100 Top Science Trivia Questions and Answers

1. What is the unit measurement for the activity of a radioactive source? The Becqueral (Bq). 1 Bq = 1
disintegration per second
2. If you mix all light colours, do you get black, white or a rainbow? White. Technically adding all
colours of light together is called colour addition.
3. How many separate patents did Thomas Edison file? 1093!
4. Is a white gold ring pure gold? White gold is usually an alloy of gold and a white metal such as
silver and palladium. Nickel is no longer used due to skin allergies. What is ‘fools gold’? Iron pyrite
crystals.
5. What is the symbol for Silver? Ag
6. What does ATP stand for? Adenosine triphosphate, the molecule that is used for energy by all cells
7. What survives impacting Earth’s surface; a meteor, a meteorite or an asteroid? Meteorite.
8. What is the strongest known magnet in the Universe? A Neutron Star
9. Which is the hottest planet in the solar system? Venus, surface temperature 460oC
10. How far is the moon away from Earth? Around 376 600 km away.
11. Where does sound travel faster; water or air? Water.
12. What is opposite to matter? Antimatter.
13. Do have the same number of neck vertebrae as giraffe’s? Yes.
14. How much salt does the average human body contain? Around 250 grams.
15. If I kept walking in a straight line on a flat surface with no visible features, is it possible to walk in
circles eventually? People often favor one leg over the other. It is possible that over time the
discrepancy between the two leg strides may indeed cause you to walk in circles.
16. Why do bubbles pop? They get too dry from the surrounding air.
17. What is the Law of Conservation of Energy? The energy of the Universe is constant; it can neither
be created or destroyed but only transferred and transformed.
18. True or false – there are 206 bones in an adult human body and 300 bones in an infants body?
True. Some bones in infants skulls have not yet fused together.
19. True or false- most of the dust in your home is made of human skin? True – up to 70%!
20. Can you lick your elbow? No. Now be honest, did you try?
21. If you go into space, do you get taller? Yes, the cartilage disks in your spine expand under zero
gravity.
22. What does a manometer measure? The pressure of a closed system.
23. What is the unit measurement for the activity of a radioactive source? The Becqueral (Bq). 1 Bq =
1 disintegration per second
24. If you mix all light colours, do you get black, white or a rainbow? White. Technically adding all
colours of light together is called colour addition.
25. How many separate patents did Thomas Edison file? 1093!
26. What type of organism makes up the oldest known fossil?Blue-green algae from South Africa at
3.2 billion years old.
27. What does the Scoville Heat Unit Scale measure?The heat of chilies
28. Is a tomato a fruit or vegetable?A fruit.
29. Why do bubbles pop? They get too dry from the surrounding air.
30. What is the Law of Conservation of Energy? The energy of the Universe is constant; it can neither
be created or destroyed but only transferred and transformed.
31. What is the name given to planets outside our solar system? Extrasolar planets
32. Which is the rarest blood type in humans? AB negative. <1% of the population
33. Why does eyesight change as you get older? The eye’s lens continues to grow throughout life,
becoming thicker and less transparent.
34. True or false; nitroglycerine can be used to treat heart attacks? True. It dilates blood vessels.
35. What Australian timber made the London docks?Turpentine; Syncarpia glomulifera
36. What is Xylem?The hollow woody tissue in plants that carries water and minerals from the roots
to throughout the entire plant
37. What is the scientific name of a Sydney Blue Gum?Eucalyptus saligna
38. Where is the largest known meteorite crater on Earth? Vredefort Ring in South Africa, 299km
diameter!
39. What causes an Aurora? Charged particles from solar wind
40. What temperature and pressure is needed to convert graphite into a diamond? 3000 degrees
celsius and 100,000 atmospheres. That’s 10132500 kPA, at least 20,000 times more pressure than
the pressure inside the average bike tire!
41. What is a buret? A long tube of glass usually marked in 0.1mL units that’s equipped with a
stopcock for the controlled addition of a liquid to a receiving flask
42. What is the hardest substance in the human body? Tooth enamel.
43. What is trepanning? An ancient form of medicine which involved making holes in human skull to
relieve pressure; don’t try at home!
44. What is the longest type of cell in the body? The nerve cell (neuron).
45. What does bile do in you body? Emulsify fats in the small intestine
46. Which is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature? Mercury (melting point of -38.87 deg
Celsius). Room temperature is usually defined as 25 deg. Celsius. Gallium gets close to also melting
at room temperature > it’s melting temperature is 29.78 deg. Celsius… almost made it!
47. Who invented the first battery? Count Alessandro Volta
48. What is a Pyrogen? A substance that causes fever.
49. Where would you find your pinna? It’s your outer ear (the bit you see made out of cartilage)
50. Who has more hair follicles, blondes or brunettes? Blondes.
51. Which is the only Australian mammal restricted to alpine environments?The Mountain Pygmy
Possum
52. How old is our Sun? 5 billion years… we think…
53. True or false; when lighting hits a tree the water inside the tree boils and expands, blowing the
tree apart? True
54. What is the world’s tallest grass?Bamboo. Some species reach up to 39 metres in height.
