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Quantum and Orbital Mechanics Quizzes, Trivia and Puzzles
Quantum and Orbital Mechanics Quizzes, Trivia

Quantum and Orbital Mechanics Trivia

Quantum and Orbital Mechanics Trivia Quizzes

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12 quizzes and 120 trivia questions.
1.
  The Curious Tale of Schrodinger's Cat   best quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Schrödinger's cat is the most famous feline in physics. For decades, its plight has shed light on some of the wildest, weirdest aspects of quantum mechanics. Come with me now, to meet the cat and take its measure.
Average, 10 Qns, CellarDoor, Nov 04 09
Average
CellarDoor gold member
8463 plays
2.
  Quantum Physics for Dummies   top quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
If you are a physicist or mathematician, this quiz is not for you - no formulas, no formalism, only plain words. I do hope you find some entertainment.
Average, 10 Qns, malama, May 25 18
Average
malama gold member
May 25 18
1231 plays
3.
  Ernie and the Baleful Box: A Quantum Fairy Tale   best quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Ernie the electron lives in a copper wire in the Department of Fiendish Physics of SU. He watches helplessly as Schroedinger the cat is lowered into the baleful box. Will this be Ernie's fate too? Is it worth taking a (gasp) physics quiz to find out?
Average, 10 Qns, uglybird, Apr 10 23
Average
uglybird
Apr 10 23
3251 plays
4.
  The Quantum Quiz   popular trivia quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
A quiz on the history of one of the most successful and revolutionary scientific theories of all time: quantum theory.
Tough, 10 Qns, aznricepuff, Jun 20 17
Tough
aznricepuff
1359 plays
5.
  Elementary Quantum Mechanics    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
This is a fairly simple quiz which one should be able to get a relatively high score on, if you know anything about quantum mechanics.
Tough, 10 Qns, napkintosh, Aug 04 23
Tough
napkintosh
Aug 04 23
6422 plays
6.
  Required Reading   popular trivia quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
I'm an English major, useless at math more complicated than balancing my checkbook. Still, I love physics, astronomy, cosmology and quantum mechanics, reading all the popular books on them I can find. Here are some highlights from my bookshelf.
Average, 10 Qns, Catreona, Jul 20 17
Average
Catreona gold member
370 plays
7.
  The Slits of Doom: A Quantum Adventure    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
The audacious Freda seeks the ultimate thrill: to be fired from an electron gun through the slits of doom. But can she escape the dreary orbital she shares with enervating Ernie the Electron? C'mon. You know you have to play this hint-packed quiz.
Average, 10 Qns, uglybird, Feb 14 19
Average
uglybird
Feb 14 19
1793 plays
8.
  Journey Through Orbital Mechanics   popular trivia quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
It's time to follow the journey of Rocky the Rocket as he travels throughout the Solar System. Learn some Orbital Mechanics, and hang on tight!
Tough, 10 Qns, mcdubb, Jul 19 24
Tough
mcdubb gold member
Jul 19 24
1095 plays
9.
  Quantum Theory...What A Ride!    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Over the years, quantum theory has had hundreds of interpretations from leading physicists all over the world. Let's see how you match up on one of the most gruelling (and interesting) topics still affecting us!
Average, 10 Qns, shaunak_rokz, Apr 14 20
Average
shaunak_rokz
Apr 14 20
553 plays
10.
  A Quiz on Quantum Mechanics    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Uncovered in the early twentieth century, quantum mechanics remains one of the most celebrated, studied subjects of all time. This quiz deals with some of its major concepts.
Tough, 10 Qns, happy1234512, Oct 05 21
Tough
happy1234512
Oct 05 21
287 plays
11.
  Exploring the Fourth Dimension    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
This quiz will test your overall knowledge on the mysterious phenomenon known as the fourth dimension.
Tough, 10 Qns, nat_fohawk, Nov 16 24
Tough
nat_fohawk
Nov 16 24
729 plays
12.
  Quantum Quirks    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
This quiz explores some of the major concepts in quantum physics, the 'buzzword' of science for most of the past century.
Average, 10 Qns, saivenky30, May 28 15
Average
saivenky30
282 plays

Quantum and Orbital Mechanics Trivia Questions

1. Most of the advancements in quantum physics arose from physicists trying to understand the nature of this very common form of energy. Which form of energy was postulated to have a dual nature, comprising of waves and particles?

From Quiz
Quantum Quirks

Answer: Light

Light is one of the principal forms of energy, and many experiments, such as the double-slit experiment and Einstein's photoelectric effect, helped to understand the true nature of light, as packets of energy called 'photons'.

