h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Various websites have had their go at a popular science quiz. From the BBC to various geek and indeed religious sites. Always, there is a critique that some of the questions are less than ideal, not specific enough or simply wrong.

So, given the accumulated scientific and academic knowledge of Hootoo researchers, I wondered if we could create our own quiz to assess general science knowledge. Not uber-geekery, but the sort of things a layman could be reasonably expected to know through normal education and an amateur interest in all things scientific. But with a variation in difficulty to sort the Orcus's from the Ictoan's

So, what would your questions be? If we get enough, might even try and turn it into some sort of HooToo science quiz.

Multiple choice or just provide the answer?

What's the most common element in the universe?

What is the element that is most prevalent in all life on earth?

What is completely frictionless? (trick question)

What can He3 do that is unusual in a normal lab environment?

Give an example of a non-Newtonian fluid. (another trick question)

A start.

In the last few series of University Challenge, Paxo has given the students a clue to a word that they then have to spell using chemical symbols, sometimes from a group or family of elements. A rudimentary, secondary school knowledge of the periodic table and a grasp of common/popular culture has been enough for me to get most of them. Those are fun

"Multiple choice or just provide the answer?"
Either (but give the options if multiple choice), just make sure there is an answer (or the answer is 'unknown' ) and that trick questions also have a specific 'correct' answer.

>What's the most common element in the universe?

What is the element that is most prevalent in all life on earth?
<

I hope you realise these have the same answer (I'm suspecting you intended a different answer to the second...)

Depends what you mean by 'prevalent' of course.

Right you are- I suppose the question needs to be worded much better. I intended to refer to something like "carbon based life forms" without mentioning carbon.

What would you suggest?

I guess something like...

Which element forms the basis of all organic molecules?

>What can He3 do that is unusual in a normal lab environment?<

I seem to be picking on your questions a lot here.

I'm really intrigued as to what you mean here.

What is a 'normal lab environment'?

Also is this supposed to be superfluid behaviour? Because He3 is a fermion and can't form a Bose-Einstein condensate like He4 (a boson) can.

I should be more constructive here really shouldn't I...

I was referring to it's magnetic properties but you are right, the super fluid nature of He4 would be more spectacular. I'll just smile and back out of the room now...