Free Science Trivia Facts

Free science trivia facts.

A diamond will not dissolve in acid. The only thing that can destroy it is intense heat.

A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court.

Absolutely pure gold is so soft that it can be molded with the hands.

An ounce of gold can be stretched into a wire 50 miles long.

Colored diamonds are caused by impurities such as nitrogen (yellow), boron (blue). With red diamonds being due to deformities in the structure of the stone, and green ones being the result of irradiation.

Free science trivia facts.

Diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance, and is also one of the most valuable natural substances. Diamonds are crystals formed almost entirely of carbon. Because of its hardness, the diamond is the most enduring of all gemstones. They are among the most costly jewels in the world, partly because they are rare, Only four important diamond fields have been found - in Africa, South America, India, and the Soviet Union.

In 1957, the Shipping port Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States, went on line. (It was taken out of service in 1982.)

In 1982, in the first operation of its kind, doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center implanted a permanent artificial heart in the chest of retired dentist Dr. Barney Clark, who lived 112 days with the device.

Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature.

Mineral deposits in caves: The ones growing upward are stalagmites, the ones growing downward are stalactites.

Natural gas has no odor. The smell is added artificially so that leaks can be detected.

Prussic acid, in a crystalline powder called Zyklon B, was used to kill in Germany's gas chambers. The gas would paralyze the victim's lungs, causing them to suffocate.

Sea water, loaded with mineral salts, weighs about a pound and a half more per cubit foot than fresh water at the same temperature.

Ten per cent of the salt mined in the world each year is used to de-ice the roads in America.

The air we breathe is 78% nitrogen, 21.5% oxygen, .5% argon and other gases.

The Chinese were using aluminum to make things as early as 300 AD Western civilization didn't rediscover aluminum until 1827.

The Cullinan Diamond is the largest gem-quality diamond ever discovered. Found in 1905, the original 3,100 carats were cut to make jewels for the British Crown Jewels and the British Royal family's collection.

The largest gold nugget ever found weighed 172 lbs., 13 oz.

The largest hailstone ever recorded was 17.5 inches in diameter - bigger than a basketball.

The most abundant metal in the Earth's crust is aluminum.

The only rock that floats in water is pumice.

The three most common elements in the universe are 1) hydrogen; 2) helium; 3) oxygen.

The United States government keeps its supply of silver at the US Military Academy at West Point, NY.

What was the first city to be leveled by a plutonium-based atomic bomb?
A: Nagasaki.

What high-level computer language was named after a French mathematician and philosopher?
A: PASCAL.

What Mercury astronaut had a pulse rate of 170 at lift-off-John Glenn, Alan Shepard or Gus Grissom?
A: Gus Grissom.

What type of vessel was powered by a hand-cranked propeller when first used in combat in 1176?
A: A submarine.

What creature proved to be much faster than a horse in a 1927 race in Sydney, Australia?
A: The Kangaroo.

Science trivia questions answers and facts.

What radioactive element is extracted from carnotite and pitchblende?
A: Uranium.

What organ of a buffalo did Plains Indians use to make yellow paint?
A: The gallbladder.

What optical aids was nearsighted model Grace Robin the first to show off in 1930?
A: Contact lenses.

Funny pictures of animals doing human activities and printed on mugs, t shirts and other products. Incredibly Funny Animals! Cat Wrestling, Thinking Elephants Fire Breathing Dragons, and crazy animal antics!

What creature's fossilized leg bone did John Horner discover red blood cells in, in 1993?
A: A tyrannosaurus rex's.

What sticky sweetener was traditionally used as an antiseptic ointment for cuts and burns?
A: Honey.

What computer was introduced in 1984 Super Bowl ads?
A: The Macintosh.

What male body part did Mademoiselle magazine find to be the favorite of most women?
A: Eyes.

What planet is named after the Greek god who personified the sky?
A: Uranus.

What fat substitute got FDA approval for use in snack foods, despite reports of diarrhea and cramps?
A: Olestra.

