I’ve been accumulating these QI-like questions for some time. You will have seen some of them before.

Questions for home-made QI.

Rules, the obvious answer is always wrong, I always have the last word.

Q1. I’ll accept any of three answers. What colour is an orange in the dark?
Wrong answers (because obvious): Black, Dark Orange, Orange.

Q2. A kangaroo rat or rat kangaroo. Is it a marsupial or placental mammal?
Wrong answers: Marsupial, Placental mammal.
Q2a. So a hopping mouse from central Australia would be a?
Wrong answer: Marsupial.
Q2b. How many species of indigenous placental mammals are there in Australia?

Q3. Ancient Greek history. What do you know about Helen the wife of Menelaus?
Wrong answers: Helen of Troy, The face that launched a thousand ships, Wooden Horse.

Q4. Which planet in the solar system has the hottest surface?
Wrong answers: Mercury, Venus, Earth.
Q4a. Which solar system object has the highest percentage of oxygen in its atmosphere?
Wrong answer: Earth.
Q4b. Which two solar system objects have the largest salt water oceans?
Wrong answers: Earth, Mars, Venus.

Q5. I’ll accept either of two answers. What is Australia’s highest mountain?
Wrong answer: Mt Kosciusko, Mt Townsend.
Q5a. OK, so outside of Antarctica, what is Australia’s highest mountain?
Wrong answer: Mt Kosciusko, Mt Townsend.
Q5b. How many scientific research stations are there in Australian territory in Antarctica.
Q5c. What plant flower did I see closest to the summit of Mt Kosciusko?

Q6. I’m looking for two answers. The Boa constrictor is the only living animal species where the common name is the same as the two-part scientific name. What about extinct animals?

Q7. The birds are descended from the dinosaurs. How big was the biggest dinosaur ancestor of all the birds?
Wrong answer: Very big.

Q8. I’m looking for two answers. What did the ancestor of the dinosaurs, ancestor of the pterosaurs and ancestor of the crocodiles have in common?
Wrong answer: All the same.

Q9. What were drugs used for in whaling?
Wrong answers: Poisoning the whales, Sedating the whales, Seasickness.

Q10. I’ll accept either of two answers. Who first discovered Australia?
Wrong answers: Cook, Tasman, Dampier, Pelsaert, the Chinese.
Q10a. So the English sea captain first to discover Australia was?
Wrong answers: Cook, Dampier.
Q10b. Captain Cook’s Endeavour was the 34th European ship to discover Australia. Can you name any of the earlier ones?

Q11. What is the largest member of the cat family?
Wrong answers: Tiger, Lion, Leopard, Fat cat, Garfield
Q11a. The Liliger and Titigon have already been mentioned on QI. What other cat family hybrids can you name?

Q12. I’ll accept either of two answers. You’ve heard of the seven wonders of the ancient world. What was the original greatest wonder of the ancient world?
Wrong answers: Pyramid of Cheops, Colossus of Rhodes, Lighthouse of Alexandria, Hanging gardens of Babylon.

Q13. 50 AD in Alexandria. Hero invented the first steam engine. What was it used for?
Wrong answers: Train, Toy, Novelty, Not used for anything, Pumping water, Mining.
Q13a. What else did Hero invent?
Wrong answer: Heroin.

Q14. Which bird species has the widest range?
Wrong answer: Pigeon, Sparrow, Chicken.

Q15. What do Buffy, Xena, the Easterbunny and Santa have in common?
(Note to self, Gabrielle and Rudolph)

can i lock in mawson peak for number 5?

sarahs mum said:

can i lock in mawson peak for number 5?

And can my buzzer play ‘Marie’s Wedding?’

sarahs mum said:

can i lock in mawson peak for number 5?

maybe it is 5a?

sarahs mum said:

sarahs mum said:

can i lock in mawson peak for number 5?

maybe it is 5a?

unless we are counting from the sea floor and then it is big ben.

(I looked)

mollwollfumble said:

I always have the last word.

Well that’s no fun.

1. I’m going for either black or orange, depending on what you mean by the word “colour” at the time.

morning. rained a bit last night and maybe more today.

sarahs mum said:

can i lock in mawson peak for number 5?

maybe it is 5a?

Yes, 5a! Well done!

I’ve changed my answer to 4a twice since writing the question! Mt first answer was Mercury (40% oxygen), changed that to Venus (oxygen in CO2), now to Europa.

Answers – feedback appreciated.

