Science Trivia for Adults Jeopardy

This bending of light as it passes from one medium into another makes a straw look broken in water.

What is refraction?

Named for an Austrian physicist, this effect makes a passing siren's pitch drop.

What is the Doppler effect?

Einstein's 1905 explanation of this effect, in which light knocks electrons from a metal, won him the Nobel Prize.

What is the photoelectric effect?

In this effect, a material expels magnetic fields as it becomes a superconductor, letting a magnet float above it.

What is the Meissner effect?

The blue glow in the water of a nuclear reactor is this radiation, from particles outrunning light in the medium.

What is Cherenkov radiation?

Making up nearly 1 percent of the air, this is the most abundant noble gas in Earth's atmosphere.

What is argon?

Avogadro's number gives the number of particles in one of these SI units.

What is a mole?

This element has the highest electronegativity of any element.

What is fluorine?

Mercury and this reddish-brown element are the only elements that are liquid at standard room temperature.

What is bromine?

This German chemist's 1828 synthesis of urea undermined the idea that organic compounds needed a vital force.

Who is Friedrich Wohler?

These organelles produce most of a cell's ATP and carry their own DNA.

What are mitochondria?

These are the only mammals capable of true powered flight.

What are bats?

This molecule carries genetic instructions from DNA in the nucleus to the ribosomes.

What is messenger RNA?

Bacteria and archaea are grouped as these organisms, whose cells lack a nucleus.

What are prokaryotes?

Also known by the name of Hans Krebs, this cycle of reactions oxidizes acetyl-CoA to release energy.

What is the citric acid cycle?

This largest moon of Saturn has a thick nitrogen atmosphere and lakes of liquid methane and ethane.

What is Titan?

This Martian shield volcano is the tallest known in the solar system.

What is Olympus Mons?

This dwarf planet is the largest object in the asteroid belt.

What is Ceres?

Proxima, the nearest star to the Sun, is part of this triple star system.

What is Alpha Centauri?

About 1.4 solar masses, this limit is the maximum mass of a stable white dwarf.

What is the Chandrasekhar limit?

This supercontinent formed about 300 million years ago and later broke apart.

What is Pangaea?

This lowest layer of the atmosphere is where nearly all weather occurs.

What is the troposphere?

This glassy black volcanic rock forms when lava cools too quickly for crystals to grow.

What is obsidian?

Named for a Croatian seismologist, this boundary marks where the crust ends and the mantle begins.

What is the Mohorovicic discontinuity?

Seismologists now use this scale instead of the Richter scale to measure large earthquakes.

What is the moment magnitude scale?

This naturalist's 1858 essay from the Malay Archipelago led to the joint presentation of natural selection with Darwin.

Who is Alfred Russel Wallace?

This scientist was the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.

Who is Marie Curie?

This Augustinian friar's experiments with pea plants founded the science of genetics.

Who is Gregor Mendel?

An X-ray image known as Photo 51, made in this scientist's lab, was key to discovering the structure of DNA.

Who is Rosalind Franklin?

This Danish astronomer's precise naked-eye observations let Johannes Kepler work out the laws of planetary motion.

Who is Tycho Brahe?