Who Invented It?: questions and answers
Study every question with its correct answer and explanation.
1. Who received the first US patent for the telephone in 1876?
- A. Thomas Edison
- B. Alexander Graham Bell
- C. Nikola Tesla
- D. Guglielmo Marconi
Answer: Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was granted the patent in March 1876; days later he made the first successful call to his assistant, Thomas Watson.
2. Who introduced movable-type printing to Europe around 1440?
- A. Johannes Gutenberg
- B. William Caxton
- C. Leonardo da Vinci
- D. Galileo Galilei
Answer: Johannes Gutenberg
Movable type already existed in China and Korea, but Gutenberg's press made books far cheaper in Europe; his famous Gutenberg Bible was printed in the 1450s.
3. Who made the first successful powered, controlled airplane flight in 1903?
- A. The Montgolfier brothers
- B. The Lumière brothers
- C. Karl Benz
- D. The Wright brothers
Answer: The Wright brothers
Orville and Wilbur Wright's first flight at Kitty Hawk, USA, lasted just 12 seconds and covered about 37 metres.
4. Who discovered penicillin, the first widely used antibiotic, in 1928?
- A. Louis Pasteur
- B. Edward Jenner
- C. Alexander Fleming
- D. Robert Koch
Answer: Alexander Fleming
Fleming noticed that mould growing on a forgotten culture plate had killed the bacteria around it — a lucky accident that went on to save millions of lives.
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5. Who invented the World Wide Web in 1989?
- A. Bill Gates
- B. Tim Berners-Lee
- C. Steve Jobs
- D. Larry Page
Answer: Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee proposed the Web while working at CERN in Switzerland; the Web runs on top of the internet, which already existed.
6. In which country was paper invented?
- A. Egypt
- B. India
- C. China
- D. Greece
Answer: China
Paper was invented in ancient China; the court official Cai Lun is traditionally credited with improving the process around 105 CE.
7. In 628 CE, the mathematician Brahmagupta wrote some of the earliest known rules for calculating with zero. Where was he from?
- A. India
- B. Greece
- C. Egypt
- D. China
Answer: India
India's place-value system with zero spread through Arab scholars to Europe, which is why our digits are called Hindu-Arabic numerals.
8. Who invented dynamite in 1867?
- A. Marie Curie
- B. Alfred Nobel
- C. Michael Faraday
- D. James Watt
Answer: Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel patented dynamite in 1867, and his fortune later funded the Nobel Prizes, first awarded in 1901.
9. Who developed the world's first vaccine, against smallpox, in 1796?
- A. Louis Pasteur
- B. Joseph Lister
- C. Jonas Salk
- D. Edward Jenner
Answer: Edward Jenner
Jenner used material from cowpox sores to protect people against smallpox — the word 'vaccine' comes from the Latin 'vacca', meaning cow.
10. Which scientist invented the crescograph, a device that measures the tiny growth of plants?
- A. C. V. Raman
- B. Homi J. Bhabha
- C. Jagadish Chandra Bose
- D. Satyendra Nath Bose
Answer: Jagadish Chandra Bose
Jagadish Chandra Bose, born in 1858 in present-day Bangladesh, was also a pioneer of radio and microwave research.