Famous scientists and researchers quiz (50 questions)
From the first telescope pointed at the sky to the vaccine against a cancer-causing virus: match the researcher to the discovery and read the story behind it.
About this quiz: the people, prizes and dates were checked against official and reference sources, and the stories are retold in makekite's own words with the help of AI. If you spot a mistake, please tell us on the contact page.
50 multiple-choice questions, with the answer explained after each one.
Answer each question, see why, and beat your best score.
All 50 questions and answers
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- Galileo Galilei, born near Pisa, used a telescope to discover four large moons orbiting which planet?
- Saturn
- Venus
- Mars
- Jupiter
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Jupiter. His observations in the early 1600s showed that not everything in the sky circles the Earth.
- Nicolaus Copernicus, from Toruล in Poland, wrote De revolutionibus. What idea did it put forward?
- The Moon is made of rock
- The Earth is flat
- Comets are planets
- The Sun is at the centre of the planets' orbits
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The Sun is at the centre of the planets' orbits. This heliocentric model changed how people thought about the sky.
- Johannes Kepler worked out the laws of planetary motion. What shape are the planets' orbits?
- Perfect circles
- Spirals
- Squares
- Ellipses
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Ellipses. Kepler's laws later helped Newton to explain gravity.
- Edwin Hubble showed that the Universe is doing what?
- Standing still
- Shrinking
- Expanding
- Spinning in one direction
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Expanding. The Hubble Space Telescope is named after him.
- Charles Darwin sailed on which ship, visiting the Galรกpagos Islands, before writing On the Origin of Species in 1859?
- Mayflower
- HMS Victory
- HMS Beagle
- HMS Endeavour
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HMS Beagle. His book explained how living things change over time through natural selection.
- Gregor Mendel, a monk in Brno, discovered the rules of heredity by growing which plant?
- Tomatoes
- Wheat
- Roses
- Peas
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Peas. He counted thousands of plants and found regular patterns in how traits are passed on.
- Louis Pasteur developed a vaccine against which disease, as well as the heating process called pasteurisation?
- Malaria
- Measles
- Polio
- Rabies
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Rabies. Pasteurisation made milk and other foods safer.
- Antoine Lavoisier showed that burning needs which gas, and proposed the conservation of mass?
- Helium
- Oxygen
- Nitrogen
- Hydrogen
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Oxygen. He helped to turn alchemy into modern chemistry.
- Michael Faraday began work as an apprentice to which kind of tradesperson?
- A sailor
- A baker
- A blacksmith
- A bookbinder
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A bookbinder. He discovered electromagnetic induction and founded the Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures for young people.
- James Clerk Maxwell, from Edinburgh, combined electricity, magnetism and light into one theory called what?
- Thermodynamics
- Quantum chromodynamics
- Relativity
- Electromagnetism
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Electromagnetism. His equations are the basis of radio and many modern technologies.
- Dmitri Mendeleev published which famous chart of the elements in 1869?
- The star map
- The tide table
- The weather chart
- The periodic table
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The periodic table. He left gaps for elements that had not yet been discovered.
- Carl Linnaeus introduced a two-part naming system for living things. What is it called?
- Binomial nomenclature
- Genetic coding
- Periodic notation
- Carbon dating
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Binomial nomenclature. That is why species have names such as Homo sapiens.
- Alexander von Humboldt wrote a multi-volume work about nature and the Universe. What is it called?
- Origin
- Silent Spring
- Cosmos
- Principia
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Cosmos. He explored South America and saw how all parts of nature are connected.
- James Hutton of Edinburgh argued that the Earth is very old. What idea is he known for?
- Continental drift
- Plate tectonics
- Deep time
- Evolution
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Deep time. He saw that rocks form slowly over huge spans of time.
- Alfred Wegener proposed the idea of what?
- Continental drift
- Climate change
- Evolution
- The Big Bang
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Continental drift. He suggested that the continents were once joined together.
