Avogadro's Avocado Trivia Quiz

Answer: 6.022 multiplied by 10^23

Avogadro's number refers to the number of units in one mole of any substance. The mole is further defined in the field of chemistry as "the amount of a substance containing the same number of atoms as the number of atoms in a sample of 12 grams of pure carbon-12" which was experimentally determined to be 6.02214179 x10^23. Moles help scientists count incredibly tiny particles in substances by relating mass to the number of particles.

If we had an Avogadro's number of avocados, assuming each avocado weighs on average 150 grams, we would come up with 9.033 x 10^22 kilograms of avocados which would weigh less than Earth (whose mass is determined to be 5.972 x 10^24 kilograms).

Perhaps Amadeo will also prepare a mole of mole (pronounced mole-ay) to go along with the guacamole!

Answer: A perfectly layered cake where all the layers blend into one indistinguishable flavor, representing particles behaving as a single quantum entity.

If you recall, there are five phases of matter: Gas, Liquid, Solid, Plasma and Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). In a BEC, subatomic particles or 'bosons' are cooled to near absolute zero (-273.15 Celsius or 0 Kelvin) which causes all the particles to occupy the same lowest energy state and act collectively as a single quantum entity. This is like how in a perfectly blended cake, the layers and flavors merge into one indistinguishable whole. The other answer options represent states of matter whose particles behave independently or with high energy which is not the case with BECs.

Although Albert Einstein first predicted the existence of this state of matter, he was never actually around to see its creation in the laboratory. The first BEC was achieved, with rubidium atoms, in 1995 and later that same year a BEC composed of sodium atoms was also reached.

As Einstein carefully lowers the temperature to absolute zero, he remarks: 'At these temperatures, my cake layers don't just blend, they relatively collapse into one! Time might even slow down enough for me to finally finish baking.'

Answer: An edible liquefied drool begins to stream out of the 'dog's' mouth forming a puddle on the kitchen floor

Ivan Pavlov is, of course, making his conditioned response cake. Pavlov was a Soviet scientist best known for famously demonstrating the principle of classical conditioning when studying digestion in dogs. This experiment showed that dogs could learn to associate a neutral stimulus (the ringing of the bell) with food (the unconditioned stimulus), causing them to drool or salivate (the response) when the dogs heard the bell.

You quickly mop up the multi-colored puddle and hightail it to the next exhibit....

Answer: Polonium

Marie Curie, along with the aid of her husband, is credited with discovering two highly radioactive elements, polonium (Po) & radium (Ra) in 1898. Radioactivity, a term coined by the Curies, refers to the release of energy from unstable atomic nuclei of which there are three main types: alpha, beta and gamma radiation. Radiation has applications in nuclear medicine in the treatment of cancers and at one point before the harmful health effects of radioactivity were realized, radium was used in luminous paint to give watch dials and hands a glow.

'Should I be concerned about radiation exposure?' you worriedly ask Marie. Marie chuckles, 'the alpha radiation of polonium can't even get past a sheet of paper, now if you ingest them.... that's a different story. Want a cookie dear?' 'No thanks!' you politely decline as you exit the glowing cook space searching for the next edible delicacy to sample.

Answer: They will both splat at the same time once they hit the ground

Of course, the figure conducting this science experiment from the summit of the magnificent dessert is none other than Galileo Galilei. It is debated whether or not he actually performed this experiment from the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the 16th century. Regardless of the authenticity of this experiment, Galileo did hypothesize that two objects, regardless of their mass, that fell through the same medium (in this case air) would fall at the same speed in his published works on falling bodies. This physics concept is known as free-fall acceleration.

Objects that undergo free-fall are only subject to the sole force of gravity and are not experiencing significant forces of air resistance, therefore the rate of acceleration is the same for all free-falling objects regardless of how long they have been falling, or whether they were initially dropped from rest or thrown up into the air.

This rate, also known as the acceleration of gravity, has been determined to be approximately 9.8 meters/seconds squared on Earth. During Galileo's time, the widely purported belief was that heavier objects will fall faster than lighter objects directly proportional to their mass and a major proponent of this belief was Aristotle himself.

"Bravo!" You applaud and exclaim enthused as you watch the berries explode simultaneously upon collision with the floor spattering your shirt with their bright juices. In your peripheral version you notice a blushing Aristotle scurrying away...

