Scottish Pioneers of Science Trivia Quiz

Answer: Thomas Newcomen

James Watt (1736-1819) was born in Greenock in Renfrewshire. Simply put, the Newcomen steam engine was invented in 1712 and was used primarily to pump water out of mines. James Watt realised the design was not energy efficient, made some adaptations and invented the Watt steam engine. This new engine was a pivotal forerunner in the Industrial Revolution that followed.

Matthew Boulton was a business partner of Watt. Richard Trevithick was an early pioneer in steam powered road and rail transport. George Stephenson was a pioneer of rail transport.

Answer: Edinburgh

Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) moved to Canada with his family in 1870. After his mother lost her own hearing, Bell spent a lot of time working with the deaf. He became professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at Boston University in 1872. One of his students was Mabel Hubbard of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The pair married in 1877, having four children together, although only two lived past infancy. Bell became a naturalized US citizen in 1882. Bell patented his telephone system in 1876.

Answer: False

John Logie Baird (1888-1946) was born in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire. Although many inventors were involved in the development of television, Baird was a prominent pioneer. He demonstrated the first working television system in 1926.

Answer: Carbon Dioxide

Joseph Black (1728-1799) was born in Bordeaux in France to an Irish father and a Scottish mother. He spent his working life in Scotland after studying at university in Glasgow and Edinburgh. As well as discovering carbon dioxide, he also made some important observations about heat and temperature, including the discovery of latent heat.

Answer: The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith (1723-1790) was born in Kirkcaldy in Fife. His magnum upus, often abbreviated simply to "The Wealth of Nations" was published in 1776, and is the first modern work of economics.

Answer: Saturn

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was born in Edinburgh. One of the most influential scientists of the 19th century, perhaps his most important contribution to science was formulating a classic theory of electromagnetic radiation. While working in Aberdeen in the 1850s, he determined the composition of Saturn's rings.

His theories were only confirmed in the 1980s when the Voyager "flybys" allowed a closer examination of Saturn.

Answer: False

Ian Fleming (1908-1964) was an author who created the character James Bond. It was actually Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) who discovered penicillin. Born in Darval, East Ayrshire, Alexander Fleming had been investigating the properties of staphylococci.

In August 1928, he went on holiday with his family, stacking his staphylococci cultures on a bench in the corner of his laboratory before he left. When he returned in September, he noticed that one of these cultures had become contaminated with a fungus which had destroyed the nearby staphylococci.

This eventually led to the discovery of penicillin.

Answer: Roslin

Roslin Institute is a part of the University of Edinburgh. The team behind Dolly was led by two Englishmen, Keith Campbell and Ian Wilmut. Dolly was born on 5 July 1996 to three mothers. One mother provided the egg, another the DNA and the third carried the cloned embryo. Dolly spent her entire life at the Roslin Institute, producing six lambs of her own. Dolly developed arthritis and progressive lung disease and was euthanized in February 2003.

The taxidermied remains of Dolly can be seen at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Answer: Kelvin

Sir William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1824-1907) was born in Belfast. He moved to Glasgow in 1833 when his father was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Glasgow University. After graduating from Cambridge University and working for a short time in Paris, he returned to Glasgow in 1846 when he became Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University.

He remained in this post for 53 years. In 1848, he proposed an absolute temperature scale which now bears the name of "the Kelvin scale".

Answer: True

John Napier (1550-1617) was the 8th Laird of Merchiston. He was born and lived in Merchiston Tower in Edinburgh. The tower is now part of Edinburgh Napier University's Merchiston campus. As well as discovering logarithms, Napier also made the use of the decimal point common in arithmetic and mathematics, and invented "Napier's bones", a manually operated calculating device.