Pop Quiz

Oh! I know a few of these.

1) 20th C. I can’t believe that this was not known when my mum was at school!

7) Kelvin (?)

Far too short a timespan for geology to account for, but much better than the 4000 or so years still accepted by many. (Do I get partial credits if I don’t remember the actual number?)

9) Rosalind Franklind, who was dead by the time the Noble was awarded.

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1. 20th century. Guessing 1960′s
2. Erosthones (sp) around 200 BC
3. 1959 (complete guess) Hubble’s finding that the universe is expanding.
4. Due to the universe exploding from one point of super-compacted matter.
5. One of the ancient greeks (cannot recall); that matter could be divided until it reached a point where it could not be divided further.
6. I recall it was Michielson who created some type of mirror device, early 1900′s
7. Newton. (wild guess)
8. 6,400 years
9. Oregon State University alumni, Linus Pauling
10. Einstein

It’s OK… I used to suffer from “text anxiety” in school. [sheesh, what an ego-deflator ]

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Didn’t Newton rip off Bernard of Chartres with the “shoulders of giants” quote?

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2 I thought the earth was measured by Anaximandros, and Erathosthenes invented a way to chase the prime numbers with a sieve. And the measurement was done by a Greek based on data collected in Egypt. Yay for the mediterranean!
3 They figured out the big bang was real in 1959 when they discovered the bottom radiation (or whatever it’s called in english) because Arno and Penzias (sp?) couldn’t find a way to get rid of annoying waves in their radio receiver. They even tried cleaning it of all the pidgeon droppings.
4 The name big bang was given by Hoyle, who found the concept ridiculous.
5 would be Democritos.
6 I thought the non infinity of the speed of light was first noticed by mysterious timings of Jupiter’s moons (they showed up later than expected when Jupiter was more far from the earth), around 1600. Somehow to me noninfinite seems more important than the actual speed .

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1) Umm, recently, like the 60′s.

2) Lots of people made calculations, and some weren’t far off…In India and Iraq as early as 600 ad folk were measuring. in around 1700 I think, Picard did some math which told us that the earth is not perfectly round, and he got into trouble for that.

Someone built a big thing with a pendulum, who was that again? To measure mass.

3) Dunno. But some communications guys were trying to figure out why their satellite dish was making all this noise, and when they asked researchers nearby if they were getting the dame noise the researchers said, ‘dammit, that’s the noise we’ve been looking for!’ The communications guys got the Nobel Prize, the researchers got nuttin! The noise was microwaves from planets far, far away and still moving further, (doppler effect) proving that the universe was expanding.

4) Someone said ‘yeah, right, a Big Bang. What dummies’ and the name stuck.

5) No idea!

6) I’ll take ‘Einstein’ for $5. He did math. Math is cool!

7) I don’t know (the Reverend Somebody?) He thought it was much younger. Darwin reasoned that the earth had to be very, very old for evolution to have happened.
6,000 years?

9) it was THE WOMAN!

10) Pass!

Yay! I love quizzes.

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Fortunately, my lovely wife loves science history too. Must have learned something from osmosis.

1. 1960s, but the idea that the continents had somehow come apart was in the late 1500s.
2.It definitely was in the 100-200 BCE range. I believe Robert the Skeptic is right but that his spelling is wrong. Erastothenes?
3. LeMaitre late 1950s-early 1960s. My adoring wife lent me her copy of Carroll’s “From Eternity to Here” (not a fast read though). Bonus: interference with radio.
4. Hoyle trying to describe for radio audience.
5. Not sure, but probably ancient Greece.
6. Romer or Newton in the mid 1600s or early 1700s by using astronomical observation
7.Kelvin?
8.? More than 5000 that’s for sure.
9.Rosalind Franklin, who also did a lot of work on Polio (which is also a very interesting history)
10.I’ll guess Einstein

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1) Wagner (sp?) – German dude – continental drift theories – some time around WWI. Same theory led to the understanding of the Sierra Nevada mtn formation. I have NO IDEA when his theories became accepted but I do know the USGS started doing a lot of earthquake research in the mid-late 1950′s… so I am going to assume it was some point btwn 1957-1967.

2) That one is easy, it was an old Greek Math dude named Eratosthenes!!! I still remember the song I made up to spell his name, hehehehe! What era???? Ummmm. I don’t know, sometime BCE. *grin*, but I remember the formula and I think I deserve points for that : Solar Noon on June 21, erect a meter stick and measure it’s shadow, then calculate the angle, subtract that from 90 and you have the angle of the zenith. Sun angle/360 = Distance to Tropic of Cancer/ Earth’s Circumference.

3) Part A. I don’t know. Part B) It had something to do with microwave radiation and Hubble’s Law v=HoD

4) A radio show host tried to make fun of the theory in the late 40′s and the name stuck.

5) Demotricus (sp?) Greek philosopher. Then, Dalton.

6) Lambda!!! The old Greek dudes, once again! But they weren’t successful because they believed it was infinite. I assume you mean when was it first calculated somewhat accurately? That would be the Danish guy whose name escapes me… but I think it had something to do with Galileo and Jovian timekeeping. I remember a picture of a pendulum.

7) A) Kelvin B) 100M yo

9) I don’t know her name, but it was a WOMAN, she was AWESOME and she deserved all kinds of awards for the work she did.

10) Ummmmm??? Einstein? Hawking?

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I failed. On every single question. Let me just slink away now.

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Ok, can’t you ever ask questions about Tudor England, or Chinese History, or the history of Desert Storm??? Or something I could answer?

And, no, for the record I do not use because I said so. I tell them to look it up, hehe!

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i actually knew almost none of the answers you were looking for. Very disappointing until I realized I understood the science in question in a – let me double-check – all cases. I will admit this is made worse by my absolutely abysmal ability with names (that applies to real people I know as well).

I guess the history of science hasn’t fascinated me as much as science has, so,when I’m with science it’s all about the stuff and not who first discovered it (though I know a few you didn’t ask).

There are a few areas I know more about (like radiation because of specific curiosity. And I remember reading about the ignored member of the genetics team – just couldn’t remember her name.

I hate failing, but not enough to cheat.

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Aargh! At least I realize how ignorant I am.

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