The Museum of Missing Mysteries Quiz

Answer: Venus de Milo

The Venus de Milo was found on the Greek island of Melos, now called Milos, in 1820 and reached the Louvre in Paris the following year. Its name identifies it with Venus, the Roman counterpart of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. The missing arms leave more than a gap in the outline: objects held in a statue's hands often helped people recognise a god or goddess. Without those clues, the figure's identity and original pose are less certain.

The Louvre considered replacing the arms but abandoned the idea, rather than give the statue a pose that might be wrong.

Answer: E

Wright set himself the task of writing more than 50,000 words without E, and said he tied down the part of his typewriter that printed it. This kind of writing is called a lipogram, meaning that a letter is deliberately left out. The rule made everyday words such as 'the' and 'she' unusable, so whole sentences had to be rethought rather than simply misspelled.

It also ruled out many words ending in '-ed', making it harder to describe past events. A few Es appear in printed editions of 'Gadsby', despite the restriction he intended to follow.

Answer: Gregorian

The Gregorian calendar is named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in 1582. The older Julian calendar counted leap years slightly too often, so its dates gradually slipped out of step with the seasons. The reform adjusted the leap-year rules, and Britain adopted it in 1752, when the difference between the calendars had reached eleven days. Wednesday, 2 September was followed by Thursday, 14 September: the weekdays continued normally even though the dates jumped. Nobody lost eleven days of life; the missing dates brought Britain into line with countries already using the new calendar.

Answer: Pacific

Sandy Island appeared on maps in the Coral Sea, which is part of the Pacific Ocean, between Australia and New Caledonia. In 2012, scientists aboard the Southern Surveyor went to check its supposed location and found open water. Some maps showed land there, while the ship's navigation charts showed deep water, so the team had good reason to investigate.

The island also appeared on a 1908 chart held by Auckland Museum, showing that the mistake was older than Google Earth. The missing island was a problem with the maps, rather than a discovery that an island had suddenly sunk.

Answer: Sounds in and around the hall

David Tudor first performed the piece at a concert hall in Woodstock, New York, in 1952, sitting at the piano without playing a note. The title means four minutes and thirty-three seconds, and the piece is divided into three sections, called movements. During that time, the performers make no intentional sound, leaving listeners to notice what they would normally ignore.

A cough, a rustling programme or sounds from outside can become part of the experience, so each performance can sound different. What is missing is the expected playing of instruments, not all sound in the room.

Answer: Separate the code from nearby print

The quiet zone separates a QR code from nearby writing and pictures, helping a scanner recognize where the code is. The three large squares near its corners help the reader locate it, and the clear border keeps other marks from getting in the way. A standard QR code needs this margin to be at least four small squares wide on every side; each small square is called a module. Cropping the border away or filling it with decoration can make scanning harder even when the code itself has not changed. Here, leaving something blank is part of making it work.

Answer: Hemoglobin

Hemoglobin is a protein that carries oxygen and gives human blood its red color. Antarctic icefish lack it and instead carry oxygen dissolved directly in their plasma, the liquid part of blood. Their cold surroundings help as oxygen dissolves more readily in cold water, and the Southern Ocean provides an oxygen-rich home.

These fish also have special antifreeze proteins that help stop them freezing, but those do a different job from carrying oxygen. Their pale blood does not mean they can live without oxygen; they have adapted to transport it without the red protein that most fish use.

Answer: Marcel Marceau

Marcel Marceau says 'Non!', French for 'No!', when the filmmakers in the story telephone to invite him into their movie. Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman and Dom DeLuise play the three men trying to make a silent film, with famous stars appearing as themselves. Marceau was a mime, telling stories through movement and gestures rather than speech, so giving him the only spoken word turns his usual role upside down. Brooks also uses physical comedy in the style of early silent films. Music and sound effects remain throughout, so the missing ingredient is ordinary spoken dialogue, not a soundtrack.

Answer: Silver

The winners in Athens received silver medals, olive branches and diplomas, so silver was the top award rather than a sign of finishing second. French sculptor Jules-Clément Chaplain designed the medals, which included images of Zeus and the Acropolis to connect them with Greece. Runners-up received copper or bronze medals, while third-place finishers received no medal at all.

The familiar gold, silver and bronze sequence began at the 1904 Games. Our missing gold medal is therefore a reminder that even a familiar sporting tradition had to begin somewhere.

Answer: Cenotaph

A cenotaph is a memorial to people whose bodies are buried elsewhere or have not been found; the name comes from Greek words meaning 'empty tomb'. Edwin Lutyens designed the Whitehall monument, and the permanent stone version unveiled on 11 November 1920 replaced a temporary wood-and-plaster one from 1919.

Instead of listing individual names, it bears the words 'The Glorious Dead'. Families could gather there to remember loved ones even if their graves were far away or unknown. Its emptiness is part of its purpose: it offers a shared place of remembrance without being a burial place.