55. Is Obsidian an igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic rock? Igneous.
56. Which country has the longest coastline? Canada, due to the number of northern islands.
57. Is a Tsunami and a tidal wave the same thing? No. Tsunamis are caused by water displacement
as a result of an undersea earthquake or a landslide. Tidal waves are caused by the moon & Sun’s
gravitational pull combined with prevailing winds and water currents.
58. What is the definition of dust? A particle small enough to be carried by air currents.
59. When was the first seismograph invented? Approximately A.D. 200 in China
60. Is the stratosphere above or below the troposphere? Extending 50km above the troposphere
61. Where does sound travel faster; water or air? Water.
62. What is opposite to matter? Antimatter.
63. True or false; your body’s temperature rises slightly during digestion? True
64. Where are the three smallest bones in the human body? What are they called? In the middle ear.
Collectively called ossicles, the 3 bones are the Malleus (hammer), Incus (anvil) & Stapes (stirrup).
65. What’s the lifespan of a human red blood cell? Around 120 days.
66. True or false; A modern human’s brain is smaller than a Neanderthal’s brain?
67. What is the collective name of animals and plants that live on a lake bottom?Benthos
68. What is the largest living structure on Earth?The Great Barrier Reef, Australia
69. What is oldest living thing known on Earth?A bristlecone pine in California… it’s about 4600 years
old!
71. What’s the highest recorded surface wind speed? 372km/h! Over Mt Washington, New
Hampshire on April 12, 1934.
72. What is the name of the layer of air closest to us in the atmosphere? Troposphere
73. True or false – is lightning 3 times hotter than the Sun? True
74. What formation on Earth can have the names tabular, blocky, wedge, dome, pinnacle, dry dock,
growler or bergy bit? Icebergs
75. Which crystalline formations are on cave ceilings; stalagmites or stalactites? Stalactites.
76. What does a manometer measure? The pressure of a closed system.
77. True or false – sterling silver is pure silver? False. It contains up to 7.5% copper
78. Which chemical causes the burning taste sensation when eating chilies? Capcaicin
79. Which planet is closest to the sun? – Mercury.
80. What is the sun made out of? – The Sun is at present, about 70% hydrogen and 28% helium by
mass everything else amounts to less than 2%
81. Where is the Suez Canal? – Egypt
82. What’s the Symbol to iron? – Fe
83. Does the sun rotate? – The movements of the sunspots indicate that the Sun rotates once every
27 days at the equator, but only once in 31 days at the poles.
84. How big is the Milky Way? – The Milky Way is actually a giant, as its mass is probably between
750 billion and one trillion solar masses, and its diameter is about 100,000 light years.
85. Who was the last president of the Soviet Union? – Mikhail Gorbachev.
86. What political system was gradually dismantled in South Africa, starting in 1989? – Apartheid.
87. What’s the first name of Shakespeare? – William
88. Where is the Leaning Tower of Pisa? – Pisa, Italy.
89. How much bigger is the sun than the earth? A: The Earth is about 13 thousand kilometers (8000
miles) wide, whereas the Sun is roughly 1.4 million kilometers (900,000 miles) across. If the Sun were
a hollow ball, you could fit about one million Earths inside of it!
90. How old is the earth? -The earth is about 4.5 billion years old.
91. How old is the universe? – The Universe is at least 15 billion years old, but probably not more
than 20 billion years old.
92. Which planet spins the fastest? – Jupiter is the fastest spinning planet in our solar system rotating
on average once in just under 10 hours.
93. Where is Notre Dame? – Paris
94. Where is the Pyrenees? – Between Spain and France.
95. What bird was domesticated first? The first bird domesticated by man was the goose.
96. Why a duck’s quack doesn’t echo? – No one knows.
97. What is the Milky Way? – The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy.
98. What star other than the sun is closest to the earth? – It is Proxima Centauri, the nearest member
of the Alpha Centauri triple star system.
99. The Golden Gate Bridge? – San Francisco, California, USA.
100. Where is Broadway? – New York City, USA.
 Science Quiz Questions
1.On the periodic table, elements are arranged in order of what?
2.True or false: The moons Phobos and Deimos belong to planet Saturn?
3.What does a litmus test establish?
4.What did Benjamin Franklin invent?
5.What is fool's gold made of?
6.Which astronomer discovered Uranus whilst surveying the night sky through a telescope?
7.What is the process by which plants convert light energy into food known as?
8.What group of invertebrate animals have three pairs of legs and a body split into three parts?
9.Which famous scientist wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 advising that the
United States should focus on its own nuclear weapon research?
10. What is the first stage of the hydrologic cycle?
11. What type of energy is stored by a spring when it is stretched?
12. Which 3 elements can be magnetized??
13. Which planet takes approximately 23 Earth months to orbit the Sun?
14. Which Russian chemist became the first scientist to create a periodic table?
15. True or false: More than half of the bones in a human body are found in the hands and feet?
16. Which silvery-white metal has the atomic number 46?
17. What scientific name is table salt known as?
18. Which famous physicist discovered and named the proton?
19. What powers pneumatic machinery?
20. True or false: Stephen Hawking was born exactly 300 years following the death of Gallileo?