What plant's meltdown was dubbed "Russian Roulette" by nuclear power wags?
A: Chernobyl's.

What is a single unit of quanta called?
A: A quantum.

What will fall off of the Great Sphinx in 200 years due to pollution and erosion, according to scholar Chikaosa Tanimoto?
A: It's head.

What suntan lotion was developed by Dr. Ben Green in 1944 to protect pilots who bailed out over the Pacific?
A: Coppertone.

What was Friedrich Serturner the first to extract from opium and use as a pain reliever?
A: Morphine.

What substance nets recyclers the most money?
A: Aluminum.

What are you shopping for if you are sized up by a Brannock Device?
A: Shoes.

What animal travels at 25 mph under water but finds it easier to toboggan on its belly on land?
A: The penguin.

What's the itchy skin condition tinea pedis better known as?
A: Athlete's foot.

What uncooked meat is a trichina worm most likely to make a home in?
A: Pork.

How many of every 10 victims infected by the Ebola virus will die in two days?
A: Nine.

What computer company was named after a founder's memories of spending a summer in an Oregon orchard?
A: Apple.

What butterfly-shaped gland is located just in front of the windpipe?
A: The Thyroid.

What's short for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation"?
A: Laser.

What planet is the brightest object in the sky, after the sun and moon?
A: Venus.

What weapon did German gunsmith August Kotter unload on the world in 1520?
A: The rifle.

What type of machine did 19-year-old French genius Blaise Pascal invent to help his dad do taxes in 1642?
A: An adding machine.

What do leukemia sufferers have too many of?
A: White blood cells, or leukocytes.

What Benjamin Holt invention was good news to farmers in 1900?
A: The tractor.

What weather phenomenon is measured by the Beaufort scale?
A: Wind.

What do itchy people call the "rhus radicans" they were sorry they came into contact with?
A: Poison Ivy.

What drupaceous fruit were Hawaiian women once forbidden by law to eat?
A: The coconut.

What was the first planet to be discovered using the telescope, in 1781?
A: Uranus.

What V-word is defined as "the ability of a liquid to resist flowing".
A: Viscosity.

What unit of measure was originally designed to be one forty-millionth of the Earth's circumference?
A: The meter.

What's sometimes dubbed Biosphere I?
A: Earth.

What are "human incubation chambers" heated to before Gillette's odor judges test deodorants by smelling human armpits?
A: 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

What antidepressant is most often referred to by snide shrinks as "Slo Mo"?
A: Valium.

Crazy Mad Cows! Cute Puppies! Adorable Kittens! Flying Elephants! Party Cows! Chickens riding Motorcycles! T-shirts, Golf Shirts, Mugs, Boxers, and More! John Lund Photography

What gardeners' aid is identified by numbers indicating its percentages of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium?
A: Fertilizer.

What facial features flank your glabella?
A: The eyebrows.

What organ of the body leads all others with 3,195 distinct genes?
A: The brain.

What Cool Whip ingredient outweighs all the others?
A: Water.

What does a kit-flying linonophobic fear?
A: String.

What's the common name for the eye inflammation doctors call conjunctivits?
A: Pink eye.

What country flew the first supersonic airliner in 1968 but saw it crash in 1973?
A: The Soviet Union.

What two-word term is defined as "the lowest possible temperature"?
A: Absolute zero.

What century did mathematicians first use plus and minus signs?
A: The sixteenth.

What handy mathematical instrument's days were numbered when the pocket calculator made the scene in the 1970s?
A: The slide rule's.

What boxcar-sized instrument was repaired by the crew of the shuttle Endeavor in 1993?
A: The Hubble telescope.

What name for a bone disease translates as "porous bone"?
A: Osteoporosis.

What earthenware ceramic was produced in ancient China from feldspar and china clay?
A: Porcelain.

What's the U.S. military acronym for liquid oxygen?
A: LOX.

What's one-tenth of a bel?
A: A decibel.

What type of vessel was powered by a hand-cranked propeller when first used in combat in 1776?
A: A submarine.

