50/50 in Science III Trivia Quiz

Answer: False

Men tend to be taller than women, so most adults should have realized this. In the U.S., men have an average height of 5'9.5" while women have an average height of 5'4.3". On average, men are about 5 inches taller than women. 93.5% of all couples have husbands taller than wives, which is ironically similar in percentage to proportion of average women's height relative to average men's height at 92.5%.

Answer: False

Unlike Earth, Jupiter does not have a solid surface, so it is impossible to land a spacecraft on Jupiter. Planets that don't have solid surfaces are known as gas giants. So Jupiter is a gas giant, as well as Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Answer: True

The periodic table is a chart for showing relative similarities of their chemical properties of elements to one another in the group, meaning column, or in some cases similar to one another in the series, meaning row within the block.

Their similarity of chemical properties is due to the same number of valence electrons, which are electrons making up the outermost shell that participate most readily in bonding with other atoms during the chemical reactions.

Answer: True

People, especially science enthusiasts, are familiar with the Kelvin, the Celsius, and the Fahrenheit scales, but they may need to learn the Rankine scale. The Rankine scale, like the Kelvin scale, is an absolute temperature scale with 0 being absolute zero. Rankine degree is equal to Fahrenheit degree, while Kelvin degree is equal to Celsius degree. Rankine degree is written as °R.

Answer: True

Biosphere is a collection of all biomes, ecosystems, and habitats, together making up the planet as a whole.

Answer: False

Of the two sexes, only males have Y-chromosomes. Males have XY-chromosomes while females have XX-chromosomes.

Answer: True

Cumulus clouds are most commonly seen in partly cloudy skies. They are usually located more than a mile above ground. Cumulus is named after the Latin word cumulo, meaning "heap" or "pile."

However, not all cumulus clouds are low-level clouds like this prototype. Some cumulus cloud types are found in higher altitudes than the prototype, like altocumulus and cirrocumulus clouds. In addition, there are other low-level cumulus clouds, like the base of cumulonimbus (commonly known as thunderclouds) and stratocumulus clouds.

Answer: True

Many people think that velocity is the synonym of speed, but kinematics disagree. Speed simply means how fast is moving while velocity really means how fast is moving in a specified direction. Because direction is included, velocity can be positive or negative.

For example going south at 35 mph is the same as going north at -35 mph, while speed is always positive, even when going backwards. In this sense velocity is a vector while speed is a scalar.

Answer: False

Actually, Sun will not go supernova like some stars do because the Sun is too small to do so, even though the Sun is over 100 times bigger and 333,000 times more massive than Earth. To go supernova, the star would have to weigh at least eight times more massive than the Sun or about 2.666... million Earths.

Instead, Sun will die in a relatively quiet way by expanding into a red giant, then shedding mass to form a planetary nebula, leaving a small, hot corpse called a white dwarf. This dying process will begin 5 billion years from now and ends 2 billion years later.

After about 20 more billion years, the white dwarf will become a black dwarf when it cools down enough.

Answer: False

Negative matter and antimatter are two different forms of exotic matter. Negative matter carry negative mass while antimatter carry opposite charges of respective subatomic particles as ordinary matter. For example, protons carrying negative charge, called antiprotons, and electrons carrying positive charge, called antielectrons or positrons. Both normal matter and antimatter carry positive mass.

Answer: True

Amino acids are the most basic life-giving molecules. Proteins are essential nutrients that maintain health of living organisms who consume it. To make proteins, amino acids simply bind together using genetic information.

Answer: False

Igneous rocks always form when lava cools and solidifies, while metamorphic rock forms when the rock of any type is being subjected to intense heat and pressure deep in the earth, although the heat must not be too high, otherwise the rock would melt.

One more rock type is sedimentary rock, which forms when an igneous or metamorphic rock is subjected to erosion and weathering.

Answer: True

Many people think of heat as warmth, but in thermodynamics it is not necessarily true. Heat is defined as the transfer of energy from a warmer object into a cooler object, which means that warmer object cools while the cooler object warms.

Answer: False

Even though blue is the symbolic color of cold while red is the symbolic color of hot, it is not the case for colors of flames and stars. We know generally that all stars are hot, and there are no cold stars, not even blue stars. In fact, blue stars are the hottest star by color in the universe, while red stars are the coolest.

The reason why nature forms the way it is is that on the visible spectrum, blue light has higher energy than red light, while heat is a form of energy. Thus, hot objects give off more energy than cool objects since hot objects contain more heat.

Answer: True

The Earth's surface is actually broken into pieces, called tectonic plates. The Earth is split into 14 plates, eight major plates and six smaller ones. If plates interact with one another, earthquakes, volcanic eruption, or mountains can result. If the surface is not broken, then complex life including humans likely wouldn't exist.