The Friday Quiz – 26th April

It’s high time for another Friday quiz – and have your passports at the ready as we go globetrotting this week, with each round based on a different country’s science and scientists. We start off with a trip to France. Bon voyage, quizzers.

Round 1 – France

1. Which French microbiologist, most famous for another of his achievements, created the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax?
2. Which French chemist, discoverer of boron and iodine, is perhaps best known for his eponymous law, which states that if the mass and pressure of a gas are held constant then gas volume increases linearly as the temperature rises?
3. Can you name the three chemical elements named after either France itself or a place in France?

Round 2 – Germany

1. Who was the German (at the time, Prussian) geographer and naturalist who made an extensive and pioneering scientific exploration of Latin America, was one of the first to suggest that the continents may once have been joined together, and who today gives his name to, among other things, a species of penguin?
2. Which German physicist is famed for his uncertainty principle, and was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the creation of quantum mechanics”?
3. Can you name the four chemical elements named after either Germany itself or a place in Germany?

Round 3 – USA

1. Which American physicist, with the given name Julius, was a key figure in the Manhattan project, leading to him being dubbed “the father of the atomic bomb”?
2. Which American biologist, with the given name Edward, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and often called “the father of sociobiology”?
3. Can you name the three chemical elements named after either America itself or a place in America?

Round 4 – Italy

1. Which Italian physicist is best known for his invention of the battery in the 19^th century?
2. Which 17^th century Italian astronomer was the first to observe four of Saturn’s moons, and gives his name to the orbiter component of the spacecraft sent to Saturn in 1997 (Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens gives his name to the probe)?
3. There are no Italian place names which give their name to a chemical element. However, there is one element named after an Italian – which one?

 Round 5 – The Picture Round

This week’s picture round is, like the rounds preceding it, also devoted to one particular country. Work out what each charade depicts, and identify the country in question (warning: apologies may be due for pronunciation issues for number 3).

1.

{credit}Per Ole Hagen / Irisgerh / Richard Bartz{/credit}

2.

{credit}PD / Thomas Faivre-Duboz / Takeaway{/credit}

3.

{credit}PJ McNally / Kamalnv / BLW{/credit}

Look out for all the answers next week. In the mean time, have a great weekend.