Monday, May 15, 2017

The New Monday Quiz recognizes that even big atoms are really quite small





The New Monday Quiz gets down to the atomic level this week, asking the same question about the atoms of ten chemical elements: is it kind of big? Or kind of small?



Some of the following are among the first five elements on the periodic table. All of the others are Element 25 or higher.  Which is which?

1. Beryllium
2. Boron
3. Bromine
4. Cobalt
5. Helium
6. Hydrogen
7. Iridium
8. Lithium
9. Manganese
10. Zinc



Answers go in the comments! 



Last week, the New Monday Quiz asked you whether countries had fewer than five million people, or more than 25 million.  Here's the scoop:

1. Algeria -- 41 million -- BIG
2. Canada -- 36 million -- BIG
3. Equatorial Guinea -- 1.2 million -- little
4. Ireland -- 4.7 million -- little
5. Mongolia -- 3.1 million -- little
6. Nepal -- 29 million -- BIG
7. New Zealand -- 4.8 million -- little
8. North Korea -- 25 million -- BIG
9. Panama -- 3.8 million -- little
10. Philippines -- 104 million (the 13th most populous country) -- BIG

Morgan got 7 of 'em right, then Judy came along and got 8, then Dr. Schnell got 9, and then UnWise Owl cleaned up with all ten of 'em. 

Two weeks ago, The New Monday Quiz celebrated the Feast of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, and took a while to recover.  


1. Brataslava is the capital of Slovakia.
2. Florence wanted Cosimo di Medici back in town because his bank went where he went, and his bank was a great whopping engine of protocapitalism.
3. Zara Yaqob, whose name was not Prester John, was the emperor of Ethiopia.
4/5. Well, let's see, we've got van der Weyden's Descent from the Cross, the Van Eyck Anolfi Portrait, and an annunciation by Fra Angelico there...
6. After the tremendous success of Zheng He's voyages, China mothballed its navy.  This left a power vaccuum in the Indian Ocean that would shortly be filled by the Portuguese, and the tide of world domination swung dramatically toward Europe.
7. The Sandside Chase was a Scottish thing.
8. Cusco became the Incan Empire.
9. The clever tinkerer from Strasbourg was Gutenburg, bless him.
10.  Samarkand is in Uzbekistan. 

Susan crushed this one with nine out of ten, and is therefore the reigning Incan Emperor of this blog until further notice.

3 comments:

DrSchnell said...

Hydrogen, Helim, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron are the first five, the others are not.

Morgan said...

Small: Hydrogen Helium Lithium Beryllium Boron
Slightly less small: Bromine Cobalt Iridium Manganese Zinc

UnwiseOwl said...

Since I still somehow retain the first 30 elements in my head from high school Chemistry, this one should be easy. I'd be surprised if anybody DIDN'T ace this one, given the usual quality of Monday Quizzers.

Beryllium (4), Boron (5), Helium (2), Hydrogen (1) , Lithium (3) are the babies.

Manganese (25), Cobalt (27/29?) and Zinc (30) just squeak into your upper category. Bromine has to be 18 greater than Chlorine, so it must be number 35.

I know nothing about Iridium except to say with some confidence that it's heavier than Boron is.