Famous Scientists: Who Discovered What?: questions and answers
Study every question with its correct answer and explanation.
1. Which scientist gave us the theory of relativity and the famous equation E = mc²?
- A. Isaac Newton
- B. Albert Einstein
- C. Niels Bohr
- D. Stephen Hawking
Answer: Albert Einstein
Einstein published special relativity in 1905. Surprisingly, his 1921 Nobel Prize was awarded for explaining the photoelectric effect, not for relativity!
2. According to a famous legend, which ancient Greek scientist shouted 'Eureka!' after making a discovery in his bath?
- A. Archimedes
- B. Aristotle
- C. Pythagoras
- D. Euclid
Answer: Archimedes
The story goes that Archimedes saw the water rise as he got into the bath and realised how to measure the volume of an oddly shaped object. His principle of buoyancy still explains why ships float.
3. In 1610, which scientist pointed his telescope at Jupiter and discovered its four largest moons?
- A. Johannes Kepler
- B. Tycho Brahe
- C. Isaac Newton
- D. Galileo Galilei
Answer: Galileo Galilei
Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are still called the 'Galilean moons' in his honour. Seeing moons circle another planet helped convince people that not everything orbits the Earth.
4. Who published the first widely recognised periodic table of the elements in 1869?
- A. Antoine Lavoisier
- B. John Dalton
- C. Dmitri Mendeleev
- D. Marie Curie
Answer: Dmitri Mendeleev
Mendeleev boldly left gaps for elements nobody had found yet and even predicted their properties. When gallium and germanium were discovered later, they matched his predictions remarkably well.
- Advertisement
5. Who discovered the electron in 1897?
- A. Ernest Rutherford
- B. J. J. Thomson
- C. Niels Bohr
- D. James Chadwick
Answer: J. J. Thomson
Thomson showed that 'cathode rays' were made of tiny negatively charged particles far lighter than any atom. Later, Rutherford discovered the atomic nucleus, and Chadwick found the neutron in 1932.
6. Which Indian physicist won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering how light scatters as it passes through a material?
- A. Homi J. Bhabha
- B. Meghnad Saha
- C. C. V. Raman
- D. Satyendra Nath Bose
Answer: C. V. Raman
The 'Raman effect' was discovered on 28 February 1928, and India celebrates that date every year as National Science Day. Raman was the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize in a science subject.
7. The particles called 'bosons' are named after which scientist, who developed his key idea while teaching at the University of Dhaka?
- A. Jagadish Chandra Bose
- B. Satyendra Nath Bose
- C. Meghnad Saha
- D. Prafulla Chandra Ray
Answer: Satyendra Nath Bose
In 1924 Satyendra Nath Bose sent his paper on counting particles of light to Albert Einstein, who translated it into German himself and had it published. Their names are now joined in 'Bose–Einstein statistics'.
8. Heating milk to kill harmful germs is called 'pasteurisation'. It is named after which scientist?
- A. Robert Koch
- B. Joseph Lister
- C. Alexander Fleming
- D. Louis Pasteur
Answer: Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur first developed the method in the 1860s to stop wine and beer from spoiling. He also created an early vaccine against rabies in 1885.
9. Who discovered X-rays in 1895?
- A. Wilhelm Röntgen
- B. Thomas Edison
- C. Nikola Tesla
- D. Michael Faraday
Answer: Wilhelm Röntgen
One of the first X-ray pictures Röntgen made showed the bones of his wife's hand — complete with her ring! In 1901 he received the very first Nobel Prize in Physics.
10. Which astronomer's book, published in 1543, argued that the Earth and the other planets travel around the Sun?
- A. Ptolemy
- B. Galileo Galilei
- C. Nicolaus Copernicus
- D. Edwin Hubble
Answer: Nicolaus Copernicus
Copernicus's Sun-centred (heliocentric) model overturned the ancient idea that everything circles the Earth. Legend has it he received a printed copy of his book on the very day he died.