What type of machine do the French call a telecopie?
A: A fax machine.

What unit of measure was once defined as the length of three grains of barley laid end to end?
A: The inch.

What are the two main constituents of bronze.
A: Copper and tin.

What Greek was the first physician to record case histories of patients?
A: Hippocrates.

What four planets have a smaller diameter than Earth?
A: Mars, Mercury, Pluto, Venus.

What word was coined when a trapped moth caused an early computer to crash?
A: Bug.

What technological revolution was credited with the large increase in paper use in the 1980s and 1990s?
A: The computer revolution.

What name for an automaton came from the Czech word meaning "forced labor"?
A: Robot.

What delta-winged supersonic transport is the fastest passenger plane?
A: The Concorde.

What comet was first sighted by the Chinese in 240 B.C.?
A: Halley's Comet.

What does "SPF" mean on sunscreen containers?
A: Sun Protection factor.

What M-word is defined as "a device that changes sound into electric current"?
A: Microphone.

What brand became the first sugar-free sugar substitute, in 1957?
A: Sweet'n Low.

What colorless gas is essential in the production of fertilizers and light bulbs?
A: Nitrogen.

What weapon did German gunsmith August Kotter unload on the world in 1520?
A: The rifle.

What explosive jelly is combined with gasoline to make incendiary bombs?
A: Napalm.

What did Dr. Heinrich Dreser hype as a non addictive substitute for morphine in 1898?
A: Heroin.

What did the Nimbus-7 satellite monitor changes in the depth of?
A: The ozone layer.

What body part is low-density lipoprotein most likely to clog?
A: Arteries.

What's wire rope most often called?
A: Cable.

What was the short word for "Infantile Paralysis" on 1950s March of Dimes posters?
A: Polio.

What book did Christians often place on their foreheads to cure insomnia in medieval times?
A: The Bible.

What are you shopping for it you're sized up by a Brannock Device?
A: Shoes.

What's the most common automotive essential that is measured in terms of its viscosity?
A: Oil.

What did 18th-century chemist Antoine Lavoisier prove was a compound of hydrogen and oxygen?
A: Water.

What objects are studied in what enthusiasts call "ufology"?
A: Unidentified flying objects.

Who's known in the shrink biz as "Weird Beard"?
A: Sigmund Freud.

What's the unit of capacity for fuel wood?
A: A cord.

How many of every ten coffee beans in USDA approved coffee can be moldy, insect-infested or insect-damaged?
A: One.

What's the English title of Freud's book Traumdeutung?
A: The Interpretation of Dreams.

What celestial objects were once referred to as "hairy stars"?
A: Comets.

What piece of lumber's actual size is one-and-a-half by three-and-a-half inches when "surfaced"?
A: A two-by-four.

What tool did astronomer Rodger Thompson say is "fundamentally altering our view of the universe"?
A: The Hubble telescope.

What's the most common contributor to chronic bronchitis?
A Smoking.

What constellation points to the south celestial pole?
A: The Southern Cross.

What's the study of materials at very low temperatures?
A: Cryogenics.

What unit of length is derived from the Latin word uncia?
A: The inch.

What country launched Europe's first super-high-speed passenger train, in 1981?
A: France.

What's believed by many to be a satellite of Neptune that escaped its primary orbit?
A: Pluto.

What planet is circled by only two moons?
A :Mars.

What artillery weapon was launched upon the world in 400 B.C.?
A: The catapult.

What procedure is performed on an abscess if the dentist thinks the tooth can be saved?
A :Root canal.

What Greek advised: "Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine by your food"?
A: Hippocrates.

What does an anthropophagic census-taker fear?
A: People.

What "black metal" gave blacksmiths their name?
A :Iron.

What word describes the physical components of a computer?
A: Hardware.

What planet is the brightest object in the sky, after the sun and moon?
A :Venus.

What does a bromidrosiphobic shoe salesman fear?
A :Smelly feet.