2. Space outside of our regular third dimension is known as what type of space?

From Quiz Exploring the Fourth Dimension

Answer: Euclidean

If we were speaking of time-space, the answer would be Minkowski space. Spatial dimensions are different from space-time theory. Our third dimension is composed of length, width, and depth. The fourth dimension is believed to have another inexplicable dimension. There are therefore FOUR dimensions.

3. Every good physicist knows that Max Planck was the first to elucidate the concept of a quantum, an integral part of quantum theory (so integral in fact that the theory bears its name!). But what are the units of the fundamental physical quantum?

From Quiz The Quantum Quiz

Answer: Joule-second

Planck first proposed his theory in 1900 after working on a discrepancy related to black-body radiation (the phenomenon in which extremely hot objects radiate light). For those who are wondering, Planck's constant, denoted as "h", which describes the size of the fundamental quantum, has a value of 6.626x10^-34 Joule-seconds. The extremely small value of this constant explains why we don't experience any obvious effects of quantization in everyday life.

4. He said all matter in motion has a wavelike nature.

From Quiz Elementary Quantum Mechanics

Answer: deBroglie

Thus, another name for quantum mechanics is wave mechanics.

5. What concept in physics came to be known as the "ultraviolet catastrophe"?

From Quiz A Quiz on Quantum Mechanics

Answer: the black-body radiation curve

The ultraviolet catastrophe was one of the biggest scientific issues of the twentieth century. The black-body radiation curve represents the distribution of frequencies emitted by black bodies in comparison to the intensity of their energies. According to the physics of the time, black bodies contained an infinite supply of energy. Therefore, the distribution of frequencies would infinitely increase with energy. However, this concept did not match the experimental data.In reality the radiation would increase in terms of energy right until it reached the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum, and would then abruptly plummet down. The solution to this issue came from the concept of quantized energy.The concept of quantized energy does not require the need for an infinite amount of energy. Therefore, at a certain point in time, the amount of of energy being emitted will run out, due to a fixed amount of energy. That is why the energy plummets down, as opposed to increasing. There simply isn't enough energy for this to happen. As a result, the emitted energy will increase until it reaches the amount of energy present in the body, and will then decrease because there isn't any energy left to keep the increase going.

6. Who famously postulated the equivalence between momentum and wavelength, essentially stating that every particle has an associated wave nature?

From Quiz Quantum Quirks

Answer: De Broglie

Louis De Broglie's equivalence is one of the most central concepts in modern physics.

7. What does the word quantum mean?

From Quiz Quantum Physics for Dummies

Answer: Quantum is Latin for "how much", "what amount"

Black body radiation, photoelectric effect and atomic line spectra all suggest that energy - as other physical variables like angular momentum - are quantized, i.e. in their change in a physical transition between one state and another can come only in certain amounts. Max Planck showed that in order to explain the radiation that is emitted from a "black body", the energy cannot be continuous, but only appears in certain amounts, i.e. quants. Generally, for quantum mechanical systems, physical variables such as energy and angular momentum can only change in quants.

8. After Planck, another great German scientist did an awkward thing - he published his special theory before his general theory on a particular topic. Simple - who is he?

From Quiz Quantum Theory...What A Ride!

Answer: Albert Einstein

Yes, weird as it may sound, he published his special theory of relativity in 1905, and then the general theory in 1911. It may have seemed a bit satirical at that point, but that was the man - the greatest undoubtedly. Basically, the papers on special relativity focused mainly on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion and electromagnetic waves. After its phenomenal success mainly based on the legendary equation E=mc^2, he published general relativity based on macroscopic phenomena such as gravitation.

9. A fourth dimension hypercube is known as a what?

From Quiz Exploring the Fourth Dimension

Answer: Tesseract

A hypercube is a figure used to describe the space in other dimensions. The hyperspace in the fourth dimension is impossible to describe due to the limitations of our own dimensions. The fourth dimension can only be understood as an abstract.

10. His theory, simplified, was that the electrons in the atom move in precisely determined orbits.

From Quiz Elementary Quantum Mechanics

Answer: Bohr

This theory is now defunct and has been replaced by the newer, better quantum mechanical model.

11. Popularly known as the EPR paradox, the discussion over the nature of quantum 'quirks' such as entanglement led to a series of debates between which famous scientists?

From Quiz Quantum Quirks

Answer: Einstein and Bohr

Einstein argued that Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics was correct, yet incomplete. However, several decades later, it was Bell who settled this debate.

12. Another idea, which was quite controversial initially, but has long been common ground, is the probability interpretation of quantum mechanics. Which founding father of quantum mechanics put this idea forward?

