How Well Do You Know Your Scientists? Take a Fun Quiz to Find Out!

If you get more than five of these right, consider yourself a major science geek. Answers are at the end of this article.

1. What did Albert Einstein earn the Nobel prize for?

a. writing the equation for why the sky looks blue
b. discovering the existence of black holes
c. proving E=mc²
d. explaining the photovoltaic effect
e. explaining Brownian motion

2. Which of these scientists was involved in inventing the atomic bomb?

a. Enrico Fermi
b. Nikola Tesla
c. Stephen Hawking
d. Isaac Asimov
e. Albert Einstein

3. What did Marie Curie die of?

a. old age
b. food poisoning
c. the plague
d. tuberculosis
e. radiation poisoning

4. Who was the first woman scientist to receive a Nobel prize?

a. Beatrix Potter
b. Marie Curie
c. Florence Nightingale
d. Rachel Carson
e. Jane Goodall

5. Which scientist first proposed that the Earth and other planets move around the Sun instead of everything revolving around the Earth?

a. Galileo
b. Aristotle
c. Nicholas Copernicus
d. Isaac Newton
e. Johannes Kepler

6. Who helped popularize science for the general public?

a. Stephen Hawking
b. Isaac Asimov
c. Carl Sagan
d. Bill Nye
e. Richard Feynman

7. Which scientist invented radio?

a. Guglielmo Marconi
b. Neils Bohr
c. Alessandro Volta
d. Max Planck
e. Nikola Tesla

8. Who came up with calculus?

a. Isaac Newton
b. Euler
c. Euclid
d. Renee Descartes
e. Gottfried Leibniz

9. Which scientist is credited with the principal that explains how airplane wings create lift?

a. Charles Darwin
b. Daniel Bernoulli
c. James Clerk Maxwell
d. Lord Kelvin
e. Pascal

10. Who said, "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration?"

a. Michael Faraday
b. Robert Oppenheimer
c. Benjamin Franklin
d. Albert Einstein
e. Thomas Edison

11. Who was in charge of laying the first successful transatlantic cable?

a. Lord Kelvin
b. Stephen Hawking
c. Alexander Muller
d. Edwin Drake
e. John Daniell

12. After which scientist is the unit of electric current named?

a. Alessandro Volta
b. Luigi Galvani
c. Andre Ampere
d. James Joule
e. James Watt

13. Who is known for the temperature scale he developed?

a. Anders Celsius
b. Lord Kelvin
c. Daniel Fahrenheit
d. Santorio Santorio
e. Rene de Reamur

14. Which scientist had the number of molecules in one mole named after him?

a. Pythagoras
b. Euler
c. Boltzmann
d. Avogadro
e. Planck

15. Who is known for advancing the theory of evolution?

a. Rachel Carson
b. Sir Joseph Banks
c. Charles Darwin
d. Richard Dawkins
e. Gregor Mendel

16. Who was the first Asian scientist to win a Nobel prize for physics?

a. Homi Bhabha
b. Vikrama Sarabhai
c. Birbal Sahani
d. Dr. P. C. Ray
e. Dr. C. V. Raman

17. Which scientist was born in Portland, Oregon?

a. Thomas Chamberlin
b. James Hutton
c. Linus Pauling
d. Richard Feynman
e. Stephen Hawking

18. Who is best known for showing how to stop milk and wine from going sour?

a. John Snow
b. Louis Pasteur
c. Marie Curie
d. Agostino Bassi
e. Anton van Leeuwenhoek

19. Which scientist first promoted the idea of sterile surgery?

a. Joseph Lister
b. Louis Pasteur
c. Hua Tuo
d. Abulcasis
e. Sushruta

20. Which scientist is considered a leading visionary in the field of string theory?

a. Ed Witten
b. Jim Gates
c. Brian Greene
d. Juan Maldacena
e. Eva Silverstein

Answers:

1. d - explaining the photovoltaic effect
2. a - Enrico Fermi
3. e - radiation poisoning
4. b - Marie Curie
5. c - Nicholas Copernicus
6. all of the above
7. e - Nikola Tesla
8. a & e - Newton and Leibniz simultaneously
9. b - Daniel Bernoulli
10. e - Thomas Edison
11. a - Lord Kelvin
12. c - Andre Ampere
13. all of the above
14. d - Avogadro
15. c - Charles Darwin
16. e - Dr. C. V. Raman
17. c - Linus Pauling
18. b - Louis Pasteur
19. a - Joseph Lister
20. a - Ed Witten