Q1. I’ll accept any of three answers. What colour is an orange in the dark?
Accepted answers:
No colour, because colour comes from the frequency of photons but no photons
Grey, because in the dark, light on retinal receptors looks grey
Blue, because Cerenkov radiation from passing subatomic particles

Q2. A kangaroo rat or rat kangaroo. Is it a marsupial or placental mammal?
Answer: Both, in USA it’s a placental and in Aus a marsupial.
Q2a. So a hopping mouse from central Australia would be a?
Answer: Placental
Q2b. How many species of indigenous placental mammals are there in Australia?
Answer: 196, more placentals than marsupials

Q3. Ancient Greek history. What do you know about Helen the wife of Menelaus?
Answers: Ελλάδα, Helenism, Eloped to Alexandria – never went to Troy – the Greeks attacked the wrong city.

Q4. Which planet in the solar system has the hottest surface?
Answer: Saturn, because it has the thickest atmosphere
Q4a. Which solar system object has the highest percentage of oxygen in its atmosphere?
Answer: Europa
Q4b. Which two solar system objects have the largest salt water oceans?
Answer: Uranus and Neptune

Q5. I’ll accept either of two answers. What is Australia’s highest mountain?
Answer: Ice dome, Dome A, Mt McClintock
Q5a. OK, so outside of Antarctica, what is Australia’s highest mountain?
Answer: Mt Mawson, Big Ben, active volcano
Q5b. How many scientific research stations are there in Australian territory in Antarctica.
Answer: 16
Q5c. What plant flower did I see closest to the summit of Mt Kosciusko?
Answer: Dandelion

Q6. I’m looking for two answers. The Boa constrictor is the only living animal species where the common name is the same as the two-part scientific name. What about extinct anumals?
Answers: Tyrannosaurus rex and Homo erectus

Q7. The birds are descended from the dinosaurs. How big was the biggest dinosaur ancestor of all the birds?
Answer: No bigger than an ostrich

Q8. I’m looking for two answers. What did the ancestor of the dinosaurs, ancestor of the pterosaurs and ancestor of the crocodiles have in common?
Answer: They could all run on two legs. Lived within a few million years of each other

Q9. What were drugs used for in whaling?
Answer: A drug is a sea anchor

Q10. I’ll accept either of two answers. Who first discovered Australia?
Answers: Torres Straight Islanders, Javanese
Q10a. So the English sea captain first to discover Australia was?
Answer: John Brooke in 1622 (Extra points for Keeling)
Q10b. Captain Cook claimed Australia for Britain in 1770. What did Louis Aleno de St Aloüarn do in 1772?
Answer: Claimed Western Australia for the French
Q10c. In 1788, La Pérouse met the British first fleet at Botany Bay. What is interesting about his crew list?
Answer: Napoleon Bonaparte
Q10d. Captain Cook’s Endeavour was the 34th European ship to discover Australia. Can you name any of the earlier ones?
Answer: Duyfken, San Pedrico, Tres Reyes Magos, d’Eendracht, Mauritius, Dordrecht, Amsterdam, Tryall, Leeuwin, Pera, Arnhem, het Gulden Zeepaerdt, Vianen, Batavia, Klyn Amsterdam, Wezel, Heemskerck, Zeehaen, Limmen, Zeemeeuw, Braek, Cygnet, HMS Roebuck, Ridderschap van Holland, Geelvink, Nyptangh, Wezeltje, Zeewijk

Q11. What is the largest member of the cat family?
Answer: Hercules, a Liger
Q11a. The Liliger and Titigon have already been mentioned on QI. What other cat family hybrids can you name?
Answer: Lepjag, Leopon, Pumapard, Sercival, Caracat, Blynx, Ocebob, Maribob

Q12. I’ll accept either of two answers. You’ve heard of the seven wonders of the ancient world. What was the original greatest wonder of the ancient world?
Answer: The causeway across the Nile, the Labyrinth of ancient Egypt

Q13. 50 AD in Alexandria. Hero invented the first steam engine. What was it used for?
Answer: Operating stage scenery
Q13a. What else did Hero invent?
Answer: A second steam-powered engine, vending machine, wind powered machinery, fire engine, a machine for making thunder, syringe, the programmable computer, a fountain operated by hydrostatics, an automatic car, Fermat’s principle

Q14. Which bird species has the widest range?
Answer: Wilson’s storm petrel

Q15. What do Buffy, Xena, the Easterbunny and Santa have in common?
Answer: Dwarf planets

Q13
I discovered the aeolipile in the back pages of a Mad Magazine years ago and thought that it was just some made up silliness.

