Skip to main content

What is a science quiz book?

If you are panicking about last minutes presents, I can (in an entirely unbiased way) heartily recommend my bargain priced science quiz book How Many Moons Does the Earth Have? You can get it at book stores, Amazon.co.uk and (with free worldwide delivery) Book Depository. But there has been a certain amount of confusion about what's actually in it.

The book is divided into two 'quizzes' - each has six rounds of eight questions, plus two special rounds with things like pictures questions and puzzles. So you could use it in a traditional pub quiz format. But the main intention is just to read through and enjoy testing yourself, so it's much more than just a collection of questions and answers. It's probably best if I come up with a specific example, and as an anonymous commenter berated me about doing a Santa-related post yesterday, I know exactly which one to give.

A question page looks like this, with the question itself and a few 'while you're thinking' factoids... but the answer is over the page, so you can sort out your answer before peeking.


As we don't have a page turn on the blog
...
...
I'll give you a moment to think
...
...
Before you scroll down
...
...
As the equivalent of a page turn
...
...



So it's not just the answer, but also an exploration of the topic in a little more detail, plus a book where you can read more (all the referenced books are detailed at the back).

In case you've now realised this is something you need to buy for those last minute gifts, here's the purchase details again: you can get it at book stores, Amazon.co.uk and (with free worldwide delivery) Book Depository.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's recent gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some ex

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Which idiot came up with percentage-based gradient signs

Rant warning: the contents of this post could sound like something produced by UKIP. I wish to make it clear that I do not in any way support or endorse that political party. In fact it gives me the creeps. Once upon a time, the signs for a steep hill on British roads displayed the gradient in a simple, easy-to-understand form. If the hill went up, say, one yard for every three yards forward it said '1 in 3'. Then some bureaucrat came along and decided that it would be a good idea to state the slope as a percentage. So now the sign for (say) a 1 in 10 slope says 10% (I think). That 'I think' is because the percentage-based slope is so unnatural. There are two ways we conventionally measure slopes. Either on X/Y coordiates (as in 1 in 4) or using degrees - say at a 15° angle. We don't measure them in percentages. It's easy to visualize a 1 in 3 slope, or a 30 degree angle. Much less obvious what a 33.333 recurring percent slope is. And what's a 100% slope