It’s Friday, which means it’s quiz time again – and, having spent the last few weeks enjoying the hospitality of the Nature London blog, the Friday Quiz has a brand new home right here in the August surrounds of Of Schemes and Memes. A warm welcome to all new players, and a warm welcome back to old hands.
Round 1 – Science and Literature
We kick things off with a look at some of the links between great men of science and great men of fiction.
1. The subatomic particles we know as ‘quarks’ were given their name by Murray Gell-Mann, who took the word from which classic work of literature?
2. Michael Frayn’s play ‘Copenhagen’ centres around an encounter between which two figures of 20th Century science?
3. Which great Russian novelist was also a research fellow at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, named more than 20 genera, species and subspecies within the Lepidoptera order of insects, and published 22 scientific papers? (Notoriously, however, he was a passionate anti-Darwinian.)
Round 2 – Silver Medallists
In which we celebrate life’s runners up…
1. What is the second largest object in the solar system?
2. Canada has a longer coastline than any other country in the world – but which country has the second longest coastline?
3. In 1880, Gadolinium became the second element to be named after what kind of entity?
Round 3 – The Picture Round
In this week’s picture round you’ll see pictures of constellations – you simply have to identify them:
1.
{credit}Blueshade{/credit}
2.
{credit}Sadalsuud{/credit}
3.
{credit}Torsten Bronger{/credit}
Round 4 – Scientific nobility
The following scientists were all ennobled in some way. Here are their birth names – can you give the title by which they are equally or better known?
1. William Thomson
2. Benjamin Thompson
3. John Strutt
Round 5 – Initial thoughts
In this round you’ll see a number, and then a description of something that number corresponds to in initial form – your task is to work out what the initials stand for. For example if the question was “100 = The BP of W in C”, then the answer would be “the boiling point of water in Centigrade”.
1. 18 = G in the PT
2. (Approximately) 2.5 million = LY the AG is from E
3. 23 = P of C in a HC
4. 1921 = YAEW the NP in P
5. 110 = MO
Good luck, have fun – try not to get too frustrated if any of the answers to Round 5 stubbornly refuse to reveal themselves – and all the answers will be revealed on Monday.