Hero’s steam engine, the aeolipile, did no work. But he made another engine….

>Heron described the construction of the aeolipile (a version of which is known as Heron’s engine) which was a rocket-like reaction engine and the first-recorded steam engine (although Vitruvius mentioned the aeolipile in De Architectura some 100 years earlier than Hero). It was created almost two millennia before the industrial revolution. Another engine used air from a closed chamber heated by an altar fire to displace water from a sealed vessel; the water was collected and its weight, pulling on a rope, opened temple doors. Some historians have conflated the two inventions to assert that the aeolipile was capable of useful work.

——-

When I worked with Doug Mawson his abode was located on another peak not mentioned here.

Ian said:

Q13
I discovered the aeolipile in the back pages of a Mad Magazine years ago and thought that it was just some made up silliness.

Hero’s steam engine, the aeolipile, did no work. But he made another engine….

>Heron described the construction of the aeolipile (a version of which is known as Heron’s engine) which was a rocket-like reaction engine and the first-recorded steam engine (although Vitruvius mentioned the aeolipile in De Architectura some 100 years earlier than Hero). It was created almost two millennia before the industrial revolution. Another engine used air from a closed chamber heated by an altar fire to displace water from a sealed vessel; the water was collected and its weight, pulling on a rope, opened temple doors. Some historians have conflated the two inventions to assert that the aeolipile was capable of useful work.

——-

When I worked with Doug Mawson his abode was located on another peak not mentioned here.

The connection between Hero’s Engine, Mad Magazine, and the abode of Doug Mawson is not immediately apparent.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Ian said:

Q13
I discovered the aeolipile in the back pages of a Mad Magazine years ago and thought that it was just some made up silliness.

Hero’s steam engine, the aeolipile, did no work. But he made another engine….

>Heron described the construction of the aeolipile (a version of which is known as Heron’s engine) which was a rocket-like reaction engine and the first-recorded steam engine (although Vitruvius mentioned the aeolipile in De Architectura some 100 years earlier than Hero). It was created almost two millennia before the industrial revolution. Another engine used air from a closed chamber heated by an altar fire to displace water from a sealed vessel; the water was collected and its weight, pulling on a rope, opened temple doors. Some historians have conflated the two inventions to assert that the aeolipile was capable of useful work.

——-

When I worked with Doug Mawson his abode was located on another peak not mentioned here.

The connection between Hero’s Engine, Mad Magazine, and the abode of Doug Mawson is not immediately apparent.

Well spotted. There is no

——-

connection.

(except they are all arguably mad)

The Rev Dodgson said:

Ian said:

Q13
I discovered the aeolipile in the back pages of a Mad Magazine years ago and thought that it was just some made up silliness.

Hero’s steam engine, the aeolipile, did no work. But he made another engine….

>Heron described the construction of the aeolipile (a version of which is known as Heron’s engine) which was a rocket-like reaction engine and the first-recorded steam engine (although Vitruvius mentioned the aeolipile in De Architectura some 100 years earlier than Hero). It was created almost two millennia before the industrial revolution. Another engine used air from a closed chamber heated by an altar fire to displace water from a sealed vessel; the water was collected and its weight, pulling on a rope, opened temple doors. Some historians have conflated the two inventions to assert that the aeolipile was capable of useful work.

——-

When I worked with Doug Mawson his abode was located on another peak not mentioned here.

The connection between Hero’s Engine, Mad Magazine, and the abode of Doug Mawson is not immediately apparent.

Mawson peak, Mawson base in Antarctica, and Hero’s engine are linked into questions 5a, 5b and 13.

I was tempted to cite Mad Magazine as an authority for another question, but can’t remember what it was right now. If Mad Magazine is the answer, what is the question?

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Ian said:

Q13
I discovered the aeolipile in the back pages of a Mad Magazine years ago and thought that it was just some made up silliness.

Hero’s steam engine, the aeolipile, did no work. But he made another engine….

>Heron described the construction of the aeolipile (a version of which is known as Heron’s engine) which was a rocket-like reaction engine and the first-recorded steam engine (although Vitruvius mentioned the aeolipile in De Architectura some 100 years earlier than Hero). It was created almost two millennia before the industrial revolution. Another engine used air from a closed chamber heated by an altar fire to displace water from a sealed vessel; the water was collected and its weight, pulling on a rope, opened temple doors. Some historians have conflated the two inventions to assert that the aeolipile was capable of useful work.