What planet needs 248 years to meander its way around the sun?
A: Pluto.

What did 18th-century astronomer Edmund Halley chart 24 of?
A: Comets.

What's a video cameraman doing when he "juices the brick"?
A: Recharging the battery.

What New York City hospital founded the first school for nursing in the U.S. , in 1872?
A: Bellevue.

What type of telephones did AT&T stop making in the mid-1980s?
A: Rotary phones.

What Entertainment Tonight star's voice did the New England Journal of Medicine claim triggered a woman's epileptic seizures?
A :Mary Hart's.

What planet is named after the Greek god who personified the sky?
A :Uranus.

What home appliance did the U.S. produce seven million of in 1953, up from 6,000 in 946?
A: The television.

What are you forbidden to do in a "snuff zone"?
A: Smoke.

What teenage year does an American first develop phobias in, on average?
A: Thirteen.

Who would send you an e-mail message with the return address "billg@microsoft.com"?
A: Bill Gates.

What innovation decreases the odds of hitting the car in front of you, but increases the odds of being hit by the car behind you?
A: Anti-lock brakes.

What red-blooded body organ are vitamins A, B, D, E, and K stored in?
A: The Liver.

What's the positively charged particle in the nucleus of an atom called?
A: A proton.

What cartoonist has had three insect species named after him?
A :Gary Larson.

What did William Stanley invent in 1885 to transfer the current of one circuit to another?
A : The transformer.

What is a siderodromophobic hobo afraid to hitch a rid eon?
A: Trains.

What country was India ink developed in?
A: China.

What three-letter word denotes the residue of combustion or incineration?
A: Ash.

What fiber-optic instrument allows surgeons to see and repair damage within joints?
A: An arthroscope.

What photo company brags that with their products, "there really are no negatives"?
A :Polaroid.

What high-tech mogul appeared on a 1995 cover of Time headlined "Master of the Universe"?
A: Bill Gates.

What time period is sandwiched between the Cretaceous and Triassic?
A: The Jurassic.

What suntan lotion was developed by Dr. Ben Green in 1944 to protect pilots who bailed out over the Pacific?
A: Coppertone.

What colorless, odorless substance is the main constituent of natural gas?
A: Methane.

What was the first place name uttered by a man on the moon?
A: Houston.

What does an AutoCut VCR automatically cut from TV programs?
A: Commercials.

What early scientist, after being forced to declare the Earth was motionless, muttered: "Nevertheless, it does move"?
A :Galileo.

What typewriter brand was invented by a man whose father made a well-known flintlock rifle?
A: Remington.

What term for "bipolar disorder" has fallen out of general use?
A: Manic depression.

What planet has a storm system called the Great Red Sot?
A: Jupiter.

What will not be back to entice astronomers until 2061?
A: Halley's Comet.

Where did Bill Clinton urge U.S. scientists to look for more signs of life, in 1996?
A: Mars.

What office image transmitter did Bell Labs demonstrate as early as 1924?
A: A fax machine.

What direction did cartographers usually place at the top of maps when they believed the Earth was flat?
A: East.

What U.S. agency is considered by e-mail users to deliver "snail mail"?
A: The U.S. Postal Service.

What N-word describes a cloud of dust and gas in space.
A: Nebula.

What car model was developed in 1938 by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche?
A: The Volkswagen Beetle.

What plant's meltdown was dubbed "Russian Roulette" by nuclear power wags?
A: Chernobyl's.

What Internet search utility was named for the mascot of the University of Minnesota, where it was developed?
A: Gopher.

What type of power is defined as the generation of electricity from water?
A: Hydroelectric power.

What type of pills are known in the pharmacy biz as "pillows:?
A: Sleeping pills.

What organ was operated on in the first microsurgical procedure, in 1921?
A :The ear.

What transparent material is produced by heating lime, sand and soda?
A: Glass.

What does the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom determine?
A: Its Atomic number.

What unit of time, when measured by an atomic clock, equals 9,192,631,770 energy changes of a cesium atom?
A: One second.