From Quiz Quantum Physics for Dummies

Answer: Max Born

The idea of particles having wave characteristics seemed to imply that a particle could be characterized by a certain mass density. Max Born rather interpreted this as a probability density of finding the particle at a certain position. Furthermore he said that quantum mechanics can predict only probabilities for the outcome of a measurement. He also formulated a rule (for which he later got the Nobel Prize) about how to calculate those probabilities - but as promised, I will not stoop to deal in mathematics here.

13. In which conference, the fifth and most famous edition of which was held in 1927, were some of the greatest names in quantum physics present, but sadly there was no concrete outcome of it! (It was named after a famous chemist.)

From Quiz Quantum Theory...What A Ride!

Answer: The Solvay Conference

The Solvay Conference consisted of some of the biggest names in quantum physics back then - Planck, Curie, Einstein, Bohr, Dirac, Heisenberg, Pauli, Debye - you name them. It was presided over by Heindrik Lorentz, a leading proponent of the electromagnetic theory. The battle between the young group led by Pauli and Dirac and the veterans led by Planck and Bohr was a mouth-watering contest, with both sides coming up with well-founded theories. But there was really no concrete outcome of this - the problems remained bigger, the solutions far away.

14. The term for a fourth dimension hypercube was established by whom?

From Quiz Exploring the Fourth Dimension

Answer: Charles Hinton

Charles Hinton (1853 - 1907) coined the term "tesseract" in the Dublin University magazine in 1880. Hinton was a British mathematician who also wrote science fiction pieces.

15. Rocky is now orbiting around the Earth. According to Kepler's First Law of Planetary Motion, the orbital path best resembles this shape.

From Quiz Journey Through Orbital Mechanics

Answer: Ellipse

Kepler's First Law states "The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with one star at its focus." In orbital mechanics, a circle, a parabola, and a hyperbola are all forms of elliptical orbits, with varying eccentricity. A hyperbolic orbit is a high energy orbit, and allows rockets to travel past the gravitational influence of the body. When the Apollo astronauts were travelling to the Moon, they were in a hyperbolic orbit. A parabolic orbit means the orbiting object has the minimum amount of energy to escape, or escape velocity. A circular orbit is an ellipse with zero eccentricity.

16. What Greek letter is used to denote frequency?

From Quiz Elementary Quantum Mechanics

Answer: Nu

While nu is used to show frequency, lambda is used to show wavelength.

17. Which quantum number denotes the orientation of atomic orbitals containing electrons?

From Quiz A Quiz on Quantum Mechanics

Answer: magnetic quantum number

Scientists use four quantum numbers to describe electrons and other particles: 1.Principal quantum number: this number denotes the energy level of the orbital. 2.Angular momentum quantum number: this number denotes the orbital shape. Its value is always less than the value of the principal quantum number. 3.Magnetic quantum number: this number denotes orbital orientation. This quantum number ranges from the negative value of the angular momentum value to the positive. 4.Spin quantum number: this number denotes the angular momentum of a particle.

18. Among all the quantum 'quirks', this one is the most basic. Which property of a subatomic particle is seen to possess an inherently quantum nature, implying that classical laws cannot explain this property?

From Quiz Quantum Quirks

Answer: Spin

The spin is associated with a component of the angular momentum of a particle, and the concept of symmetry forms one of the cornerstones of quantum physics.

19. Who said: 'Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory, has not understood it'?

From Quiz Quantum Physics for Dummies

Answer: Niels Bohr

Society in general and also leading scientists took a long time to accept even the basic ideas of quantum mechanics: the particle wave duality and the probabilistic nature of quantum physics. Certainly in the early days most physicists were baffled by the philosophical implications. Danish physicist Niels Bohr won fame and the Nobel Prize for his model of the atom and founded the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Copenhagen University, later to be known as Niels Bohr Institute. The group of his colleagues and correspondents was known as "The Copenhagen School" of quantum mechanics.

20. There cannot be a quantum physics quiz without Schrodinger. Which animal did he specifically use for his famous thought experiment regarding uncertainty?

From Quiz Quantum Theory...What A Ride!

Answer: Cat

Obviously, he wanted a cat for his famous gamma-ray box hiding trick. We really do not know of any specific reason why! The outcome of this thought experiment is history - he put a strong theory about uncertainty, something even Heisenberg had not formulated. This was in response to the Copenhagen interpretation of the erstwhile quantum physics. He proclaimed that the cat, depending upon some random phenomenon, may be both alive and dead! Although it was only a thought experiment, it paved the way for bolder assumptions and bigger strides in quantum mechanics.

