Science Gets It Right (Eventually) Quiz

Answer: Alchemists

Modern chemistry has shown that elements cannot be changed from one to another but earlier seekers of knowledge did not know this. Alchemy was a whole system of belief and was not just about changing other metals, mainly lead, into gold. Alchemists constantly sought the 'philosopher's stone' which they believed would give them the power not only to transmute metals but would be an 'elixir of life' and would enable them to achieve immortality. Sir Isaac Newton, as well as other prominent scientists of his day, believed in its existence.

Answer: Galileo Galilei

It is no longer universally believed that Galileo's experiments involved dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The current view is that he conducted experiments on inclined planes and worked out mathematically that in a vacuum all objects would accelerate at the same rate. Fortunatus Fidelis was the first person to practice modern forensic medicine in 1598. Luigi Brugnatelli invented electroplating in 1805.

Answer: Phlogiston

Beecher taught that phlogiston was part of all combustible objects and that they released it when they burned. Scientists thought that the existence of this supposed element explained why things burned out (they must have run out of phlogiston), why fire needed air to burn (air must absorb phlogiston)and why we breathe (to get rid of phlogiston in the body). We know now that we breathe to get oxygen for cellular activities and to expel carbon dioxide, that fire needs oxygen to burn and that phlogiston does not exist.

Answer: Ptolemy

Ptolemy's model proved so acceptable to scientists that it was not until nearly 1400 years later Copernicus published his heliocentric (sun-centred) model in 1543. Galileo came out in support of this view in 1610, but it was many more years before the correct model was generally accepted by scientists, philosophers and the Church.

Answer: Proteins

DNA was first discovered in 1869 by a Swiss physician, Friedrich Miescher, as a substance in the pus on bandages removed from a wound. Through subsequent research it became known that DNA formed into strings, consisting of various bases, but it was considered too simple a structure to carry much information.

By the mid 20th century important research work was being done on DNA structure in several universities, but it was the publication of Watson and Crick's paper, in "Nature" in 1953, that showed how the bases were paired in a double helix structure and demonstrated how genetic information was replicated.

Answer: Atom

The idea that matter was composed of small discrete units has been around since ancient times, the earliest reference being in India in 600BC. A Greek philosopher and his student, Leucippus and Democritus, in about 440BC, theorised that all things were made up of particles too small to be seen, and that there was a limit to the divisibility of matter. Thus, these smallest parts were called atoms from atomos, "a" meaning not and "tomos" meaning cuttable.

It is not until the work of physicist J. J. Thomson, who through his use of the cathode tube, discovered electrons that scientists knew that the atom was not an indivisible unit, but was composed of yet smaller parts.

Answer: Bad air

Unfortunately for their patients doctors had no idea that infection was passed on to surgical patients by their own lack of hygiene. Particularly in battle situations, surgeons would use the same scalpel without cleaning it and did not think it necessary to wash their hands before each operation.

More soldiers died from disease than from wounds. Although the 'germ theory' of infection had been around for some years, it was not until Louis Pasteur made his discoveries in the field of pathogens and Joseph Lister demonstrated that cleanliness and disinfection routines in hospitals could prevent most complications, that things improved.

Answer: The Great Plains, USA, & South Australia

In the second half of the 19th century there was a theory of climatology that held that homesteading and the cultivation of crops would increase the humdity of an area and, in time, lead to more rainfall. This belief led to many settlers in both the USA and South Australia establishing farms in arid areas which resulted in the erosion of land during the dry years which always followed periods of good rainfall.

The effect on the soil and the livelihood of the farmers was catastrophic.

Answer: William Harvey

Willam Harvey disproved the theory of blood circulation described by Galen, a second century Greek physician, who thought that blood originated in the liver and sloshed back and forth through the body and was mixed with air in the heart. This view held acceptance until Harvey proved that the heart was a pump that pushed oxygenated blood though the circulatory system to all parts of the body and that deoxygenated blood was carried back.

Answer: James Ussher (1581-1656)

James Ussher used the lineages and the dates of events in the Bible to determine his very exact time. Other religions also calculated the age of the earth by their own creation myths. From the 17th century, naturalists had observed that the the earth's strata, and the fossils in the layers, had been deposited over time and the planet must be much older than originally thought.

The work of William Smith, the father of geology, and his nephew, John Phillips, added scientific evidence to these theories.

In 1862, Lord Kelvin, a physicist, used his estimate of the rate of cooling of the earth to suggest that the age was about 100 million years. Others used the accretion of salt in the sea as a basis for their calculations. Radiometric dating, invented by Ernest Rutherford, now suggests that the true age is between 4.55 billion years (plus or minus about 1%). Work on improving and refining methods to get more accurate results are continuing.