Mendeleev's World Table (3) Trivia Quiz

Answer: Argon

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city in Argentina. It gets its name indirectly from a Jesuit establishment on the hill overlooking Cagliari in Sardinia, named for its 'good air' compared to the foul-smelling city below. A statue of the Virgin Mary at the site became known as Madonna of Bonaria. At some point Spanish sailors associated it with fair winds and would invoke the name for good luck. This became the name of the settlement when they arrived after a safe passage. Or so the story goes.

Argon is a gas in its natural form and is obtained as a byproduct of producing liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen from liquid air. Where nitrogen gas is not sufficiently inert, argon is a relatively-cheap alternative. Its chemical symbol (Ar) is the same as Argentina's country code (AR).

Answer: Meitnerium

Capital city of Malta, Valletta takes its name after the Frenchman Jean Parisot de Valette, a Knight Hospitaller who successfully defended the island against the Ottoman Empire during the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. The island nation's central position in the Mediterranean makes it strategically important.

With a country code of MT, its equivalent in the Periodic Table is meitnerium (symbol Mt). It is a synthetic element and extremely radioactive with a half-life of 4.5 seconds. It takes its name after the Austrian physicist Lise Meitner and is the only element named after a woman, curium being named after both Pierre and Marie Curie.

Answer: Chlorine

Capital city of Chile, Santiago was founded by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia in 1541. He named it Santiago del Neuvo Extremo, partly after the Apostle James, patron saint of Spain, and also after Valdivia's home region Extremadura. Valdivia sparked off the Arauco War with the Mapuche people, a series of conflicts lasting over a century and shaping the country's development.

Chlorine is the element linked to Chile by its chemical symbol. Normally found in the form of a salt, it is usually produced by electrolysis of a brine solution. It is commonly used to disinfect water or make PVC (polyvinyl chloride). Salar de Atacama is the largest salt flat in Chile with an area of 3,000 sq km (1,200 sq mi). While sodium chloride is present, it is the lithium salts that attracts the attention.

Answer: Tin

One end of the annual Dakar Rally, an off-road endurance event, Dakar is the capital city of Senegal. It is on Cap-Vert peninsula, the westernmost part of continental Africa. It was a hub for Portuguese slave trade before becoming a major French colonial port. The etymology of Dakar is unclear. Suggestions include the Wolof name for tamarind tree and a 17th century French officer whose name appeared on maps of that era.

The country code SN is shared with the chemical element tin. Why does tin have the symbol Sn? It comes from the Latin 'stannum', which eventually came to mean tin. Tin is a soft metal which has been used for millennia. These days most tin is used in solder with pigments, tin plating, brass and bronze alloys accounting for much of the remainder. Senegal is relatively poor in desirable minerals and it is phosphates that the country is known for.

Answer: Copernicium

Beijing (meaning 'northern capital'), the name of the Chinese capital, was first applied in 1403 to distinguish it from the 'southern capital', Nanjing, during the Ming dynasty. Many names have applied to the city over the past 3,000 years with Beijing most recently taking over from Peking in the 1980s.

CN, the country code for China, is matched to the element copernicium. This is a synthetic element with its most stable isotope having a half-life of 30 seconds. It was first created in 1996 and is named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.

Answer: Selenium

Stockholm is the largest city in the Nordic countries and covers 14 islands at the edge of the Baltic Sea. Stockholm appears in written records from 1252 and became de facto capital of Sweden a couple of centuries later.

SE is the country code which ties in the chemical element selenium. Selenium is produced as a byproduct of metal refining of sulphide ores. The anode mud in copper refineries was a good source until the process was changed. Major uses include in metallurgy, glass manufacture and agriculture. Selenium is also an essential micronutrient in animals, although too much is toxic. Brazil nuts can be a good source.

Answer: Erbium

Most populous city in Eritrea, the capital Asmara at 2,325 m (7,628 ft) is sixth highest in the world. The name reflects its history of being four villages merged together. It became capital of the colonial Italian Eritrea in 1900 then part of Ethiopia in 1952 by a UN decision before becoming capital of the independent Eritrea in 1993 after a war of independence.

Erbium (symbol: Er) is the chemical element associated with country code. It is a rare earth metal with most of it produced in China. Erbium is mostly used in medical lasers and optics. Eritrea itself is relatively unexplored from a mining perspective, although it has much potential with copper, zinc and gold deposits attracting attention.

Answer: Germanium

Sitting on the banks of the Kura River, nearly a third of Georgia's population lives in the capital Tbilisi. Founded in the 5th century, it has served as capital of various kingdoms and republics over the years. Its various hot springs are the source of its name ('the place of warmth'). Its location near the Silk Road and location between Europe and Asia gave it historic importance.

Germanium (Ge) is the matched chemical element. Natural deposits of germanium minerals are rare. China is the main producer of the metalloid and it is typically produced as a byproduct of zinc production. Around 20% of demand is met through recycling. As germanium is transparent to infrared wavelengths, it is important in making optics for infrared cameras. It also has uses as a semiconductor material in electronics.

Answer: Neon

The growth of Niamey, capital of Niger, was fueled by uranium in the 1970s and 1980s rather than neon, the element which shares letters with the country code for Niger. In French colonial times it started off as a military fort in 1901. It became capital in 1903, losing that honour to Zinder in 1911, before regaining it in 1926.

Neon is a noble gas and relatively rare on Earth. It is produced in the same way as argon, cryogenic air separation. About 70% of world production came from Ukraine before 2022, with conflict resulting in shortages and production shifting to China. Lighting and signage are the main areas of use, although light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have largely taken over.

Answer: Polonium

The Polish capital Warsaw is also the country's largest and is built on the banks of the River Vistula. It started off as a fishing town and first became capital when Sigismund III Vasa made it so in 1596.

The chemical element polonium was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898, extracted from uranium ore and identified by its strong radioactivity. It takes its name from the country Poland, Marie Curie's homeland, and at a time when it no longer existed as a sovereign state. Spontaneous radiation results in temperatures of over 500 deg C (932 deg F) in the metal, leading to such uses as generating heat or electricity in some Soviet space-based applications.