- Marie Tharp helped to create the first map of what?
- The weather
- Mount Everest
- The Moon
- The ocean floor
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The ocean floor. Her work helped to show a great ridge down the middle of the Atlantic.
- Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring warned about the harm caused by what?
- Pesticides such as DDT
- Overfishing
- Plastic bags
- Nuclear tests
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Pesticides such as DDT. It helped to start the modern environmental movement.
- Jane Goodall began studying chimpanzees at Gombe in which country?
- Ghana
- Tanzania
- Kenya
- Uganda
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Tanzania. She discovered that chimpanzees make and use tools.
- Rosalind Franklin's X-ray image, known as Photo 51, gave important clues about the structure of what?
- Insulin
- Penicillin
- Haemoglobin
- DNA
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DNA. She worked at King's College London.
- Mary Anning collected fossils on the cliffs near which English town?
- Brighton
- Lyme Regis
- Dover
- Whitby
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Lyme Regis. She found an ichthyosaur skeleton and became famous among geologists.
- Lise Meitner helped to explain nuclear fission. Which element is named in her honour?
- Meitnerium
- Fermium
- Einsteinium
- Curium
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Meitnerium. She never won a Nobel Prize, though many people think she deserved one.
- Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin discovered that stars are made mostly of which element?
- Carbon
- Iron
- Oxygen
- Hydrogen
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Hydrogen. She did this work at Harvard.
- Henrietta Swan Leavitt studied Cepheid stars and found a link between their period and what?
- Their brightness
- Their size
- Their age
- Their colour
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Their brightness. Her discovery helped astronomers to measure distances in space.
- Vera Rubin's measurements of how galaxies rotate gave strong evidence for what?
- Dark matter
- Dark energy only
- Comets
- Black holes
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Dark matter. She showed that galaxies contain more mass than we can see.
- Stephen Hawking, who studied at Cambridge, wrote which bestselling book about the Universe?
- Cosmic Connection
- The Selfish Gene
- A Brief History of Time
- Cosmos
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A Brief History of Time. Hawking lived for decades with a form of motor neurone disease.
- Jocelyn Bell Burnell, as a student at Cambridge, discovered what in 1967?
- Black holes
- Quasars
- Pulsars
- Comets
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Pulsars. Pulsars are spinning stars that send out regular pulses.
- Chien-Shiung Wu, born in China, did an experiment at Columbia University that showed what about nature's laws?
- They are not the same in a mirror world (parity violation)
- Light travels faster than sound
- Atoms are indivisible
- Energy is never conserved
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They are not the same in a mirror world (parity violation). Her experiment confirmed a theory by Lee and Yang.
- Robert Hooke used a microscope and published Micrographia. Which word did he use for the small boxes he saw in cork?
- Seed
- Cell
- Fibre
- Atom
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Cell. The word 'cell' stuck and became central to biology.
- Antonie van Leeuwenhoek of Delft used his own microscopes to be among the first to see what?
- Tiny living microbes
- Viruses
- Atoms
- The craters on the Moon
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Tiny living microbes. He made his own lenses by hand.
- Eunice Newton Foote showed in 1856 that which gas traps heat?
- Carbon dioxide
- Nitrogen
- Oxygen
- Argon
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Carbon dioxide. Her experiments are now seen as an early step in understanding climate change.
- Ibn al-Haytham wrote the Book of Optics. Which device did he describe?
- The telescope
- The periscope
- The camera obscura
- The kaleidoscope
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The camera obscura. He showed that we see because light enters the eye.
- Al-Biruni wrote a famous book about the people and learning of which country?
- China
- India
- Greece
- Egypt
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India. He also studied the size of the Earth.
- Zhang Heng, a Chinese scientist of the Han dynasty, invented an early instrument for detecting what?
- Eclipses
- Storms
- Tides
- Earthquakes
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Earthquakes. His device was called a seismoscope.
