50/50 in Science Trivia Quiz

Answer: False

Many people think it is true based on what they learned from parents or school, but it is far from true. People who watch sunrise or sunset should notice that risen sun and setting sun point in different directions at different times of the year, due to variable angle of Earth's tilt as it orbits the Sun. On the June solstice, the sun rises farthest north of due east and sets farthest north of due west; oppositely on the December solstice, the sun rises farthest south of due east and sets farthest south of due west.

In higher latitudes, sun would rise and set farther north/south of due east/west. Sun rising due east and setting due west only occur on two occasions per year (on March and September equinoxes), meaning it can be seen from every latitude except for poles (where neither have west nor east directions).

Answer: True

67.3% of all land lies in the northern hemisphere, whereas 32.7% of all land lies in the southern hemisphere. 39.3% of the northern hemisphere is occupied by land while just 19.1% of the southern hemisphere is occupied by land. Paradoxically, the north pole is situated on an ocean (Arctic Ocean), while the south pole is situated on land (Antarctica).

Answer: False

Dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, while humans have only been on Earth for the last few million years. If these two animals existed at the same time, then humans could be attacked or eaten by dinosaurs. The movie series Jurassic Park imagines what happen if humans encounter dinosaurs.

Answer: True

Gold lies below the second highest medal honor, silver (atomic number 47) on the periodic table. Gold lies to the right of platinum (78) and to the left of mercury (80). The element below gold, roentgenium (atomic number 111), is a man-made radioactive element.

Answer: False

Brown is not a spectral color because it isn't part of the visible spectrum. The spectral colors from longest to shortest wavelengths are red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. It is extrapolated that if we could see near infrared, the light would appear brown, in reality however, it is obtained by mixing red and green at low intensities.

Other non-spectral colors are black, gray, white, pink and peach.

Answer: False

When an acid and a base react together, the process is called neutralization and often, but not always, produces water as a byproduct as well as a salt. Acids are characterized by H+ and bases are characterized by OH- in aqueous solutions. If these two ions react together, the result is neutral H2O, which is water. An example of acid-base reaction is HCl + NaOH = NaCl + H2O. An example of acid-base reaction that does not result in water is BF3 + 3LiH = 3LiF + BH3.

Answer: False

Before the first space probe landed on Venus, many people believed that Venus is habitable underneath its cloud cover, albeit warmer with a temperature of about 93°F. The first Venus space probe found that Venus is in fact a hellish world with a temperature of 863°F, gotten so hot because of a runaway greenhouse effect.

The atmospheric pressure on the surface is a crushing 92 times greater than on Earth. You would die in seconds if you stepped out onto Venus without a spacesuit!

Answer: False

Radioactive decay is a transformation process in which one substance often transforms into a new substance, an element in this case, through emission of subatomic particles.

Answer: True

Chlorophyll absorbs every light on the visible spectrum but reflects green, a reason why plants are green. During the fall, leaves change colors due to loss of chlorophyll pigment.

Answer: True

Technically, infinity is really the reciprocal of zero. The reciprocal is obtained by dividing one by a number. If we divide a number (dividend) by a number between zero and one (divisor), the result is a number higher than a given dividend. The lower the divisor, the higher the resulting number, or in other words, if we divide a number by a number closer to zero, the resulting number would be closer to infinity. Here's the demonstration: if we divide 1 by 0.1, we get 10, whereas 1 by 0.01 is 100, 1 by 0.001 is 1000... and so on until the number of zeros followed by one in the divisor reaches infinity (which is zero), and correspondingly the resulting number will then reach one followed by infinite zeros (which is simply infinity).

Opposite to dividing a number by zero resulting in infinity, multiplying infinity by zero results in any nonzero number. Also if we divide zero by zero, it can result in any nonzero number too.

Answer: False

Actually, clouds form in the same layer of atmosphere we live in, called troposphere. Because of this, weather takes place in the troposphere. The stratosphere lies above the troposphere. The stratosphere is where we find the ozone layer. However, the stratosphere is not always cloud-free; nacreous clouds in the stratosphere form at temperatures below −108°F, meaning they only form during the polar winter.

Answer: False

Close, it is 5280 feet. One mile is also equal to 1760 yards, 63360 inches, 1.609344 kilometers, 8 furlongs. There are two different usages of mile: statute mile and nautical mile. Statute mile is 5280 feet while nautical mile is approximately 6076 feet.

Answer: True

Technically, it is. An object of rest mass would need an infinite amount of energy just to travel at the speed of light, which is 186,282 mi/s or 299,792 km/s, and to travel beyond that, energy would actually become negative. If an object approaches the speed of light, its time would slow down, a phenomenon called time dilation. If traveling at the speed of light, the time would not flow, while traveling faster than light, time would reverse.

A tachyon is a hypothetical particle that always moves faster than light.

Answer: False

Actually, it is the related planet Neptune. Pluto was considered the outermost planet until the 2006 redefinition of a planet. Early in the Solar System's history, Uranus was possibly in a different orbit; some models put it between Jupiter and Saturn, others farther from the Sun than Neptune.

Answer: False

Felis the cat was a constellation located between Antlia and Hydra, created by Jérôme Lalande in 1799. Even though Felis is now obsolete, other cat constellations still exist: Leo the lion, Leo Minor the smaller lion, and Lynx the lynx.