radiation sickness as a result of being exposed for thirty years. Her work led her to two Nobel prizes.