- Jagadish Chandra Bose, who taught at Presidency College in Calcutta, is known for showing that what responds to stimuli?
- Plants
- Metals only
- Clouds
- Rocks
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Plants. He also did early work on radio waves and built the crescograph.
- Meghnad Saha is known for an equation about the ionisation of what?
- Gases in stars
- Metals
- Plants
- Sea water
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Gases in stars. The Saha equation helps astronomers to understand the stars.
- Homi J. Bhabha founded which Indian research institute that began in Mumbai?
- Raman Research Institute
- Bose Institute
- Indian Institute of Science
- Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
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Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He is regarded as a founder of India's atomic energy programme.
- Vikram Sarabhai from Ahmedabad is often called the father of which Indian programme?
- Railway network
- Film industry
- Cricket
- Space programme
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Space programme. He helped to set up the Indian Space Research Organisation.
- A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was born in Rameswaram. What high office did he later hold?
- Chief Justice
- Governor of the Reserve Bank
- President of India
- Prime Minister of India
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President of India. He worked on rockets and missiles before becoming President, and was called the 'People's President'.
- E. K. Janaki Ammal, born in Kerala, was a botanist who studied the genes of which crop?
- Tea
- Rice only
- Wheat
- Sugarcane
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Sugarcane. She was one of India's first women scientists.
- Asima Chatterjee, a chemist at the University of Calcutta, did important work on medicines from what source?
- Coal
- Insects
- Seawater
- Plants (vinca alkaloids)
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Plants (vinca alkaloids). Her research on vinca alkaloids, from plants, contributed to work on medicines, including for epilepsy.
- Kamala Sohonie was the first Indian woman to earn a PhD in a science subject. Which field?
- Astronomy
- Geology
- Biochemistry
- Zoology
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Biochemistry. She studied at Cambridge.
- Anna Mani, an Indian scientist, spent her career in which field?
- Chemistry
- Mathematics
- Meteorology
- Geology
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Meteorology. She worked at India's meteorological service and on instruments for measuring the weather.
- Ruby Payne-Scott, who worked in Sydney, was a pioneer of what science?
- Marine biology
- Geology
- Radio astronomy
- Genetics
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Radio astronomy. She was one of the first radio astronomers in the world.
- Ian Frazer, working in Brisbane, helped to create a vaccine that protects against which kind of cancer?
- Skin cancer
- Lung cancer
- Bowel cancer
- Cervical cancer
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Cervical cancer. The vaccine is called Gardasil.
- Which Australian ear surgeon is credited with developing the cochlear implant (the 'bionic ear')?
- Ian Frazer
- Fred Hollows
- Victor Chang
- Graeme Clark
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Graeme Clark. The implant helps many deaf people to hear.
- John O'Sullivan and his team at which Australian organisation helped to develop the technology behind Wi-Fi?
- Telstra
- CSIRO
- ANU
- NASA
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CSIRO. Their work is part of the wireless technology used all over the world.
- Isaac Newton, born at Woolsthorpe, wrote which book that explained gravity and motion?
- Principia
- Cosmos
- Opticks
- Almagest
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Principia. A story says he was inspired when an apple fell.
- A. P. J. Abdul Kalam wrote an autobiography with which title?
- Wings of Fire
- Gitanjali
- Discovery of India
- My Experiments with Truth
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Wings of Fire. He was a scientist and teacher as well as a President, and he loved meeting students.
- Carl Sagan helped millions of people to enjoy science through which television series?
- The Blue Planet
- Cosmos
- Planet Earth
- Nova
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Cosmos. He was an astronomer who explained the Universe in plain language.
- Charles David Keeling began measuring carbon dioxide in the air at which Hawaiian mountain observatory?
- Mauna Kea only
- Mauna Loa
- Haleakalฤ
- Diamond Head
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Mauna Loa. His long record, called the Keeling Curve, shows carbon dioxide rising year after year.