Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Benjamin Franklin had just finished a lecture on electricity in a small auditorium in London, and his listeners were crowding around him with questions and congratulations. From the fringe of the throng, a young man dressed in the black cloth of a clergyman moved forward and addressed him, "Mr. Franklin, I am deeply interested in your experiments with electricity. How can I find out more about this wonderful force?" Observing the quiet determination on his face, Mr. Franklin extended his hand and said, "Very well, if you are still interested in electricity tomorrow, visit me at my lodgings."
When the young minister had gone, Franklin asked his host about him. "Oh, he is a poor clergyman, a Dissenter from Leeds, who has shown an interest in Chemistry. He has no University training however, and is not likely to amount to much." Franklin smiled inwardly; he had no University training either. However, he liked the look of determination on the young man's face. He resolved to help him in any way he could.
Thus did this young man, who would in the future become one of the greatest chemists that this world has seen, receive his first encouragement in his quest to change the scientific world.
Who was this young man?
2. In the August of 1915, a young signal officer in Britain's First Army was killed less than two months after his arrival in Turkey to take part in the Dardanelles campaign. Robert Millikan, in paying tribute to this young man, stated, "Had the European War no other result than the snuffing out of this young life, that alone would make it one of the most hideous and irreparable crimes in History."
In a brief four years of research, this young man had thrown open the windows through which we can now glimpse the sub-atomic world with a definitiveness and certainty never dreamed of before.
Who was this man, who changed the world of chemistry on its head, by re-defining the periodic table of elements, to give it the form that we now know it in?
3. In a laboratory in Paris, an obscure physics professor was conducting experiments on light. Although his work would usher in a brand new branch of Science, that of Radioactivity, he was not using a Crookes tube, electrons, cathode rays, or X rays. His tools consisted merely of some photographic plates, a source of light and some uranium salt crystals. He was investigating the strange phenomenon of phosphorescence whereby certain substances emitted their own light even in the dark, after first having been exposed to outside light. However, as fate would have it, a series of cloudy days prevented him from getting a sufficient source of light to continue his experiments. He therefore stored his salt samples in a darkened drawer on a pile of unexposed photographic plates for a few days. By chance, he decided to check the quality of the stored plates by developing the top one. To his amazement, he discovered a very intense shadow that vaguely resembled the container in which the uranium salt had been stored. He had accidentally made one of the greatest discoveries of all time, radioactivity.
Who was he?
4. It was the evening of February 8th, 1865. He put his round black hat on his head and his heavy black cloak over his shoulders, and stepped out of the door of the monastery into the cold, wintry air. Tonight he would read his report of eight years of research on the growth of plants. He wondered how many members in the Brunn Society for the Study of Natural Science would understand the title of his report, Plant Hybridization, let alone its complex contents. As he entered the lecture hall, he was greeted warmly by those gathered there. He was well liked in the township of Brunn as a good-natured, hardworking clergyman and teacher. The meeting was called to order, and he was invited to the lectern to present his paper.
He proceeded to read his report, looking around him to see whether the audience shared the inner excitement that he felt in making these discoveries on the heredity of pea plants. There was no excitement, only boredom. One of his auditors leaned towards his neighbour and whispered, "Eight years spent watching pea plants grow, what a waste of time."
Who was this man, whose discovery would found the very science of genetics?
5. A great day had arrived in the life of an obscure, poorly paid, thirty-eight year old mathematics and science teacher of the Jesuit College of Cologne. After having served ten years at this post, it was his ambition to secure a University appointment. To qualify for such a position, however, one was required to produce some sort of a Scientific Masterpiece, for the general recognition of its value would generally bring many such offers. Thus, after many years of pioneering experimentation in electricity, he had finally produced a two hundred and fifty page treatise called "Mathematical Measurements of Electrical Currents."
Instead of receiving acclaim for what is now regarded as a masterpiece in the field of physical research, his paper was completely ignored by most of his German Colleagues. Who was this great researcher in the field of electricity?
6. When he, as a sophomore student at Oberlin College, was asked to teach elementary physics at Oberlin College's preparatory department by his Greek Professor, he replied that he did not know Physics at all. The Professor answered, "You have done excellent work all year in my Greek class; I'll risk anyone who can do what you have in that subject to teach Physics." And so it was that a Greek Scholar began what was to be one of the brightest of all scientific careers.
Who was this young scientist, who went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics for his brilliant studies on the charge on an electron?
7. A strangely titled book called "The Newer Alchemy" was published in England in 1937. No, it was not a translation of the works of an alchemist who had lived in the Middle Ages, but a serious scientific treatise which had been written by one of the world's greatest experimental scientists. What could he have in common with the alchemists, who had often spent their entire superstitious lives in trying to change iron, lead, and other 'base' metals to gold? He had never really been interested in changing things to gold. And yet, he was, by means of some very clever experiments, able to show that nature was in fact, the greatest alchemist of all. Who was this great scientist, who was in fact the first alchemist as he was the first to succeed in changing one element to another?
8. A nine year old boy from Alsace had been horribly bitten by a mad dog. The dilemma was agonizing for the French Scientist. Should he give an injection of a serum that had never been given to humans and in doing so perhaps kill the boy, or should he not heed the calls of the distraught mother? He decided to take the risk. That night, little Joseph Meister's name became part of medical history as the first person ever to receive the hydrophobia vaccine. The long days which followed must have been unbearable for all concerned, but they ended in victory over the dreaded Rabies.
Who was this French Scientist, whose name is now immortal in science?
9. In 1834, an excited young peasant left his homeland in the wine country of central France to travel to Paris. He was only 21 years old, and his possessions were few, but tucked under his arm was the precious manuscript of a new play with his name inscribed on the cover. He had visions of the fame that would come when some great actor recited the lines that he had written, and all of Paris would hail a great new playwright. Those dreams were to be shattered, and instead there would rise the dreams of a young doctor who would in turn become one of the most famous of all practitioners of Medicine in the History of Mankind.
Who was this young French farmer, who would later be honoured with the title of "The Founder of Experimental Physiology"?
10. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, Germany became a powerful military nation under Bismark, its ruthless Chancellor. A young, but vigorous physician openly attacked Bismark's lawless "blood and iron" policies. Bismark, extremely irritated by the civic courage of this pugnacious little doctor, thought to silence him in the best way he knew. An excellent swordsman, Bismark challenged him to a duel. But the young scientist's only weapons were his sharp, quick tongue, and his surgical scalpel. But, as he wished to use both for the betterment of his countrymen, he declined the challenge.
Who was this brave scientist, who through his statement, "Omnis Cellulae Cellula", that is, all cells arise from pre-existing cells, gave rise to the cell theory that is one of the founding stones of modern Biology?
Source: Author
Shrivats
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Jim_in_Oz before going online.
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