A molecular biologist from Madurai, our quizmaster enjoys trivia and music, and is working on a rock ballad called ‘Coffee is a Drink, Kaapi is an Emotion’. @bertyashley
Quiz | Easy like Sunday morning
Nikolaas Tinbergen, Dutch biologist, ornithologist and one of the founders of modern ethology — the study of animal behaviour — won the 1973 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work with behaviour patterns in animals.
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1 / 10 |
On November 27, 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris. It initially caused a lot of controversy and his family opposed the will as he left much of his wealth towards instituting the prizes. He made most of his wealth by owning an arms manufacturer. What company was this, that brought down a government in India because of a scandal involving Howitzer guns?
2 / 10 |
There is only one person to have ever received both the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Nobel Peace Prize — the two highest honours for war and peace. The first for the Battle of Kettle Hill in Cuba, and the latter for working towards ending the Russo-Japanese war in 1905. Who was this person whose nickname led to a toy industry?
3 / 10 |
This person was the first to win two Nobel Prizes in two different fields, and shared one with her husband. Her daughter too won a Nobel Prize, which she shared with her husband. What is the surname of this historic family?
4 / 10 |
Werner Forssmann won a Nobel Prize in 1956 for his contributions to medicine. He had developed a procedure to insert a catheter into a chamber of the heart. For successfully carrying out this procedure, he was fired from his hospital but eventually won the Nobel Prize. Why was he fired, or who did he do the risky procedure on?
5 / 10 |
J.J. Thomson won the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering that a certain entity acts as particles, while his son George Paget Thomson won the Nobel Prize for discovering that the same entity also acts as waves. What entity was this that the Thompson family explored so thoroughly?
6 / 10 |
George de Hevesy was working in the lab of Niels Bohr when Germany invaded Denmark in 1940. Bohr was protecting two Nobel Prizes of Max von Laue and James Franck. Being 23-karat gold they were highly coveted by the Nazis. How did George use his chemistry knowledge to save the two medals?
Answer : He dissolved them in a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid (Aqua regia is the only liquid that dissolves gold)
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7 / 10 |
When this leader won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the city of Atlanta threw him a dinner party that was almost cancelled due to opposition. Coca-Cola’s CEO threatened to move the company out of Atlanta because he thought it was an embarrassment that the city’s people wouldn’t honour their Nobel Prize winner. Who was this leader?
8 / 10 |
Jan Tinbergen was a Dutch economist who was awarded the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969 for developing dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes. Niko Tinbergen was a Dutch biologist who won the 1973 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work with behaviour patterns in animals. What still-standing record do these gentlemen have?
Answer : The only siblings (they are brothers) to win Nobel Prizes
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9 / 10 |
Paul Dirac shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Erwin Schrödinger “for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory”. Highly introverted, he originally declined the Nobel Prize in fear of publicity. How was he convinced to accept the prize eventually because of the same fear?
Answer : As the first person to refuse a Nobel Prize, the publicity would be even greater
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10 / 10 |
When this eminent scientist wanted to divorce his first wife, he promised her share of the Nobel Prize money he was confident he would win for his work. He did win three years later, and she got 121,572 Swedish kronor ($26,000). Who was this confident scientist?