Answer: The orbit of every planet around the Sun was elliptical

Your deductive leap to Johannes Kepler is no accident, because the celestial dessert display before you is deliciously obeying the three laws of planetary motion that Kepler famously formulated.

On closer inspection you notice that the orbits of the cake-planets aren't perfect circles but are instead more oval-shaped or elliptical. Each frosted planet revolves around the croquembouche Sun at one focus point. In other words, the first law of planetary motion or the law of orbits states "The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci." To visualize this concept, if you have an ellipse and draw a straight line down the center and plot two focal points A and B along this line, the Sun will occupy one of these points (instead of the center which would be the case with a circle), and the planet's orbit will follow the outline of the ellipse.

The second law of planetary motion which, is also referred to as the law of areas, states: "A line connecting a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal time." You watched as Molten Mocha Mercury sped up as its orbit approached closer to the sun and slowed down as it traveled further away.

To visualize the law of areas, if you have points A and B on an ellipse (planet's orbital path) and these points are closer to the Sun foci, and you have points C and D further away from the Sun, if we join the points A and B and make a triangle with the sun and do the same with points C and D, C and D will form a short based-skinny triangle and A and B will form a long based-fat triangle (no those are not mathematically correct terms). If you sketch the areas of each triangle, they will be equal in area! How can this be if the distance between A and B is longer than the distance between C and D? The reason is due to the planet speeding up closer to the Sun. The distance between A and B will be longer because the planet is traveling faster in the same amount of time it would take for the planet to cover points C and D.

The reason for the faster speed as a planet gets closer is due to the gravitational pull of the sun which has a stronger effect the closer a planet gets and vice-versa when it travels further away.

If you want to better visualize the law of areas, I recommend an animation demonstrating this law which you can find on the Wikipedia page for Kepler's second law as it is a rather difficult concept to explain and admittedly is far above my ability to break it down!

The third law of planetary motion also known as the law of periods says: "The square of the period of any planet is proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis of its orbit." This law means that if we square the time it takes a planet to complete one orbit around the Sun, we'll find it's proportional to the planet's distance from the Sun cubed. Or in layman's terms, the farther a planet is from the Sun, the slower it moves along its orbital path. This explains why some planets have longer years than others.

Kepler was a proponent of heliocentrism, which places our Sun at the center of our solar system as the body our planets revolve around instead of geocentric which was an earth-centered belief that was widely accepted to be true at the time.

Phew! You start to get hungry again as Kepler concludes his lecture to you on planetary motion and again you notice Aristotle doing the walk of shame!

Answer: Gumdrop Guanine pairing with Marshmallow Adenine

This spiral structure is none other than Deoxyribonucleic Acid or DNA which contains the genetic information that encodes the traits and functions for every single living organism. DNA is comprised of a phosphate group linked to a sugar molecule that forms the backbone of the structure. The phosphate and sugar is further connected to a chemical base of which there are four: Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine. This whole bonded collective is known as a nucleotide. Nucleotides form base pairs with the complementary strand of the double helix given DNA its characteristic shape.

The base pairs are held together by hydrogen bonds which help stabilize the structure of DNA. Because of this stabilizing force adenosine pairs with thymine and guanine with cytosine. Adenosine and thymine are held together by two hydrogen bonds, while guanine and cytosine form three hydrogen bonds. This difference is due to the different structures of the bases. If there is a mismatch, such as adenosine pairing with guanine, this will lead to a mutation when the genetic information gets coded.

Franklin's contribution to the discovery of DNA was her work with x-ray crystallography that offered a glimpse at the first image of this structure and this image was referred to as "Photograph 51". She was close to solving the structure herself, but it was Watson and Crick who built the first double helical model of DNA based on her image and data.

In other words, Watson and Crick had baked the showy cake but it was Franklin who was instrumental in providing the recipe.

They thank you for pointing out the mutation and you are thankful a giant menacing marshmallow man being coded was averted.

Answer: Water boils at lower temperatures when pressure is also low

A little bit tricky, Boyle's Law didn't directly create the lower boiling point, but the process of lowering the pressure using a pump (which involves Boyle's Law) contributed to creating the conditions that allow water to boil at a lower temperature. Boyle's Law, the first gas law to be discovered states: "At constant temperature, the pressure of a gas is inversely proportional to its volume represented by the equation: (P ? 1/V)."

