Chemicals: Origins Of Names Trivia Quiz

Answer: France

Paul Emile Lecoq was a Frenchman. His name itself indirectly refers to France as the cock ('gallus' (in Latin)) is the national symbol. Another French chemical element is francium(Fr). There is also a lutetium (Lu) after Lutetia (= Paris). Other examples are Germanium (Ge) and Rhenium (Re). From Magnesia, a district in Thessaly, came two names of elements: Magnesium (Mg) and Manganese (Mn). Elements 97 (berkelium) and 98 (californium) are as recent as 1949 and 1950 and were synthesized at, and named after, the University of California.

Answer: stench

Arsenic (As) got its name from the Greek arsenikhos, which means 'strong'. Bromos means 'strong smelling', so stench is the correct answer.

Answer: cobalt

Alumen is Latin for bitter salt. Ferrum is iron in Latin. Cobalt is from the German kobold. The history behind the word nickel is more complicated. Its German discoverer was looking for copper and disappointedly called the ore he had found kupfernickel, or copperdevil. Nickel is originally a derivation of the German Nicholaus. Just as the English "Old Nick", German Nickel, a diminutive of Nick, became a name for a devil, demon, or similar bad spirit.
Middle Dutch has a similar word for the devil: necker.

Answer: red

As in ruby, the red-coloured precious stone, or in rubicund. Also found in rubric, meaning the heading of a division of a book, marked in red. The metal itself is silver/white, but the name was chosen based on the red lines seen in its emissions.

Answer: yellowish green

Chlorine might be called either greenish-yellow or yellowish-green. Fluorine(F) is not colour-related, but means 'flowing'.

Answer: salt from Ammon

Ammon is in Libya. Neither the Greek goddess Ammonia nor the Egyptian God Am(m)on is directly related to ammonia, although it was first discovered near the temple of Amon in Libya. Correct examples of derivations from gods or goddesses are thorium after the Norse god of thunder and uranium after Uranus.

Answer: krypton

Just as helium refers to the sun (helios), selenium refers to the moon (Greek selene). Krypton can be found in words such as encrypt or cryptogram.

Lanthanum got its name from C.G. Mosander who, feeling that the element had long 'escaped notice', called it the 'hidden or latent one', from Greek lanthanein.

Answer: stone

Carbonum, which is what diamonds consist of, means coal. A soft form of carbon is graphite: stone you can write on. Lithography means 'written in stone'. Brimstone is an altogether different type of stone and is called sulphur or sulfur in chemistry.

Answer: Tungsten

Tungsten, also known as wolfram, has the highest melting point of any metal. It is used to harden steel. It can also be used a a filament in electric lights since it can be drawn into wire as thin as one-thousandth of an inch.

Answer: potassium

Potash can most easily be obtained by calcination of glasswort or saltwort. Next to lithium, potassium is the lightest solid element. The name of potassium refers to how it was originally obtained, from ashes from vegetable matter burned in a pot.