Science Quiz Answers

1. Atomic number
2. False: Phobos and Deimos belong to Mars
3. The acidity or alkalinity of a solution
4. Lightning conductor
5. Pyrite
6. William Herschel
7. Photosynthesis
8. Insects
9. Albert Einstein
10. Evaporation
11. Elastic Potential Energy
12. Iron, nickel and cobalt
13. Mars
14. Dmitri Mendeleev
15. True
16. Palladium
17. Sodium chloride
18. Ernest Rutherford
19. Air/gas pressure
20. True

Questions for Science Quiz Two

1. What is the name of the lightest substance?
2. What is the Chemical Symbol for Iron?
3. What makes up 80% of the human brain?
4. What is the name given to the female part of a flower?
5. What are the five human senses?
6. What is the name of main artery that carries blood from the heart?
7. What is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature?
8. Global warming is caused by too much of which type of gas?
9. Which element has atomic number 2?
10. Which metal makes the strongest magnets?
11. What device is used to measure air pressure?
12. Which two elements make up water?
13. Which gas has the chemical formula CO?
14. Who invented the gramophone?
15. Which vitamin does sunlight provide to humans?
Answers Science Quiz Two
1. Hydrogen
2. Fe
3. Water
4. Pistil
5. Hearing, sight, smell, touch and taste
6. The Aorta
7. Mercury
8. Carbon dioxide
9. Helium
10. Iron
11. A barometer
12. Oxygen and Hydrogen
13. Carbon Monoxide
14. Thomas Edison
15. Vitamin D

