Welcome to another Friday quiz! It’s something a little bit different today, with each round devoted to a ground-breaking scientist, finishing off with a picture round that brings them all together…
Round 1 – Charles Darwin
- In which English town was Darwin born in 1809?
- A large chunk of the first chapter of On The Origin of Species is devoted entirely to the breeding of which domesticated animal?
- Between 1846 and 1854, Darwin carried out a mammoth study of what type of creatures (work that is often thought to have severely delayed the publication of his work on evolution)?
Round 2 – Marie Curie
- What was Marie Curie’s maiden name?
- Curie was the sole winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry – but with which two people did she share the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics?
- Which two elements did Curie discover, the first of which she named after her native country?
Round 3 – Albert Einstein
- When Einstein wrote his ground-breaking papers describing relativity, he was working in the patent office in which Swiss city?
- What specific discovery of Einstein’s was cited as the reason for his winning of the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics?
- Shortly before his death, Einstein jointly produced an eponymous “manifesto” with which British philosopher, warning the world of the dangers posed by nuclear warfare?
Round 4 – Robert Boyle
- In which country was Boyle born?
- Boyle’s eponymous law describes the inversely proportional relationship between what two properties of a gas?
- What is the name of the book about chemistry that Boyle published in 1661, considered his masterpiece – and also the inspiration for the name of one of the blogs on the Nature platform?
Round 5 – The Picture Round
In this week’s picture round, you’ll see four charades, with each one linked in some way to one of the four scientists featured above – it could be the name of a person, a place, a concept – or anything really – but each one has some connection to one of the subjects of the first four rounds. If you can get them all first time then congratulate yourself on a fine achievement – but a bit of Googling is probably acceptable to fill in a detail or two on this one:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Good luck, and look out for the answers on Monday…