——-

When I worked with Doug Mawson his abode was located on another peak not mentioned here.

The connection between Hero’s Engine, Mad Magazine, and the abode of Doug Mawson is not immediately apparent.

Mawson peak, Mawson base in Antarctica, and Hero’s engine are linked into questions 5a, 5b and 13.

I was tempted to cite Mad Magazine as an authority for another question, but can’t remem3ber what it was right now. If Mad Magazine is the answer, what is the question?

The Mad reference was an aside as I’m sure you realize. My quote was from wikipedia as I’m sure you realize.

You fucked up on Q13 as I’m sure you realize.

The Doug Mawson I mentioned is real and lives on Watanobbi hill in NSW.. a reference in jest :)

Ian said:

You fucked up on Q13 as I’m sure you realize.

The Doug Mawson I mentioned is real and lives on Watanobbi hill in NSW.. a reference in jest :)

I’m still unsure whether I was right on Q 13. I knew in advance that my answer disagreed with Wikipedia, and with what was said on QI. But Wikipedia and QI aren’t always right. I need to go back to the original contemporary sources. Then I’ll get back to you.

The closest website to an original source for Hero is probably https://archive.org/stream/heronsvonalexandhero#page/n5/mode/2up

This book was written in 1899 and includes side by side translations into Greek and German, complete with figures showing many if not all of the inventions.

Anyone here read either Greek or German?

mollwollfumble said:

The closest website to an original source for Hero is probably https://archive.org/stream/heronsvonalexandhero#page/n5/mode/2up

This book was written in 1899 and includes side by side translations into Greek and German, complete with figures showing many if not all of the inventions.

Anyone here read either Greek or German?

The famous steam engine is on page https://archive.org/stream/heronsvonalexandhero#page/230/mode/2up
It only takes up one page.

Very many of the inventions are fountains and automatons powered by air or water or steam.

The automatic theatre is described in a book of its own.

I’m still trying to figure out what he did for a living.

Encyclopedia Britannica calls Hero/Heron a mathematician.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heron-of-Alexandria

Which is a bit surprising for someone with such a mechanical talent.

> I need to go back to the original contemporary sources. Then I’ll get back to you.

That may not be the easiest thing given the elapsed time, and language.

He seems to have been phenomenonally talented in maths and mechanics. Probably lucky he wasn’t stoned to death seeing that nobody likes a smart arse :)

mollwollfumble said:

I’m still trying to figure out what he did for a living.

Encyclopedia Britannica calls Hero/Heron a mathematician.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heron-of-Alexandria

Which is a bit surprising for someone with such a mechanical talent.

I don’t see that as surprising.

The separation of maths from tools for building better structures and machines is a fairly recent invention.

In fact there are still a few people around who use maths for that very practical purpose.

Presumably with a vertically mounted aeolipile and some clever engineering of seals an engine capable of useful work could be made. I wonder what sort of efficiency could be achieved.

Do we have any clever engineers?

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m still trying to figure out what he did for a living.

Encyclopedia Britannica calls Hero/Heron a mathematician.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heron-of-Alexandria

Which is a bit surprising for someone with such a mechanical talent.

I don’t see that as surprising.

The separation of maths from tools for building better structures and machines is a fairly recent invention.

In fact there are still a few people around who use maths for that very practical purpose.

So effectively you’re saying he was an engineer…

;)

Michael V said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m still trying to figure out what he did for a living.

Encyclopedia Britannica calls Hero/Heron a mathematician.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heron-of-Alexandria

Which is a bit surprising for someone with such a mechanical talent.

I don’t see that as surprising.

The separation of maths from tools for building better structures and machines is a fairly recent invention.

In fact there are still a few people around who use maths for that very practical purpose.

So effectively you’re saying he was an engineer…

;)

Of course :)

mollwollfumble said:

Ian said:

You fucked up on Q13 as I’m sure you realize.

The Doug Mawson I mentioned is real and lives on Watanobbi hill in NSW.. a reference in jest :)

I’m still unsure whether I was right on Q 13. I knew in advance that my answer disagreed with Wikipedia, and with what was said on QI. But Wikipedia and QI aren’t always right. I need to go back to the original contemporary sources. Then I’ll get back to you.

Ian is right I \_*”’ up Q13.