Give Me Four Moments in Time Trivia Quiz

Answer: Curium-246

Intuitively, most people associate elements heavier than plutonium with extremely short half-lives and extreme radioactivity. However, the lighter ones of them, up to californium, actually have isotopes with half-lives beyond a millennium. Curium-246 is one of them with a half-life of 4730 years.

Cesium-137, a common byproduct of nuclear fission reactions and one of the main sources of radioactive pollution in the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, has a half-life of just over 30 years, uranium-238 has a half-life of almost 4.5 billion years (the age of the Earth) and helium-4 is stable.

Answer: Angkor Wat

Started around the year 802 and completed in 1220, the Angkor Wat temple complex is one of the finest examples of Khmer engineering and architecture ever discovered. Beyond the main temple, over 100 smaller religious buildings, a moat and a complete outer wall were erected on an area of over 200 acres.

The Great Wall and Stonehenge both took much longer to complete - Stonehenge was started around 3100 BCE and finished only 1600 years later, the Great Wall was finally completed around the year 1600, having taken two millennia to construct. On the other hand, the Great Pyramid was an extremely efficient and speedy construction - it took only 20 years to complete it.

Answer: John Lennon

Born in October 1940 and murdered in December 1980, John Lennon lived just two months beyond four decades before being shot by Mark David Chapman. Chapman was convicted of second-degree murder and remains incarcerated as of 2012, having served close to 32 years of an indeterminate sentence (20 years to life).

His chances at a future release are generally considered very slim. Sharon Tate was 26 when she was murdered and James Dean died in a car accident at age 24. Fashion designer Gianni Versace, on the other hand, enjoyed 50 years of life before being shot on the steps of his own home.

Answer: American Civil War

From the Fort Sumter attack on April 12, 1861 to the official declaration by President Johnson on May 9, 1865, the Civil War in the United States lasted for four years and 27 days (although some minor fighting continued into June). All other wars mentioned were longer than that - World War II lasted for six years (1939 to 1945), the Revolutionary War eight years (1775 to 1783) and the Vietnam War, over all, lasted nineteen and a half years from 1955 to 1975. World War I, by the way, also came close to four years, but it was slightly longer than the American Civil War (4 years, 3 months 14 days).

Answer: A pig

The average gestation of the domestic pig is 112 days, just nine days shy of four months. Cats and dogs both have a shorter gestation - around nine weeks is a common figure for both - while horses actually carry their unborn for eleven months before birth.

Answer: Nix (a moon of Pluto)

Even considering the many small, unnamed moons in the solar system, there are only three moons whose orbital periods fall between three and five weeks. Apart from Earth's moon, those are Hyperion (Saturn, 21.2 days) and Nix (Pluto, 24.8 days). The next slower moon is then also one of Pluto - Hydra has an orbital period of 38.2 days. Deimos (Mars, 1.26 days) and Amalthea (Jupiter, 0.50 days) are both moons with a very short orbit while Nereid (Neptune, 360.1 days) almost takes an Earth year to circle its planet.

Answer: Golf

Almost all professional golf tournaments are run over four rounds of 18 holes each, played from Thursday to Sunday. On the first two days, usually half the golfers begin their round at the first hole and the other half at the tenth to save time. After those days, the lower-ranking players are eliminated (the cut) and players now all compete beginning from the first hole, starting with the worst-placed contenders first.

Test cricket is scheduled over five days, but not all matches go the full distance. Track cycling has six-day races (which are team events) and the decathlon is contested over just two days, five events on each day.

Answer: Tristan and Isolde, by Richard Wagner

Like many of Wagner's works, Tristan and Isolde is longer than most operas, running for average performance time of four hours without intermissions. It is found among Wagner's later works and tells a tragic love story set against an ancient Germanic background and involving several elements of magic and witchcraft, based on the Tristan saga from old Celtic literature. All other three works have the typical duration of classical operas - between two and three hours.

Answer: A 45 RPM vinyl single

A typical 45 RPM 7-inch single played for three to five minutes on each side, just enough for one song, although, mostly during the 1950s, there was also a significant market for "extended play" (EP) records that had two songs per side, albeit at a somewhat reduced sound quality. An 8 cm CD or CD single could hold 22 minutes of music, a cassette tape typically had anywhere between 22 and 60 minutes per side and the minidisc was designed for the same playing time as a regular CD - 74 minutes.

Answer: A European high-speed train

The fastest European trains travel at 350 kilometers per hour (217 mph), or over 95 meters per second. In four seconds, they thus cover a quarter of a mile. On a racing bicycle in full sprint, you'd have covered about 200 to 250 feet (70-80 meters) in that time; in a car, you'd have traversed the length of a football field and a cruising jet airplane would have completed a full kilometer and would finish the mile in just under 6.5 seconds.