It’s Friday so it must be quiz time. Some lateral thinking, cryptic crossword skills and – of course – a healthy dose of scientific knowledge are all required to tackle today’s teasers.
Round 1 – Links
What links each of the following?
1. Gondwana, Pangaea, Rodinia
2. Idaho Gem, Prometea, Dolly, Snuppy
3. Mount Everest, Olympus Mons, Rheasilvia Mons
Round 2 – Voyages of discovery
1. Who, in 1766, did the Royal Society commission to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun?
2. Robert FitzRoy was the captain of which famous expedition, originally scheduled to last two years, but ending up being closer to five, lasting from December 1831 to October 1836?
3. In 1919, which British physicist travelled to the island of Principe, off the west coast of Africa, to observe a solar eclipse, obtaining results that helped verify Einstein’s theory of relativity?
Round 3 – The Picture Round
In this week’s picture round, you will see three pictures that represent SI units, albeit in an indirect way. You need to work out what SI unit they are representing and then, to answer correctly, say what is measured by this SI unit.
1.
{credit}Michael David Hill{/credit}
2.
3.
{credit}Drew Dies{/credit}
Round 4 – Science and religion
“Non-overlapping magisteria” is the term used by Stephen Jay Gould when he claimed that the domains of science and religion do not intrude on one another’s territory. Well, in this round they do (sort of).
1. Who, in 1633, did the Catholic Church find “gravely suspect of heresy”, thus spending the rest of his life under house arrest, for his views in support of Copernican astronomy?
2. Who was the Augustinian friar whose experiments on the hybridization of pea plants helped found the modern science of genetics?
3. It has often been popularly referred to as the “God Particle” – it’s real name, however, is the Higgs Boson – which two people is the Higgs Boson named after?
Round 5 – Cryptic clues
In this round you will see three cryptic crossword-style clues to the names of famous scientists – unravel the wordplay to find the answers…
1. Brahms or Vermeer, for example, to keep both hands trembling (8,6)
2. Aluminium soldier ruing catastrophe (4, 6)
3. Journalist Hall, in the French world, unknown (6,6)
Answers, as ever, will be revealed on Monday. Good luck!