Science Quiz Questions 9

1. In the following equation, KE = ½ × m × v2, what do the letters 'KE' stand for?
2. How many more teeth form a complete set of adult teeth than deciduous teeth (milk teeth)?
3. Which element is number one on the periodic table?
4. What abbreviation is 'Lysergic acid diethylamide' more commonly known as?
5. What 'T' describes a treeless Arctic area where the subsoil is permanently frozen?
6. What did Joseph Wilson Swan invent?
7. Females have 22 pairs of autosomes plus a pair of either X or Y chromosomes?
8. What is the symbol for palladium on the periodic table of elements?
9. François Englert and Peter W. Higgs won the 2013 Nobel Prize for which subject?
10. What must an object be doing for kinetic energy to occur?
11. In the equation E=mc², what does 'm' stand for?
12. What unit of measurement is used worldwide for distance travelled by sea and air?
13. The distance travelled divided by the time taken is the formula used for working out what?
14. True or False: Red blood cells carry oxygen around our bodies?
15. Which element is number 118 on the periodic table of elements?
16. What is the minimum number of atoms required to join together chemically to form a
molecule?
17. Which planet does the moon 'Titan' orbit?
18. What is the typical number of chromosomes in a human cell?
19. Do your pupils dilate or constrict in the dark?
20. How many neutrons does the element Uranium have?
Science Quiz Answers 9
1. Kinetic energy
2. Twelve
3. Hydrogen
4. LSD
5. Tundra
6. Incandescent light bulb
7. X chromosomes
8. Pd
9. Physics
10. It must be moving
11. Mass
12. Nautical miles
13. Speed
14. TRUE
15. Ununoctium
16. Two
17. Saturn
18. Forty-six
19. Dilate
20. 146

Science Quiz Questions 10

1. Which is the only body organ able to regenerate itself?
2. Which element is symbolised by 'Hs' on the periodic table of elements?
3. What does 'REM sleep' stand for?
4. Which organ forms the main part of the central nervous system?
5. What 'V' measures the thickness of a fluid (resistance to flow)?
6. W is the chemical symbol of which chemical element?
7. What was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell?
8. Which side of the human brain controls the left side of the body?
9. Which famous scientist is often credited with the invention of the phrase 'survival of the fittest'?
10. What is the chemical formula for H2SO4?
11. What is the largest living structure on Earth?
12. Which famous naturalist published his theory of evolution in a book called 'On the Origin of
Species' in 1859?
13. What part of the brain is used for thinking and making decisions?
14. What is Heterochromia
15. In an electric circuit, if two 5 amp resistors are wired in series, the overall resistance of the
circuit is 10 amps. What is the overall resistance if the two 5 amp resistors are wired in
parallel?
16. Which two countries experience the most tornadoes per year?
17. What groups, known as A, B, AB and O, can be either RhD positive or RhD negative?
18. NASA's Voyager 2 spaceprobe observed the 'Great Dark Spot' of which planet in 1989?
19. What word, beginning with H, describes a heightened sense of smell?
20. What are the rings of planet Saturn composed of?
Science Quiz Answers 10
1. Liver
2. Hassium
3. Rapid eye movement sleep
4. The brain
5. Viscosity
6. Tungsten (Wolfram)
7. A sheep called Dolly, born in 1996
8. The right side
9. Charles Darwin
10. Sulphuric Acid
11. The Great Barrier Reef
12. Charles Darwin
13. The forebrain
14. A difference of colouration, usually of the Iris part of the eye
15. 2.5 amps
16. The United States and Canada
17. Blood groups
18. Neptune
19. Hyperosmia
20. Millions of particles made almost entirely from water ice