What heat-resistant element replaced cotton as the filament of choice in electric light bulbs in 1910?
A: Tungsten.

What now-extinct bird's gizzard, when stewed in milk, was once thought to cure gallstones?
A: The passenger pigeon's.

What unit of power did James Watt coin to help market his steam engines?
A: Horsepower.

What comes in Bibb, oak leaf and escarole varieties?
A: Lettuce.

What treatment for cavities was first recommended by a 10th-century physician name Rhazes?
A: Fillings.

What did the EPA once refer to as "poorly buffered precipitation"?
A: Acid Rain.

What car parts require alignment in toe, camber and caster?
A: Wheels.

What car of the 1940s featured a central "Cyclops-eye" headlight that turned with the wheels"?
A: The Tucker.

What could Harrison's chronometer accurately measure during 18th-century voyages?
A: Longitude.

What's short for "binary digit"?
A: Bit.

Who licensed the MS-DOS operating system to IBM in 1980?
A: Bill Gates.

How many 1990s cigarettes must you smoke to get the toxic effect of one 1950s cigarette.?
A: Three.

What oil was first used as a laxative by Egyptians in 1600 B.C.?
A: Castor oil.

Who was amazed to see the moons of Jupiter through a telescope on January 7, 1610?
A: Galileo.

What geographic term describes a hill with sharply sloping sides and a flat top?
A: Butte.

What serious underwater ailment was named after a Victorian notion of chic posture?
A: The bends.

What Mercury astronaut had a pulse rate of 170 at lift-off--John Glenn, Alan Shepard, or Gus Grissom?
A :Gus Grissom.

What U.S. coin weighs five grams?
A: A nickel.

Who spent more time in space than any woman or any U.S. astronaut, after NASA delayed her ride home by six weeks in 1996?
A: Shannon Lucid.

How many Russian cosmonauts have walked on the moon?
A: Zero.

What staple of Sigmund's profession lies in state at the Freud Museum in London?
A: His couch.

What wattage of incandescent light bulb typically produces 1,700 lumens?
A: 100 watts.

What 20th-century decade saw the introduction of the felt-tip pen?
A: The 1960s.

What needle-stickers use the word "Qi" to describe the energy that flows through the body's pathways?
A: Acupuncturists.

What continent has yielded the largest trove of meteorites?
A: Antarctica.

What letter did NASA decide to preface "Okay" with, due to radio stati problems?
A : A.

What L-word is the proprietary name of the tranquilizer chlordiazepoxide?
A: Librium.

What are "newbies," who tend to attract scorn from Internet flamers?
A: Newcomers.

What's the smallest time interval -- a microsecond, a nanosecond or a picosecond?
A: A picosecond.

What sterilization process can kill 99.9 percent of salmonella organisms in poultry?
A :Irradiation.

Which Smithsonian museum attracted a record 118,437 people on April 14,1984?
A: The National Air and Space Museum.

Who saw the dies used to stamp out bodies of his stainless-steel cars end up as anchors for salmon traps?
A: John DeLorean.

What's the largest and densest of the four rocky planets?
A: Earth.

What branch of biology deals with the nature of aging?
A: Gerontology.

What tropical disease were mental patients intentionally infected with in the early 1900s as a treatment for insanity?
A: Malaria.

What's a detective studying if he's staring at arches loops, whorls, islands and dots?
A: Fingerprints.

What unit of measurement has a fluid volume of three teaspoons?
A: A tablespoon.

What creature's heart kept Baby Fae alive for 21 of her 33 days in 1984?
A: A baboon's.

What country was home of 153 of the first 400 Nobel Prize-winning scientists?
A: The U.S.

What chemical compound comes from the Greek word for "primary"?
A: Protein.

What number, a one followed by 100 zeroes, was first used by nine-year-old Milton Sirotta in 1940?
A: Googol.

What's the most common computer acronym for a "Picture element"?
A: Pixel.

What's the most common cause of cirrhosis?
A: Alcohol abuse