Chemistry for the Non Chemist Trivia Quiz

Answer: Organic and Inorganic

Organic chemistry, so named in 1807 by the Sweedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius, is the chemistry of living things. Inorganic chemistry deals with non-living things, such as soil, water and air.

Answer: A species of matter made exclusively of one type of atom having unique chemical and physical properties.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), the best known of the Greek 'natural philosophers' (what we would now call 'a scientist'), held that everything in our world (here on Earth as we would now say) was made up of four 'elements'. These were named earth, air, fire and water, while the heavens (the rest of space beyond the Moon) consisted of a fifth, totally different element or substance that he called aither. The word is more familiar to us in the Latin form of aether. Though, starting in the early seventeenth century, this theory of Aristotle's became increasingly shaky, it was not until the early twentieth century that it was definitively disproven.

It is important to remember that, though sharing a name, the elements of Aristotle and the modern chemical elements as they are now understood are two different concepts, having in common only the fundamental idea that everything in the world is built from elements.

Answer: No

In general, elements are found in combination, often so thoroughly mixed that separating them is very difficult. It is rare, though not wholly unknown, to find lumps of a pure element. The most well known such instances are gold nuggets and meteoric iron.

Answer: The atom

An atom is the smallest independent fragment or unit in which an element retains its identity, as for example an atom of gold. By contrast a molecule is the smallest fragment or unit in which a compound or substance retains its identity, as for example a molecule of water. By definition, a molecule is made up of atoms, most often of different elements. Thus, a water molecule consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. So, we see that the atom is the fundamental constitutive unit in Chemistry, whereas in Physics smaller units, subatomic particles including quarks play a crucial role. While an atom cannot exist without its constitutive quarks, it is the electron rather than the quark that plays a vital role in the understanding of chemical elements' properties and interactions.

Over time, physicists and chemists each came to their own understanding of the atom. Physicists accepted the reality of this basic constituent of matter earlier than did chemists, who long considered the atom to be a useful construct but one having no actual being in the real world. Nowadays, atoms are as essential to the chemist's understanding of matter as to the physicist's.

Answer: No fewer than one hundred and eighteen

Aristotle's original four elements are still accepted in non-scientific fields, such as magic. The 'elements' referred to in Mercedes Lackey's "Elemental Masters" Fantasy series, for instance, are earth, air, fire and water. This quiz, however, deals with elements in the commonly accepted modern scientific sense.

At the time of the Periodic Table's general acceptance in 1869, thirty elements were known. Gradually, over the ensuing decades, the rest of the naturally occurring elements were discovered, fitted into their places in the Periodic Table, and studied, up to uranium. The transuranium or transuranic elements, those with atomic numbers higher than uranium's atomic number of 92, are all artificial and radioactive. In 2016, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) announced the official name for the most recent such element to be confirmed, Element 118. Its name is Oganesson, symbol Og. It is possible that new elements will continue to be discovered or formed. But you will always be correct if you answer the question "How many elements are currently known?" with "No fewer than one hundred and eighteen."

Answer: Helium

In the early days of spectroscopy, a method of chemical analysis that uses a prismatic spectrum to separate and study the characteristic wavelengths of light emitted and absorbed by individual elements, several new elements were discovered, or so it was thought. Over time and with the application of different analytic tools it was found that only one of these, helium, was a previously unknown element.

The others proved to be familiar elements, alone or in combination, existing under unfamiliar conditions.

The spectral lines attributed to nebulium and geo coronium were really, it was eventually discovered, characteristic of oxygen-hydrogen mixtures in highly ionized states, while coronium lines were caused by highly ionized calcium and other metals.

Answer: Its color

Except for color, all the attributes listed in the choices appear directly on the Periodic Table. Someone familiar with the layout of the Table can also see at a glance the type of element, such as gas, metal, etc, and the relationship between elements. Though many elements have a characteristic color, and some have a characteristic smell, these attributes are not essential to the element's chemical nature and thus are not indicated on the Periodic Table.

Answer: The presence of carbon

Not all carbon-containing compounds are organic (integral to life). At the same time, all organic compounds contain carbon. While there are some elements that play no role in life, all those that do so are also integral to inorganic chemical processes, reactions, etc. We could say that organic chemistry is a subset of inorganic chemistry.

Answer: Yes

This is more than a belief. Quite a few elements have been shown, through spectroscopy and other analytical procedures, to be present on the Moon and Sun, in other heavenly bodies such as the planets, stars and galaxies and even interstellar and intergalactic space.

In fact, "empty space" is not empty at all. Atoms and even surprisingly complex molecules exist in the so-called vacuum of space. Astrochemists and astrophysicists alike use these atoms and molecules in various ways to derive information about space.

This is over and above the invaluable information chemical studies yield about the composition and evolution of Solar System objects such as planets, comets, nebulas and the like as well as stars and galaxies.

Answer: They all can

All parts of the universe, all objects in the universe, even the existence of an atmosphere around exoplanets, can be studied using chemistry.