A QI Special Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jean Nicot

Nicot's association with tobacco led to the addictive ingredient of cigarettes, nicotine, being named after him.

Raleigh actually never visited North America. The first recorded sighting of a British person smoking was in 1556 - when Raleigh was only four years old. It therefore seems likely that this familiar tale attached to Raleigh's name is based on fallacy.

It is also probable that the story of Raleigh's introduction of potatoes to Britain from America is a myth. Many accounts claim that potatoes were being grown in the countries of Spain and Italy before Raleigh's time, and are likely to have reached Britain from mainland Europe.

Answer: Baldy Mountain

Lemmings are mostly found in and around arctic areas. So all of the other famous peaks listed would be too far from any lemming populations.

This myth was created by Norwegian naturalists who observed and misunderstood the motives of the lemmings. Lemmings have an incredible ability to reproduce, as one female can produce up to 80 offspring per year. The lemmings which fell from the cliffs were actually in search of food due to a surging population. When they reached the dead end (in this case the edge of a cliff) they were forced off.

It is reported that the Disney film "White Wilderness", which popularised the myth of suicidal lemmings, consisted of film-makers throwing the lemmings into nearby rivers.

Answer: Mars

Yes, it's Olympus Mons! Standing at an impressive 88,600 ft, it is three times higher than Mount Everest. Instead of being part of a huge chain of mountains, such as the Himalayas or the Alps, with steep mountainous slopes, Olympus Mons stands alone and has slopes with an inclination of only one to three degrees.

Answer: Mosquitoes

As well as millions of people who have died in the past from mosquito bites, mosquitoes also cause a person to die every twelve seconds in the present day. It should also be noted that it is only the females who bite humans, passing on diseases such as malaria.

One thing which is surprising is that there was no knowledge that mosquito bites were dangerous until the late 19th century. The man who dedicated himself to researching the dangers, Sir Patrick "Mosquito" Manson, actually infected his own son to prove that mosquito bites were dangerous to humans. The boy eventually recovered and Manson was knighted and went onto found the London School of Tropical Medicine.

Answer: 8,800 km

Although the Great Wall can be seen from space (which only starts about 100 km form the Earth's surface), it cannot be seen from the moon. No man-made structures can be.

There seems to be several myths associated with China with respect to quiz facts. Inventions such as the rickshaw and the fortune cookie did not come from China, but from America. The rickshaw was invented by American Jonathan Scobie as a means of transporting his disabled wife. The fortune cookie came from America, but is thought to have been created by a Japanese immigrant. Another surprise is that Chop Suey WAS of Chinese origin. The early appearance in America and subsequent myths of its American conception are due to the large numbers of Cantonese immigrants who arrived in California and introduced the dish.

Answer: Arthur

Arthur was first in line for the crown until his unexpected death at the age of 15, which left his younger brother Henry to become the next king of England.

There is much debate over the issue of the wives of Henry VIII. Henry himself used the fact that "a man could not sleep with his brother's widow" as grounds for declaring marriage to Catherine of Aragon was invalid. However, Catherine stated that she never consummated her marriage with Arthur, making her marriage to Henry legitimate. The Pope believed Henry's marriage to Catherine to be valid and so declared Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn (his second wife) as void, due to the fact that Henry was still married to Catherine. Furthermore, Henry annulled his marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, on the grounds that the marriage was not consummated, and both parties agreed that a lawful marriage never existed. He also annulled his marriage to his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, accusing her of adultery.

So, there were two undeniably legal marriages (Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr) and four iffy ones. However, any way you look at it, there were definitely less than six undisputed marriages!

Answer: Goldfish

It has been suggested, following recent studies, that goldfish have a memory of several months and are able to recognise a range of forms and sounds. It has even been demonstrated that goldfish can follow a routine in order to obtain food. So, you may be flushing aquatic geniuses down your loo!

Also, it is often said that a pregnant goldfish is called a "twit". This is humorous but not at all true. Goldfish do not get pregnant, but lay eggs.

Those poor goldfish.

Answer: - 273 degrees Celsius

Absolute zero can also be represented as 0 Kelvin and is the temperature at which all molecular oscillations cease to exist. If this temperature was reached, theoretically all matter would disappear!

In the year 2000, scientists in Helsinki University cooled a piece of rhodium to just above this temperature. The difficulty in reaching such low temperatures can be seen by comparing with the coldest natural temperature recorded on Earth (-89.2 degrees Celsius in Antarctica) or the coldest natural temperature in the solar system (estimated to be around 10 or 20 degrees above absolute zero).

Answer: Antonio Meucci

Meucci patented his telephone five years before Bell, and when Bell tried to do the same, Meucci sued. To prove that the telephone was his invention, Meucci sent in his original model and sketches to the lab at Western Union in 1876. An unfortunate coincidence (at least for Meucci) was that this was the very lab in which Bell worked and the model and sketches were said to have "mysteriously disappeared". Meucci died just a few years later and Bell became widely known as the inventor of the telephone.

There has been some justice in the sense that more people are now becoming aware that it was not Bell who invented the telephone, but Meucci. I am simply doing my part in the campaign for justice and truth in writing this quiz :P.

Answer: Pink

It seems so simple when we think about it, but these myths have clouded our common sense.

The brain is pink (like many other parts of the body) due to the blood flowing through it. The terms "white" and "grey" are simply to illustrate that the brain is made up of two different types of tissue. "Grey matter" contains the cells which process information. "White matter" consists of myelin, which insulates axons that extend from the grey matter to the rest of the body. Both are therefore vital to the knowledge and speed required here on FunTrivia.

When the brains of men and women with identical IQs were compared, results showed that men had six times more "grey matter" than women, and that women had ten times more "white matter" than men! This is thought to produce two very different brain processes and may mean that men and woman are even more different than we first thought!