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These questions were suggested by Oliver Wolf Sacks'
"Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood".
1. What French chemist first isolated fluorine, and
claimed to have manufactured the first artificial diamond?
(The claim was later doubted.)
2. Separate out the true elements from the ones later determined
to be spurious (previous elements or mixtures of previously
known elements):
Alabamine
Austrium
Bohemium
Europium
Florentium
Gadolinium
Helvetium
Illinium
Lanthanum
Moldavium
Neodymium
Norwegium
Praseodymium
Promethium
Russium
Samarium
Terbium
Virginium
3. Andres del Rio discovered an element in 1800 and named it
"panchromium" for its many-colored salts. Other chemists doubted
his discovery, and it was rediscovered 30 years later under what name?
4. As a child, an author attended Humphry Davy's electrolysis lecture
at the Royal Institution, and later used bits of the lecture in a
horror novel. Name the author and the novel.
5. Instead of dipping madelines into teacups, this French chemist
formulated the law of fixed proportions - all genuine chemical compounds
have fixed compositions no matter where on earth they are dug up.
Who was he?
6. The alchemists knew 7 metals and 7 astronomical bodies.
What body corresponded to these metals?
copper
gold
iron
lead
mercury
silver
tin
7. In 1860, Mendeleev traveled to the first international chemical
meeting with a famous composer. Along the route they stopped to play
church organs. Name the meeting city and the composer.
8. Elements 95 and 96 were first announced to the world on November 1945
during a radio quiz show - a boy asked "Have you made any more elements
lately?" Who was asked the question?
9. As a boy, Sacks was fitted with shoes using this X-ray device.
10. Who wrote "The Periodic Table"?
11. What discoverer of X-rays was so shy, he declined to give his
Nobel speech?
12. What discoverer of hydrogen was so reclusive he communicated with
his servants in writing?
13. Which elements are named after women?
14. What physicist was inspired by H. G. Wells' "The World Set Free"
to obtain a secret patent on chain reactions?
15. H. G. Wells' moon people share a name with which element?
16. A city in Sweden has lent its name to four elements.
Name the city and the four elements.
17. Dubya is Tungsten's symbol. Why? What is Dubnium named for?
18. What metal, once discarded as useless, has a luster equaling
that of silver? (Its name means "little silver")?
19. What Ivigtut, Greenland mineral is invisible in water? (It was
used by the miners as a vanishing boat anchor.)
20. What element, so cheap today, was once so costly that Napoleon III
gave his guests gold plates so he alone could dine on a plate
made from it?
These questions were suggested by Oliver Wolf Sacks'
"Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood".
1. What French chemist first isolated fluorine, and
claimed to have manufactured the first artificial diamond?
(The claim was later doubted.)
2. Separate out the true elements from the ones later determined
to be spurious (previous elements or mixtures of previously
known elements):
Alabamine
Austrium
Bohemium
Europium
Florentium
Gadolinium
Helvetium
Illinium
Lanthanum
Moldavium
Neodymium
Norwegium
Praseodymium
Promethium
Russium
Samarium
Terbium
Virginium
3. Andres del Rio discovered an element in 1800 and named it
"panchromium" for its many-colored salts. Other chemists doubted
his discovery, and it was rediscovered 30 years later under what name?
4. As a child, an author attended Humphry Davy's electrolysis lecture
at the Royal Institution, and later used bits of the lecture in a
horror novel. Name the author and the novel.
5. Instead of dipping madelines into teacups, this French chemist
formulated the law of fixed proportions - all genuine chemical compounds
have fixed compositions no matter where on earth they are dug up.
Who was he?
6. The alchemists knew 7 metals and 7 astronomical bodies.
What body corresponded to these metals?
copper
gold
iron
lead
mercury
silver
tin
7. In 1860, Mendeleev traveled to the first international chemical
meeting with a famous composer. Along the route they stopped to play
church organs. Name the meeting city and the composer.
8. Elements 95 and 96 were first announced to the world on November 1945
during a radio quiz show - a boy asked "Have you made any more elements
lately?" Who was asked the question?
9. As a boy, Sacks was fitted with shoes using this X-ray device.
10. Who wrote "The Periodic Table"?
11. What discoverer of X-rays was so shy, he declined to give his
Nobel speech?
12. What discoverer of hydrogen was so reclusive he communicated with
his servants in writing?
13. Which elements are named after women?
14. What physicist was inspired by H. G. Wells' "The World Set Free"
to obtain a secret patent on chain reactions?
15. H. G. Wells' moon people share a name with which element?
16. A city in Sweden has lent its name to four elements.
Name the city and the four elements.
17. Dubya is Tungsten's symbol. Why? What is Dubnium named for?
18. What metal, once discarded as useless, has a luster equaling
that of silver? (Its name means "little silver")?
19. What Ivigtut, Greenland mineral is invisible in water? (It was
used by the miners as a vanishing boat anchor.)
20. What element, so cheap today, was once so costly that Napoleon III
gave his guests gold plates so he alone could dine on a plate
made from it?
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