21. A book written by Edwin Abbott Abbott is used to explain the fourth dimension in the form of a satire. What was this book called?

From Quiz Exploring the Fourth Dimension

Answer: "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions"

Flatland was written in 1884. It is about a two dimensional world in which men are polygons and women are line segments. The narrator, A. Square, is then visited by a three dimensional sphere but does not understand it due to his dimensional limitations. Since then, numerous imitations have been created including "Sphereland" by Dionys Burger.

22. In quantum theory, there is a famous relationship named the Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle, which says that what two properties of a system cannot both be determined with arbitrarily small uncertainties simultaneously?

From Quiz The Quantum Quiz

Answer: position and momentum

An interesting consequence of the Indeterminancy Principle is that you cannot confine an object to an arbitrarily small space. If you were to attempt to do so, you would be attempting to decrease both the uncertainty in the object's position and the uncertainty in its momentum simultaneously, which is impossible, and you would inevitably see the object escape its cage. This would be analogous to dropping a ping pong ball into a small cup and watching it shoot out right through the walls of the cup.

23. Who solved the photoelectric effect?

From Quiz A Quiz on Quantum Mechanics

Answer: Albert Einstein&Einstein

The term "photoelectric effect" refers to the phenomenon that occurs when light hits certain metals, resulting in the production of an electric current. The issue here was that the production of an electric current required a specific wavelength, as opposed to a specific intensity. According to classical physics, this issue would not arise because light was thought to be continuous. With a continuous source of light, and electric current would eventually be produced. However, this did not match the experimental data. Albert Einstein(1879-1954) used the newly-born concept of quantized energy to solve this problem. He proposed that because energy is quantized, the photon would have to have a certain wavelength, and therefore a certain energy to be able to cause electron emission.

24. When Einstein famously said "God does not play dice with the universe", what did he mean?

From Quiz Quantum Physics for Dummies

Answer: He didn't like the probability interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Although in common knowledge mainly connected with the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, which was one of the milestones in establishing quantum mechanics. He was in constant dialogue with the physicists working on the development of quantum mechanics and contributed much to the ensuing philosophical discussions.

25. This young British physicist was one of the "brat pack", along with another Austrian prodigy, who changed the world of quantum physics, turning it on its head. Name both of them.

From Quiz Quantum Theory...What A Ride!

Answer: Dirac and Pauli

Paul Dirac, along with Wolfgang Pauli, placed quantum mechanics on a firm mathematical footing, disregarding the "old guard"'s idea of free orbits. They really wanted the aesthetic beauty of the equations rather than what they implied. With his famous equation, Dirac properly introduced fermions and their behaviour under various fields.

26. What would be the formula for the surface volume of a fourth dimension hypersphere?

From Quiz Exploring the Fourth Dimension

Answer: 2(π^2)(r^3)

Most people tend to use an incorrect formula. This is because they usually add or multiply the formulas for circumference (2πr) and surface area (4π(r^2)) improperly. The accepted formula for the surface volume of a fourth dimension hypersphere (2(π^2)(r^3)) has been rigorously tested.

27. Rocky wants to go to a higher orbit. He performs a burn in his direction of motion increasing his apogee, then while at the orbital apogee, performs another burn to circularize his new orbit. What did Rocky just perform?

From Quiz Journey Through Orbital Mechanics

Answer: Hohmann Transfer

A Hohmann Transfer is the simplest maneuver to reach a higher altitude and uses the least amount of fuel, but takes a long time to complete.

28. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that it is impossible to accurately and simultaneously determine which properties of fast moving particles?

From Quiz Elementary Quantum Mechanics

Answer: position and momentum

29. One of the fundamental properties of quantum physics is the superposition of states. Which animal did Schrodinger use in his famous thought experiment to demonstrate this principle?

From Quiz Quantum Quirks

Answer: Cat

The end result of the experiment being that, until measurement, the cat is in a superposition state of both 'dead' and 'alive' at the same time.

30. The equation which gives the mathematical apparatus for the description of quantum mechanical systems was formulated by, and is named after, which Austrian physicist?

From Quiz Quantum Physics for Dummies

Answer: Erwin Schrödinger

The Schrödinger equation describes the time development of a quantum mechanical systems, like the Hydrogen atom and more complicated systems. Actually, the Hydrogen atom is one of the few systems for which this equation can be "solved" exactly, i.e. no approximations have to be made. One of the successes of quantum mechanics is that the solution of the Schrödinger Equation gives the correct spectrum of the Hydrogen atom.

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