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Science All Around You Trivia Quiz

You don't need a laboratory or equipment to see some curious things going on all around you! Try this quiz on the science behind everyday things.

A multiple-choice quiz by frozenblues. Estimated time: 7 mins.

Author
frozenblues

Time
7 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
313,715

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Very Difficult

Avg Score
4 / 10

Plays
2658

Awards
Top 35% Quiz

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. Why is it easy to lose cell phone reception when traveling over a hill or down a valley, but the radio keeps playing without interruption? Hint

Cell phones use longer wavelengths than radio

Cell phones are newer technology and the quality hasn't caught up

Cell phones are smaller than radios

Cell phones use shorter wavelengths than radio

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Question 2 of 10

2. Vacuum power. It is easy to suck water up a six-inch long straw... but what if it were longer? With very long, strong straws available to you, what is the highest you could suck up some water? Hint

Limited only by lung power

About 17 feet

About 7 feet

About 34 feet

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Question 3 of 10

3. Two spoons, one made out of metal and one out of wood have sat side by side in your kitchen drawer for days. But if you pick up the metal one it feels cold compared to the wooden one. Why? Hint

The metal one stays cold

Weak electricity is flowing to your hand from metal one

The metal one is heavier

Your nerves are sensing heat transfer

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Question 4 of 10

4. Someone tells you that water swirls counter-clockwise going down the drain if you live in the northern hemisphere, and clockwise if you live in the southern hemisphere. Are they right? Hint

No, because it's the opposite - water always goes down clockwise in the north and counter-clockwise in the south

No, in real life the earth's spin won't affect the rotation of water going down a drain

Yes, it's an example of the coriolis force in action

Yes, water drains that way, but the north/south difference is due to cultural practices in plumbing setup

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Question 5 of 10

5. You fill a glass half-full with ice cubes and then add water so that it is nearly full and the cubes are floating. Next you mark that water line with a pen and wait for the ice to melt. Where is the new water line compared to your mark? Hint

it's random - could be above or below your line

sitting above your line

sitting at the line you marked

sitting below your line

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Question 6 of 10

6. If you snoop around the back, sides or bottom of your running refrigerator you will always find some hot area. Older models had a set of coils on the back that would get hot; current models have them on the underside or other hidden areas. Why do refrigerators have coils that get hot? Hint

Refrigerators use a lot of electricity, which runs through the coils and makes them hot

The coils are heated as part of the automatic-defrost cycle

The coils cool the motor that runs the refrigerator

Heat transfers from the food-compartment into the coils, making them hot

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Question 7 of 10

7. Why are sunsets red? Hint

Red light can curl around the earth as it turns

Red light is reflected by water vapor in the atmosphere

Red light isn't pulled down by gravity as much

Red light makes it through the atmosphere better than blue

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Question 8 of 10

8. How do rockets fly? Which analogy below is best to explain how a rocket works? [Don't try these at home though!] Hint

You set off a firecracker in a totally sealed container

You sit on a chair, on an ice rink, and throw basketballs out in front of you

You jump off a ladder onto a trampoline

You grab a high voltage line with your bare hands

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Question 9 of 10

9. Visiting your aunt in the country, she asks you to take the clothes down off of her old-fashioned clothes line. Looking at this sagging piece of cord hanging between two poles, you recognize it's shape as a... Hint

parabola

half-circle

truncated ellipse

hyperbolic cosine

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Question 10 of 10

10. Someone tells you that if you want ice cubes faster, use hot water from the tap rather than cold. Are they right? Does hot water freeze faster than cold water? Hint

Yes, hot water always freezes faster than cold water

Hot water can freeze faster under certain conditions

No, it's a silly myth - water has to cool to 0C to freeze, and cold water has a head start

It depends on whether you live north or south of the equator

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Why is it easy to lose cell phone reception when traveling over a hill or down a valley, but the radio keeps playing without interruption?

Answer: Cell phones use shorter wavelengths than radio

Cell phones use wavelengths measured in inches, compared to several feet for radio. Long wavelengths can bend around obstacles like hills, whereas short wavelengths require a line-of-sight between your cell phone and the tower.

2. Vacuum power. It is easy to suck water up a six-inch long straw... but what if it were longer? With very long, strong straws available to you, what is the highest you could suck up some water?

Answer: About 34 feet

It's not the vacuum that pulls water up in a straw, it's air pressure pushing down on the water in the glass. At sea level one atmosphere pressure can drive water up about 34 feet maximum, no matter how strong the vacuum above it.

3. Two spoons, one made out of metal and one out of wood have sat side by side in your kitchen drawer for days. But if you pick up the metal one it feels cold compared to the wooden one. Why?

Answer: Your nerves are sensing heat transfer

The metal spoon is no colder than the wooden one if you compare their temperatures. But the nerves in your skin are actually sensing heat transfer rather than temperature. Metal is able to pull more heat from you than wood, so the metal spoon feels "cold". So your skin is fooling you in that sense.

4. Someone tells you that water swirls counter-clockwise going down the drain if you live in the northern hemisphere, and clockwise if you live in the southern hemisphere. Are they right?

Answer: No, in real life the earth's spin won't affect the rotation of water going down a drain

The Coriolis force is real, and it causes hurricanes to spin counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the south. But it is too weak to set the direction of water doing down a typical household drain. See http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-somebody-finally-sett

Answer: sitting at the line you marked

Archimedes principle: an object floating in water will displace enough water to match its volume. The water displaced by the ice cube gets exactly filled in when it melts and the water level does not change.

Answer: Heat transfers from the food-compartment into the coils, making them hot

Fundamentally, household refrigerators operate by transferring heat from your food, to the cool air circulating in the food-compartment, to a refrigerant liquid, to the coils that come in contact with household air, where the heat finally ends up. So as your food cools down, your kitchen heats up!

7. Why are sunsets red?

Answer: Red light makes it through the atmosphere better than blue

Sunsets are red for the same reason that the sky is blue: blue light is scattered by the atmosphere far more than red is. At sunset direct light from the sun has to cross even more atmosphere to get to your eyes, so as blue light is scattered along the way you are left only seeing red when looking toward the sun.

8. How do rockets fly? Which analogy below is best to explain how a rocket works? [Don't try these at home though!]

Answer: You sit on a chair, on an ice rink, and throw basketballs out in front of you

Rockets work by propelling gas in one direction, which makes the rocket go in the other (an example of conservation of momentum). So it's sort of flying backwards, which is what would happen to you if you tried the chair/ice/basketball experiment.

Answer: hyperbolic cosine

The shape of a suspended rope is close to a parabola, but not quite - it is described by the hyperbolic cosine.

10. Someone tells you that if you want ice cubes faster, use hot water from the tap rather than cold. Are they right? Does hot water freeze faster than cold water?

Answer: Hot water can freeze faster under certain conditions

It's true, under certain real life conditions hot water can freeze faster - it's called the Mpemba effect. But it depends on a variety of factors and may not always occur in your freezer.

Source: Author frozenblues

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor crisw before going online.
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