Name's the Game! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Neptunium

Neptune is the planet known for its Great Dark Spot and it is rumoured that it will someday crash with Triton, its largest satellite. Neptune has a distinctive deep blue shade and has the highest wind speeds of any planet in the solar system. Neptunium is the element named after the planet Neptune.

Answer: Fermium

The Italian scientist is Enrico Fermi and he has had fermions, a category of subatomic particles named after him, the other category being the bosons named after Satyendra Nath Bose from India. Fermium is a radioactive element in the actinide series of the Periodic Table, also known as the series of the radioactive rare earths.

Answer: Yttrium

All except the element Yttrium, which is actually named after Ytterby, a Swedish hamlet that has given its name to four elements in the Periodic Table, are named after actual countries. Germanium is named for Germany, gallium is named for Gallia, Latin for France, after the home country of its discoverer Lecoq de Boisbaudran, and Polonium is the element which Marie Curie, its discoverer, named after her home country, Poland.

Answer: Krypton

Uranium-235 splits into barium and krypton atoms in the mentioned nuclear fission reaction. The noble gas krypton shares the name of Superman's native planet. Kryptonite is purely fictional, and is, in fact, the ore form of a radioactive element that is found on the fictional planet Krypton.

Answer: Antimony

Antimony has the symbol Sb, from stibium, its Latin name. 'Anti monos' means 'opposed to solitude' and 'monk-killer' is what 'anti monachos' means when translated.

Answer: Niobium

Niobium was named after Niobe, who, in classical mythology, is the daughter of Tantalus. Mendelevium is named after Dmitri Mendeleev, who developed the Periodic Table. Niels Bohr, who worked out how atoms bond, gave his name to the element bohrium. Glenn T. Seaborg, who discovered the chemical nature of elements greater in atomic number than uranium, and proposed and developed the actinide series, was the scientist after whom seaborgium was named.

Answer: Dysprosium

This is according to a Greek translation which has given this element of the lanthanide series its name. The first time it was isolated was in the 1950s. Meitnerium is named for the scientist Lise Meitner; praseodymium is named after a phrase meaning 'green twin'; and molybdenum comes from a phrase which means 'lead'.

Answer: Mercury

The chemical symbol of Mercury is Hg after hydrargygum, its Latin name. Named after Mercury, the messenger of the gods in Roman mythology, mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature and is the densest liquid. It finds wide use in thermometers and barometers and its alloys are known as amalgams, some of which are used in dentistry.

Answer: Tungsten

Tungsten's name comes from 'tung sten', meaning 'heavy stone' in Swedish and Danish. Its symbol is W from wolfram. Tungsten is used in the filaments of bulbs due to its very high melting point. Wolframite is actually an ore of the element tungsten.

Answer: Livermorium

Livermorium is the new name of ununhexium, in period 7 of the Periodic Table, named after the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the town of Livermore in the state of California in the U.S.A. The town is named after Robert Livermore, a Mexican citizen, and the I.U.P.A.C. now recognises the name livermorium in place of ununhexium.