Paradigm Nudge Trivia Quiz

Answer: Fast food

Vitale realised a miniature version of her plastic garden table would be the perfect thing to stop the lid of a pizza box from sagging into the pizza. She patented the idea and the pizza saver was born!

Answer: Saint Bernard rescue dogs carry brandy to help victims of hypothermia

Whilst Saint Bernards are used in the Alps to find people in distress, they have never carried brandy, which would likely only exacerbate things. Landseer's painting "Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler" shows a dog with a barrel around its neck and this was assumed to be a depiction of truth.

Answer: Viagra

Pfizer scientists Andrew Bell, David Brown, and Nicholas Terrett were scientists looking to cure heart-related illnesses. Early takers of the drug that would be known as Viagra did not disclose the effects the drug had on them, but the researchers noted a desire for more of the pill!

Answer: Cat-flap

Tired of opening the door of his darkroom to let his cat in and out, and thus affecting the light levels, Newton was inspired to make a door the cat could operate itself!

Answer: Comical foregrounds

Coolidge was born in New York in the mid-19th century and was obsessed with making money, earning himself the nickname "Cash" or "Kash." He worked as a pharmacist before launching his own newspaper and starting his own bank. You will likely have seen one of his comical foregrounds at a carnival, theme park or at the seaside - they are usually life-size caricatures with a hole cut out where the face would be, to allow one to place one's head through in order to take a humorous photograph.

Answer: Debug

Hopper was working on a Mark II Computer at Harvard University in 1947 when a moth got caught in a relay. Although the term "bug" had been used before, this was literally the first instance of "debugging."
Hopper was also the guiding hand behind the computing language COBOL. She received literally dozens of medals and awards during her career, both from within and outside the military, as well as 40 honorary degrees from universities worldwide.

Answer: Vaseline

Born in 1837, Chesebrough started his career in New York City, extracting kerosene from the oil of sperm whales. When petroleum was discovered in nearby Titusville, Pennsylvania he became obsolete, so he went to Titusville, Pennsylvania to research petroleum.

He discovered petroleum jelly, which he marketed as Vaseline. Initial demand for the product was low, until Chesebrough demonstrated the product upon his own injuries and distributed free samples.

Answer: Bird mess on the satellite dish

In 1964 Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias were using a supersensitive horn antenna when they recorded what would be the first confirmed proof for the Big Bang Theory. The residual noise was 100 times more intense than the background noise they were expecting, was evenly spread over the sky, and was present day and night.

They assumed such a consistent result must be a flaw with the equipment, and originally thought two pigeons roosting in the antenna were responsible!

Answer: Frisbee

Entrepreneur Fred Morrison was interested in marketing a lightweight flying disc for recreational purposes in 1937 after he was offered 25 cents for a cake tin pan that he and his girlfriend were throwing to and fro on the beach in Los Angeles. The pan cost him five cents, and he developed a business selling "Flyin' Cake Pans" on the beaches of Santa Monica.
He learnt about aerodynamics after the war and in 1947 found an investor who would pay for producing plastic discs, which he would sell at fairs. He continued improving the toy until he sold the rights to Wham-O toys in 1956 under the name of "Pluto Platter."
When Wham-O founders learnt that Northeastern college students nick-named the disc "Frisbee," they decided to change the name to that instead. It was nick-named this after the Frisbie Pie Company, when a craze developed at Yale for tossing empty pie cans around in the same manner that Morrison and his girlfriend had in LA 20 years earlier!
Morrison married that lady, and reported to "Forbes Magazine" in 1982 that royalties from his modified disc had earnt him over two million dollars!

Answer: Paddington Bear's red wellington boots

Originally Paddington came to England wearing just his uncle's hat. The Browns took him in and gave him his iconic blue duffle coat. Paddington author Michael Bond considered suing Shirley and Eddie Clarkson after learning that they were selling toys based on his creation, even going as far as to meet with a lawyer! However, Bond became friends with the Clarksons after a meeting in the lift and gave them a license. Shirley was placing the bears in wellington boots so they would stand up for display, and Bond claimed he was forced to write a story featuring the boots after the Clarksons bought out all of toy manufacturer Dunlop's red size-five wellies!