Science Trivia for Adults Jeopardy

Physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and the scientists behind the discoveries, pitched well past school level. Copy it free and buzz in by phone.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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Physics Phenomena

$200
This bending of light as it passes from one medium into another makes a straw look broken in water.
What is refraction?
$400
Named for an Austrian physicist, this effect makes a passing siren's pitch drop.
What is the Doppler effect?
$600
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?
$800
In this effect, a material expels magnetic fields as it becomes a superconductor, letting a magnet float above it.
What is the Meissner effect?
$1,000
The blue glow in the water of a nuclear reactor is this radiation, from particles outrunning light in the medium.
What is Cherenkov radiation?

Chemistry Set

$200
Making up nearly 1 percent of the air, this is the most abundant noble gas in Earth's atmosphere.
What is argon?
$400
Avogadro's number gives the number of particles in one of these SI units.
What is a mole?
$600
This element has the highest electronegativity of any element.
What is fluorine?
$800
Mercury and this reddish-brown element are the only elements that are liquid at standard room temperature.
What is bromine?
$1,000
This German chemist's 1828 synthesis of urea undermined the idea that organic compounds needed a vital force.
Who is Friedrich Wohler?

Life Sciences

$200
These organelles produce most of a cell's ATP and carry their own DNA.
What are mitochondria?
$400
These are the only mammals capable of true powered flight.
What are bats?
$600
This molecule carries genetic instructions from DNA in the nucleus to the ribosomes.
What is messenger RNA?
$800
Bacteria and archaea are grouped as these organisms, whose cells lack a nucleus.
What are prokaryotes?
$1,000
Also known by the name of Hans Krebs, this cycle of reactions oxidizes acetyl-CoA to release energy.
What is the citric acid cycle?

Space and Astronomy

$200
This largest moon of Saturn has a thick nitrogen atmosphere and lakes of liquid methane and ethane.
What is Titan?
$400
This Martian shield volcano is the tallest known in the solar system.
What is Olympus Mons?
$600
This dwarf planet is the largest object in the asteroid belt.
What is Ceres?
$800
Proxima, the nearest star to the Sun, is part of this triple star system.
What is Alpha Centauri?
$1,000
About 1.4 solar masses, this limit is the maximum mass of a stable white dwarf.
What is the Chandrasekhar limit?

Earth Science

$200
This supercontinent formed about 300 million years ago and later broke apart.
What is Pangaea?
$400
This lowest layer of the atmosphere is where nearly all weather occurs.
What is the troposphere?
$600
This glassy black volcanic rock forms when lava cools too quickly for crystals to grow.
What is obsidian?
$800
Named for a Croatian seismologist, this boundary marks where the crust ends and the mantle begins.
What is the Mohorovicic discontinuity?
$1,000
Seismologists now use this scale instead of the Richter scale to measure large earthquakes.
What is the moment magnitude scale?

Great Scientists

$200
This naturalist's 1858 essay from the Malay Archipelago led to the joint presentation of natural selection with Darwin.
Who is Alfred Russel Wallace?
$400
This scientist was the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.
Who is Marie Curie?
$600
This Augustinian friar's experiments with pea plants founded the science of genetics.
Who is Gregor Mendel?
$800
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?
$1,000
This Danish astronomer's precise naked-eye observations let Johannes Kepler work out the laws of planetary motion.
Who is Tycho Brahe?

Final Jeopardy — The Periodic Table

Dmitri Mendeleev predicted this element as eka-silicon in 1871; it was discovered in 1886 and named after its discoverer's home country.

What is germanium?

How to run this board

This is science trivia written for adults rather than students. The board covers physics, chemistry, biology, space and astronomy, earth science, and the scientists behind the big discoveries, with questions set above what most people remember from school.

It suits a science club, a museum after-hours event, or a trivia night full of engineers and nurses. Put the board on the projector and let teams buzz in from their phones.

A useful house rule for this crowd: answers must be the specific term, not a description of it. Deciding that up front saves a lot of arguments about whether "the thing in cells that makes energy" counts.

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