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!
Answers for this week as follows:
Round 1 – Links
1. These are all ancient continental landmasses or supercontinents
2. These are the names of various cloned animals – a mule, horse, sheep and dog respectively
3. The highest mountain on Earth, the highest mountain on any planet in the solar system, the highest mountain anywhere in the solar system respectively
Round 2 – Voyages of discovery
1. Captain James Cook was the man sent to view the transit of Venus, and who ended up making pioneering explorations of New Zealand and Australia into the bargain.
2. FitzRoy was of course the captain on the Voyage of the Beagle.
3. Sir Arthur Eddington went to Principe and helped confirm relativity.
Round 3 – The Picture Round
Some lateral thinking required in this round…
1. This is of course a picture of a mole, and the mole is the unit of the amount of a substance.
2. Rather tricky, this one. This is a picture of a (very old) silver medal from the Olympic Games. You get a silver medal for coming second – and the second is, of course, a unit of time.
3. This is the French footballer Thierry Henry. The Henry is the SI unit of inductance.
Round 4 – Science and Religion
1. It was of course Galileo who was put under house arrest.
2. The founding father of modern genetics is Gregor Mendel.
3. The Higgs Boson is named after (obviously) Peter Higgs and (perhaps slightly less obviously) Satyendra Nath Bose.
Round 5 – Cryptic clues
This was probably the trickiest round of the lot, especially for those not versed in the conventions of cryptic crosswords. Don’t worry, full explanations will be given to alleviate the head-scratching.
1. “Brahms or Vermeer, for example” = “Johannes”’, “trembling” indicates an anagram of “keep” and “both hands”, ie “l” and “r”, all of which gives us Johannes Kepler.
2. “Aluminium” = “Al”, “soldier” = “ant”, “catastrophe” indicates an anagram of “ruing”, which leads to Alan Turing.
3. “Journalist” = “Ed”, “Hall in the French world” means put “hall” somewhere inside the French word for world, ie “monde”, and “unknown” = “y” (in an algebraic sense) – all of which gives us Edmond Halley.
If you got all – or even most – of those then give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back. There will, of course, be more quizzing to look forward to at the usual time this Friday.