In the above kitchen setup, Boyle's Law describes how the air pump affects the gas in the vessel.
As the pump increases the volume the gas occupies (by removing it from the sealed chamber), the pressure drops. There will still be some particles of gas in the chamber, as a vacuum completely devoid of all gas/air particles is not achievable and the reason for this has to do with quantum mechanics which I will not even attempt to dive into. This lowering of pressure is consistent with Boyle's Law, but it's a law about gases, not boiling points or phase changes.

Once the pressure in the chamber is reduced, water boils at a lower temperature. This concept is actually utilized in vacuum cooking, also known as sous vide.

This is a property governed by vapor pressure and explained by phase change thermodynamics (Clausius-Clapeyron relation), not Boyle's Law directly. Water boils when the ambient pressure (the pressure of the atmosphere/environment) is equal to the vapor pressure (the pressure exerted by a gas when it is in equilibrium with its liquid or solid form). This is why at higher altitudes water can be boiled at a lower temperature due to the lower pressure of "thinner air".

Robert Boyle, along with Robert Hooke, used a glass tube and an air pump to create a vacuum. Inside the tube, they used different volumes of mercury liquid to vary the pressure on a fixed weight of air. Boyle discovered that pressure multiplied by volume is a constant. In other words, when you increase the pressure on a gas, the gas's volume shrinks in a predictable way.

And now for Boyle's Law of Deliciousness: Boyle shuts off the air pump and lifts the vessel lid and the sudden pressurization brute-force marinates the steak, pushing the flavorful broth inside plumping up the steak to its normal size. Now that's a law you can understand - the universal deliciousness of a well-done sizzled steak.

Answer: Pasteurization

Pasteurization is the heat treatment needed to kill harmful bacteria like listeria, salmonella, and E. coli. The process involves heating food or liquid (most commonly milk, wine and beer) to a specific temperature (usually between 60-100 C) for a certain period of time, just enough to kill harmful microorganisms without significantly affecting taste or quality.

Sterilization would kill all the microbes which isn't necessary to safely drink milk. Fermentation would turn the milk into yogurt or kefir, but it doesn't make it safer from pathogens. Homogenization just prevents the cream from separating. It's not about safety.

Louis Pasteur is often referred to as the father of modern microbiology. He lends his name to this process due to his extensive work observing the beneficial and harmful effects of microbes on foodstuffs, not to mention inventing the process. Louis is also credited with being the first to discover anaerobes: bacteria that do not require the use of oxygen to grow and live and even won a prize for discrediting spontaneous generation which was a common belief at the time that simpler lifeforms would spontaneously generate out of nowhere.

You proudly sport your new milk moustache like a badge of honor and thank Louis for his contributions to food science. By now your stomach is busting at the seams and you figure you have room for one more stop.

Answer: Second Law of Motion

The bigger apple caused more pie-splatter because it had greater mass and, since gravity provided the same acceleration, the total force was greater just as Newton predicted. This is referred to as Newton's Second Law of Motion which states "The force on an object is equal to its mass multiplied by its acceleration." This is represented by the equation Force (F)= Mass (M) X Acceleration (A), and aptly the units for force are Newtons (N).

Newton's First Law of Motion is "An object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an external force. "Newton's Third Law of Motion is "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction."

Fig Newtons are named after the town of Newton in Massachusetts and have no association with Isaac and there is no such thing as the law of figs to my knowledge.

Newton was a prominent polymath who made contributions to physics, mechanics, mathematics, most famously calculus, optics and even astronomy. He is considered one of the greatest scientists to have ever lived.

You've journeyed through a kitchen unlike any other and experienced the elite echelon of eateries where the chefs are none other than the greatest minds in science, and every dish is a delicious demonstration of discovery. You conclude that there is not one sole dish that takes the title of the greatest culinary creation and that each contribution adds a unique ingredient to the universal pursuit of knowledge.

You briefly ponder "What if all of history's greatest scientists had access to FunTrivia?" but you quickly dismiss the thought as you realize the competition for the global challenge would be much stiffer as a result.