Questions for the Trivia:
Q1- This British scientist carried out a famous experiment related to gravity. It was the first experiment to measure the force of gravity between masses in the laboratory and the first to yield accurate values for the gravitational constant. This experiment and a laboratory at the University of Cambridge are named after him. What is his name?
A- Henry Cavendish
Q2- Famous for his pioneering work on Quantum Electrodynamics, he was also fond of playing the bongo drums and telling anecdotes about himself. He was also part of the Manhattan project and got his undergraduate degree from MIT.
A- Richard Feynman
Q3- This scientist invented the Cathode Ray Tube Oscilloscope in the year 1897.
A- Karl Braun
Q4- A self-taught genius who, without ever being formally trained as a mathematician, made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, collaborated with the British mathematician G. H. Hardy and died at the young age of 32.
A- Srinivasa Ramanujan
Q5- This physicist is most famous for his two circuit laws which he described in 1845.
A- Kirchoff
Q6- The only woman to win the Nobel prize in both Physics and Chemistry. She died in 1934, her cause of death was related to her scientific work.
A- Marie Curie
Q7- Widely believed to be the most destructive chemist in history. He and his team synthesized the first CFC (called Freon). He also discovered the usefulness of leaded gasoline. He was a very respected scientist during his lifetime, but his reputation is now tarnished due to the environmental dangers that his inventions pose, such as ozone depletion. He also had a degree in Mechanical Engineering.
A- Thomas Midgley Jr
Q8- Ancient Greek mathematician and engineer, it is almost certain that he taught at the Musaeum which included the famous Library of Alexandria. He is famous for a formula that links the area of a triangle with its three sides.
A- Hero (or Heron) of Alexandria
Q9- She discovered the first radio pulsar and served as president of the royal astronomical society.
A- Dame (Susan) Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Q10- American astronomer, widely believed to be one of the most successful science popularizers of the twentieth century. Also known for his addiction to, and endorsement of marijuana.
A- Carl Sagan
Q11- In the science fiction novel “Contact” by Carl Sagan, scientists working for SETI receive a message being transmitted from the Vega system. After further analysis, it is found that a message is a re-transmission of a television broadcast from Earth. What is the content of the television broadcast?
A- Adolf Hitler's opening speech at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin
Q12- He is said to have quoted from the Bhagaved Gita at the Trinity Nuclear Test
A- Robert Oppenheimer
Q13- He is known to have said, “All science is either Physics or stamp-collecting”. Some consider him to be the father of Nuclear physics.
A- Ernest Rutherford
Q14- She was the first person to determine that stars are primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, though she was pressured into retraction by a colleague who then arrived at the same conclusion a few years later.
A- Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
Q15- What is the answer to life, the universe and everything?
A- 42
Q16- She was the first American woman to work as professional astronomer. She discovered the comet C/1847 T1 which is also known by her name. She also served as a professor at Vassar College.
A- Maria Mitchell
Q17- Three physicists won the Nobel Prize in Physics "for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles" in 1979. What were their names?
A- Weinberg, Glashow, Salam
Q18- In the science fiction novel “The Time Machine” by H. G. Wells, the protagonist time travels to a dystopian future dominated by two offshoots of the Human race. What are the names of those two offshoots?
A- The Eloi and the Morlocks
Q19- In addition to being an actress and international beauty icon, this Austrian-American was also a pioneer in the field of wireless communications. Her most significant technological contribution wasan early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping.
A- Hedy Lamarr
Q20- Who invented the Elastic-Clasp Brassiere Strap?
A- Samuel Clemens i.e Mark Twain
I hope you guys had fun and liked my questions. It was an honor to host the trivia.
