Back to Square One Trivia Quiz

Answer: William Gilbert

Prior to Gilbert's forays into the science of electricity, the only real understanding of anything similar was the magnetic properties of lodestone, and that when rubbed together, amber and jet would attract small articles (what we now know as static electricity). It was from the Greek word for amber that Gilbert coined the term 'electricus' to describe the effects he observed in his experiments.

"De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure" ("On the Magnet and Magnetic Bodies, and on That Great Magnet the Earth") also described for the first time the concept of the Earth's magnetic field, and an explanation of why a compass needle points north. Prior to that, it was believed that the North Star was what attracted the needle.

Answer: Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) discovered Jupiter's moons Ganymede and Callisto on January 7th, 1610, and on the same day saw Io and Europa as a single point of light. The following day, he saw Io and Europa separately, making their official discovery date January 8th. These four of Jupiter's many moons are called the Galilean moons due to this discovery.

It was not until 1655 that another extraterrestrial moon was discovered; Saturn's Titan, observed by Christiaan Huygens.

Answer: Cells

The term 'cell' came from the Latin word 'cella', which means 'small rooms'. When Hooke saw the cells of the cork he was examining through his microscope, he likened them to monk's cells.

Robert Hooke did not only delve into microsopy; he was a true Renaissance man. He studied and published in many fields, including mechanics, gravitation, paleontology, astronomy, and human memory.

Answer: No

Newton's three laws of motion are:

1. When viewed in an inertial reference frame, an object either is at rest or moves at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force.

2. The acceleration of a body is directly proportional to, and in the same direction as, the net force acting on the body, and inversely proportional to its mass. Thus, F = ma, where F is the net force acting on the object, m is the mass of the object and a is the acceleration of the object.

3. When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to that of the first body.

These laws of motion were published in Book I of Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", with the title of Book I being "De motu corporum" ("On the motion of bodies").

For me, personally, I always use Newton's First Law of Motion as an excuse for my procrastination. After all, 'an object at rest stays at rest'... I just ignore the rest of it.

Answer: The law of conservation of mass

The law states that "for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy (both of which have mass), the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as system mass cannot change quantity if it is not added or removed." (quoted from Wikipedia). This meant that in whatever kind of interaction (chemical or otherwise) it could be assumed that the mass would remain constant; whatever mass there was prior to a chemical reaction (in an isolated system), there would have to be the same mass afterwards, in whatever altered form.

Sir Isaac Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation, publishing his findings in 1687. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz developed a mathematical formula to express the law of conservation of energy between 1676 and 1689. And the law of ideal gas was developed by Émile Clapeyron in 1834, combining Boyle's law and Charles' law.

Answer: William Herschel

Herschel used a prism to refract a beam of light and then was able to measure the presence of the infrared with a thermometer. The term 'infrared' means 'beyond the red', so named because the longer wavelength infrared is located just past the edge of the red end of the visible spectrum.

Answer: Hydrogen

Dmitri Mendeleev is credited with publishing the first generally accepted elemental table in 1869.

Within each square on the Periodic Table there is the same information:

- the atomic number of the element (1 for hydrogen)
- the symbol of the element (H for hydrogen)
- the atomic weight of the element (1.00794 for hydrogen)

Where the square is located within the table also gives certain information. hydrogen is found in column 1, (called Group 1), and in row 1 (called Period 1). hydrogen, however, is a bit of an exception. The Group 1 elements are considered 'alkali metals', EXCEPT for hydrogen.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in existence, making up about 90% of the universe by weight.

Answer: Daniel Bernoulli

Daniel Bernoulli was born in the year 1700 into a family of mathematicians, with his father (Johann), uncle (Jakob) and younger brother (Johann II) all publishing contributions to the body of mathematical lore.

Bernoulli's principle explains that when air flows faster over the top of the wing and slower beneath the wing, then the pressure on the wing will be lower above than below. This consequently provides lift, as more pressure is being exerted upwards. Bernoulli's principle did not explain WHY air moves faster over the top of a wing.

It should also be noted that Bernoulli studied this flow effect without putting the application towards airplane wings, as it was worked out roughly a hundred years before man-made wings were built for the express purpose of attempting flight.

Answer: Germany

It was during World War II that production of the German V-2 rocket began (in 1943). While thousands were sent with explosive charges to land in allied countries (Belgium, England and France specifically), the V-2 was also the first rocket to be launched into space. When launched vertically, it had an altitude range of 206 kilometres (128 miles).

The first rocket to carry a payload to be launched into space was the R7 developed by the Russians - and that first payload was the Sputnik 1 satellite.

Answer: 1938

That's right, it was way back in the interwar years that Konrad Zuse constructed the Z1 computer in his parents' living room. He worked out the design between 1935 and 1936, then took two years to build his working model (1936-1938). Originally, he called it the V1 (VersuchsModell 1), but changed the name after the development of the V-1 flying bomb during World War II.

The Z1 computer operated on Boolean logic (a subarea of algebra where the values of the variables are simply true and false (1 and 0 respectively)) and binary floating point numbers.

Unfortunately, the Z1 was destroyed during the bombing of Berlin in December of 1943. Zuse, however, did not stop with his Z1; he went on to build the Z3 (the world's first functional program-controlled Turing-complete computer) in 1941, as well as the Z4 (the world's first commercial computer).