36 Questions from Britannica’s Most Popular Science Quizzes

Question: What is another name for a drowned river valley?

Answer: A ria is a funnel-shaped estuary that occurs at a river mouth and is formed by the submergence, or “drowning,” of the lower portion of the river valley. Generally occurring along a rugged coast perpendicular to a mountain chain, many rias were formed by the rise in sea level after the melting of the vast continental glaciers.

Question: Where is a giant rodent called the capybara found?

Answer: The capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris), also called the carpincho or water hog, is a semiaquatic mammal of Central and South America. The largest living rodents, South American capybaras may be 1.25 metres (4 feet) long and weigh 66 kg (145 pounds) or more.

Question: In physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite what?

Answer: Newton’s third law of motion states that when two bodies interact, they apply forces to one another that are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction. In other words: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Question: In some parts of the world, mysterious deaths of which creatures threaten agriculture?

Answer: Little-understood conditions have killed off vast numbers of bee hives in North America, threatening, for example, some nut and melon crops.

Question: What variety of mole is characterized by 22 fleshy pink touch organs projecting from around the tip of the snout?

Answer: The star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata) of northeastern North America has 22 pink, tentacle-like touch organs set radially on its nose.

Question: What instrument is used to measure the ground oscillations produced by an earthquake?

Answer: The seismograph is an instrument that makes a record of the ground oscillations caused by an earthquake or other Earth-shaking phenomenon.

Question: In what year was the ball bearing patented?

Answer: The ball bearing was patented in Wales in 1794. It allowed a wagon wheel to turn smoothly on a wooden axle.

Question: What is the term for all positive and negative whole numbers, including zero?

Answer: The integers are all positive and negative whole numbers …, -5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, …. If two such numbers are added, subtracted, or multiplied, the result is also an integer.

Question: What chemical element is represented by the symbol Ge?

Answer: Ge is the symbol for the chemical element germanium.

Question: Max Planck’s great discovery was that radiation energy is emitted in packets that he called what?

Answer: Quanta is derived from the same Latin word that gives us quantity.

Question: Which vehicle was invented about 3000 BCE?

Answer: The first chariot was invented about 3000 BCE.

Question: When were the first rockets launched?

Answer: The Chinese made rockets by filling bamboo tubes with gunpowder, probably in the 13th century. When they lit the gunpowder, the gas from the explosion sent the rocket into the air.

Question: Zebras belong to the same family as which of these animals?

Answer: The zebra is any of three species of black-and-white striped mammals of the horse family, Equidae.

Question: The day on which the Sun’s direct rays cross the celestial equator is called:

Answer: On the equinox, the day on which the Sun’s path crosses the celestial equator, night and day are of equal length.

Question: Which of these animals swims in an upright position?

Answer: The sea horse has a head and neck shaped like a horse’s, and it swims in an upright position.

Question: Golden hamsters are commonly kept as pets. Nearly all are descended from a small group captured in 1930. From what country did the original hamsters come?

Answer: In 1930 a small group of golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) were captured in Syria, and their descendants were distributed worldwide.

Question: How many times larger is the radius of the Sun than that of the Earth?

Answer: The radius of the Sun is 109 times that of the Earth.

Question: For what is the Jurassic period named?

Answer: The Jurassic period is named for the Jura Mountains, where many fossils have been found.

Question: That radiation and matter have properties both of particles and of waves is called what?

Answer: Louis de Broglie suggested in 1924 that matter, like radiation, had both particle and wave characteristics.

Question: A baby blue whale drinks this many liters of milk per day:

Answer: A baby blue whale drinks approximately 190 liters of milk each day. By contrast, a baby tiger drinks only about a liter of milk per day.

Question: What is the Pythagorean theorem?

Answer: The Pythagorean theorem is the geometric theorem that the sum of the squares on the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square on the hypotenuse—or, in algebraic notation, a² + b² = c². Although the theorem has long been associated with the Greek mathematician-philosopher Pythagoras, it is actually far older.

Question: What chemical element is represented by the symbol C?

Answer: C is the symbol for the chemical element carbon.

Question: Identify the type of chemical reaction: S + O₂ →  SO₂

Answer: In synthesis reactions, two or more reactants combine to form a single product.

Question: Which of the following technological developments came first?

Answer: The first telescope is thought to have been built in the Netherlands in the early 1600s, but Italian mathematician Galileo Galilei almost immediately popularized use of the "far seeing" device for scientific purposes.

Question: What chemical element is represented by the symbol H?

Answer: H is the symbol for the chemical element hydrogen.

Question: In the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which two measurable properties of a particle cannot be observed precisely at the same time?

Answer: When a particle’s position is known precisely, its momentum is not, and vice versa.

Question: Which of these objects is the farthest from the Sun?

Answer: 90377 Sedna (or, simply, Sedna) is 13 billion km (8.1 billion miles) from the Sun.

Question: What term describes the alignment of three celestial bodies?

Answer: When three celestial bodies appear to be in a straight line, as sometimes happens, hey are said to be in syzygy.

Question: Which of the following is not a marsupial?

Answer: Marsupials are mammals that carry their young in a pouch. Kangaroos, koalas, and wombats are Australian marsupials.

Question: What is the theory that posits large-scale horizontal movements of continents that occur over long episodes of geologic time?

Answer: The idea of continental drift posits large-scale horizontal movements of continents relative to one another (and to the ocean basins) during one or more episodes of geologic time. This concept was a precursor to the development of the theory of plate tectonics, which incorporates it.

Question: What chemical element is represented by the symbol Ag?

Answer: Ag is the symbol for the chemical element silver.

Question: Identify the type of chemical reaction: 2Na + Cl₂ → 2NaCl

Answer: Synthesis reactions are those in which two or more reactants unite to produce a single product.

Question: Who discovered the X-ray?

Answer: Recipient of the first Nobel prize for physics in 1901, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen was the discoverer of X-rays.

Question: How many times is the largest fish larger than the smallest fish?

Answer: The smallest fish is the goby, usually less than 10 millimeters long. The whale shark is the largest of all fish. It can grow as large as 18 meters long.

Question: In geology, what is a monadnock?

Answer: Monadnocks are isolated hills of bedrock standing conspicuously above the general level of the surrounding area. They are left as erosional remnants because of their more-resistant rock composition. Commonly monadnocks consist of quartzite or less-jointed massive volcanic rocks.

Question: The square of a particle’s wave function describes the probability of what about the particle?

Answer: Max Born proposed the square of a particle’s wave function describes the probability that it is at a particular place.