Science trivia questions and answers
30 science trivia questions with the answers and a fact for each: physics, chemistry, biology, atoms and elements, light, sound, energy, units and the discoveries and inventions behind them. Read them as a quiz for yourself, use them for a pub quiz round, or press the button and play a Science round live with everyone answering on their own phone.
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The 30 science quiz questions
- 1Sound
At room temperature, sound travels through air at roughly…?
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C343 m/s
Count the seconds between a lightning flash and its thunder, then divide by three for the distance in kilometres.
- 2
The unit of power is named after which Scottish engineer, who improved the steam engine?
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DJames Watt
Watt also coined the term 'horsepower' so that customers could compare his engines with the horses they were replacing.
- 3
What is the name of the process by which liquid water turns into vapour?
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DEvaporation
Condensation is the reverse, and sublimation is when a solid such as dry ice skips the liquid stage altogether.
- 4Biology
What does DNA stand for?
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ADeoxyribonucleic acid
Uncoiled, one person's DNA would stretch to the Sun and back — many times.
- 5Bases
Caustic soda is the everyday name for which compound?
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DSodium hydroxide
It's the lye of traditional soap-making — and pretzels get their glossy brown crust from a quick dip in it.
- 6
What is the scientific study of living things called?
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BBiology
From the Greek bios (life) and logos (study). The word was only coined around 1800.
- 7Everyday
Microwave ovens heat food mainly by making which molecules jiggle?
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AWater
That's why microwaved food heats so unevenly — and why the plate often stays cooler than the food on it.
- 8Metals
Which is the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust?
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AAluminium
It was once dearer than gold — Napoleon III reportedly saved his aluminium cutlery for his most honoured guests.
- 9
Which gas do plants take in from the air for photosynthesis?
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ACarbon dioxide
They give out oxygen in return — roughly half the oxygen we breathe comes from tiny ocean plankton doing the same thing.
- 10
Which Swedish chemist invented dynamite and left his fortune to fund a set of famous annual prizes?
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DAlfred Nobel
It's often said he was spurred on by reading a premature obituary of himself, headlined 'The merchant of death is dead'.
- 11Physics
On Everest's summit, water boils at about…?
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B70°C
Lower pressure, lower boiling point — summit tea is famously disappointing.
- 12
What is the chemical symbol for sodium?
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DNa
It comes from the Latin natrium. Sodium metal is soft enough to cut with a knife and fizzes violently in water.
- 13Sound
Active noise-cancelling headphones hush the world around you using…?
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CDestructive interference
They play an 'anti-noise' wave that mirrors the incoming sound so the two cancel out — steady drones like jet engines work best.
- 14
Which Englishman is called the father of the computer for designing the Analytical Engine in the 1830s?
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BCharles Babbage
It was never finished in his lifetime. His collaborator Ada Lovelace wrote what's considered the first computer program for it.
- 15
Which unit is used to measure the loudness of sound?
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DDecibel
It's named after Alexander Graham Bell. Every extra 10 decibels sounds roughly twice as loud to the human ear.
- 16
What is the most abundant element in the universe?
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DHydrogen
Hydrogen makes up about three-quarters of all ordinary matter, and helium most of the rest; everything else is a rounding error.
- 17Atoms
Isotopes of the same element differ in their number of…?
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DNeutrons
Carbon-14 dating works because that isotope decays at a steady rate — half of it is gone every 5,730 years.
- 18Physics
Who proposed the theory of general relativity?
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BEinstein
His Nobel Prize was actually for the photoelectric effect.
- 19Scientists
Electromagnetic induction — the principle behind every generator — was discovered in 1831 by…?
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AFaraday
Faraday, a blacksmith's son with almost no formal schooling, began working life as a bookbinder's apprentice.
- 20Inventions
To test his phonograph in 1877, Thomas Edison recorded himself reciting which nursery rhyme?
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CMary Had a Little Lamb
It recorded onto tinfoil wrapped round a cylinder — and Edison expected its main use to be office dictation.
- 21Energy
Nuclear power stations generate heat by splitting uranium atoms — a process called…?
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DFission
Fusion, which powers the Sun, is the long-promised alternative — the running joke is that it's always 30 years away.
- 22
What does a Geiger counter measure?
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BRadiation
Hans Geiger built the first version in 1908 while working with Ernest Rutherford. Each click is a single particle hitting the tube.
- 23Discoveries
Alexander Fleming's 1928 discovery of penicillin began with mould growing on an abandoned dish of…?
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CBacteria
Fleming had gone on holiday leaving his Petri dishes stacked; the Penicillium mould had wiped out the staphylococci around it.
- 24Units
Electric current is measured in which unit?
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CAmpere
It's named after André-Marie Ampère; a typical UK plug fuse is rated at 3 or 13 amps.
- 25Discoveries
The famous first X-ray photograph, taken by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895, showed the hand of his…?
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DWife
On seeing the bones of her hand, Anna Bertha Röntgen reportedly said: 'I have seen my death.'
- 26
What is the process by which plants lose water vapour through their leaves?
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BTranspiration
A large oak can release hundreds of litres of water a day this way, which is one reason a forest feels so cool and humid.
- 27
What do we call a scientist who studies fossils?
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APalaeontologist
The word 'dinosaur' means 'terrible lizard'. It was coined in 1842 by Richard Owen, who went on to found London's Natural History Museum.
- 28
Which scientist wrote On the Origin of Species, setting out evolution by natural selection?
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BCharles Darwin
Darwin sat on the idea for about 20 years, only publishing in 1859 when Alfred Russel Wallace wrote to him with the same theory.
- 29Light
Which colour of visible light has the longest wavelength?
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CRed
Red scatters least in air, which is why sunsets glow red as sunlight takes the long way through the atmosphere.
- 30
Which scientist was tried by the Inquisition in 1633 for saying the Earth moves around the Sun?
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BGalileo
He spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The Vatican formally admitted he'd been right in 1992.
More questions: Space triviaNature triviaMaths triviaAll categories
Science quiz FAQ
Can I use these science trivia questions for my own quiz night?
That is what the page is for. Read them out at a pub quiz, paste them into a work quiz or a family quiz night, and keep the answers hidden until the table has committed. If you would rather not keep score by hand, the button on this page runs a Science round on everyone's phones.
Are the answers on the page?
Yes. Every question has a "Show the answer" toggle with the right option and a one-line fact, so you can quiz yourself first or read straight through with the answers open.
How do I play a Science quiz round live?
Press "Play a Science round". It opens the host page with the Science category already picked. The room shows a join code, everyone else opens huddlequiz.com/join on their phone and types it, and ten questions later there is a winner on the board. No accounts and nothing to install.
Will the live game ask the same questions?
Some of them. The game draws at random from a bigger Science pool, of which this page is a sample, so a live round mixes questions you have read here with ones you have not.
How hard are they?
Mixed. They are written for adults and teenagers at pub-quiz level, so a table of four should get most of them between them and argue about the rest.