The hard sciences without the equations, plus the engineering, computing and AI that came out of them.
Most people leave school with the impression that physics and chemistry are mainly equations. They are mainly explanations — why light has a speed limit, why an arch holds up a bridge, what actually happens when two substances meet. These quizzes cover motion, energy and light, elements and reactions, the constants and shapes of mathematics, and then the applied end: reinforced concrete and suspension bridges, how the internet moves information, and what the vocabulary of artificial intelligence genuinely means once the marketing is stripped out.
Ten moments that turned alchemy into a science, from the death of phlogiston to the first fully synthetic plastic.
Which chemist named oxygen and showed that the phlogiston theory of burning was wrong?
Why bread goes stale, why onions sting and why ice floats — ten kitchen-cupboard questions with real answers.
Baking soda makes a cake rise by releasing which gas?
Electrons changing hands, molecules changing shape, and the rules that decide how fast any of it happens.
In an ionic bond, what happens to the electrons involved?
What happens when substances meet, and why.
What is the chemical formula for water?
Ten elements with a distinguishing feature — a strange symbol, a record melting point, a name borrowed from Greek.
Which element does the symbol K stand for?
The engineering principles behind structures and machines.
Reinforced concrete combines concrete with which material?
Steel, rubber, glass and silicon — the substances that set the limits of what could be built.
The Bessemer process, introduced in the 1850s, made which material cheap for the first time?
Containers, barcodes, lift brakes and drain traps — modest devices with outsized effects.
The standard shipping container mattered chiefly because it did what?
Percentages, averages, units and the arithmetic that actually turns up.
What is 25% of 200?
The constants, shapes and terms worth actually knowing.
What is the value of pi to two decimal places?
Geometry as it actually gets used — sides, angles, area and volume.
How many sides does a pentagon have?
Circuits, compasses and induction: ten questions on the two forces that turned out to be one.
Ohm's law relates three quantities. Which statement expresses it?
Where energy goes, why heat only ever flows one way, and why a metal handle feels colder than a wooden one.
What does the temperature of a substance actually measure?
Motion, energy and light, described without the equations.
The speed of light in a vacuum is closest to which value?
Why thunder lags behind lightning, how a straw appears to bend in a glass, and what makes a passing siren drop in pitch.
Why can sound not travel through the vacuum of space?
Ten questions on how things move, why they stop, and what a force actually does to them.
Newton's third law says forces come in pairs. What is true of the two forces in a pair?
The vocabulary of AI and robotics, kept precise.
What does AI stand for?
Actuators, end effectors and the awkward business of staying upright.
In robotics, an actuator is the part that does what?
Two centuries of arguments about whether a machine could think, and what happened when people tried.
Who is usually credited with publishing the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a…
Telegraph, radio, television and satellites — how messages travelled first.
The electric telegraph transmitted messages using what?
The breakthroughs that rewired daily life — and the people behind them.
Who is credited with introducing the movable-type printing press to Europe around 1440?
Processors, memory, storage and what each part actually does.
What does the CPU do?
Phishing, second factors, ransomware and why length beats punctuation in a password.
Phishing is best described as what?
Addresses, protocols and the terms people mix up.
What does HTTP stand for?
Packets, CERN, HTML and the browser that turned a physics tool into a mass medium.
Packet switching, the idea underneath the internet, works by doing what?