Shared quiz
Who Actually Invented It?
Ten inventions where the schoolbook version gives one person the credit and the real story hands it to several.
- Questions
- 10
- Time to play
- about 6 min
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- history
- inventions
- science
- trivia
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The questions
Correct answers are shown below, so you can check the quiz before you use it.
Who was granted the first telephone patent, in 1876?
- Alexander Graham Bellcorrect
- Elisha Gray
- Antonio Meucci
- Thomas Edison
Why
Bell applied for his telephone patent on 14 February 1876, the same day that Elisha Gray filed a caveat for a similar device. Bell's patent was granted on 7 March 1876. The competing filings led to a lengthy priority dispute.
20 seconds to answer
Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb from nothing.
- True
- Falsecorrect
Why
Inventors had built incandescent lamps for decades before Edison. His team's contribution, around 1879–80, was a long-lasting carbon filament and a practical system to power lamps in homes.
15 seconds to answer
Which Serbian-American engineer championed the alternating-current system that beat Edison's direct current for distributing power?
Accepted answers
Tesla · Nikola Tesla
Why
Nikola Tesla designed alternating-current motors and systems that George Westinghouse backed. AC could be sent over long distances efficiently, and it became the standard way to distribute electricity.
30 seconds to answer
Put these in the order they arrived, earliest first.
Correct order
- Movable-type printing in Europe
- The practical steam engine
- The telephone
- The World Wide Web
Why
Gutenberg's movable-type press appeared around 1440; practical steam engines followed in the 1700s, from Newcomen's in 1712 to Watt's improved design. The telephone came in 1876 and the Web in 1989.
45 seconds to answer
Who is credited with writing the first algorithm intended to be run by a machine?
- Ada Lovelacecorrect
- Charles Babbage
- Alan Turing
- Grace Hopper
Why
In 1843 Ada Lovelace published notes on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, including a method for it to calculate Bernoulli numbers. It is widely seen as the first program written for a machine.
20 seconds to answer
The Wright brothers are credited with the first powered, controlled, sustained flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft.
- Truecorrect
- False
Why
On 17 December 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the Wright Flyer under its own power and control. The first flight lasted 12 seconds.
15 seconds to answer
Which Scottish bacteriologist noticed in 1928 that a mould had killed the bacteria in one of his dishes?
Accepted answers
Fleming · Alexander Fleming
Why
Alexander Fleming saw that a Penicillium mould had killed the bacteria around it in a culture dish. He named the active substance penicillin but could not produce it in useful amounts.
30 seconds to answer
Who led the Oxford team that developed penicillin into an effective medicine?
- Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, who purified it and worked out how to make it in quantitycorrect
- Fleming himself, a few years later
- Louis Pasteur
- Marie Curie
Why
In 1939–41, Howard Florey, Ernst Chain and colleagues, including Norman Heatley, developed extraction methods and demonstrated penicillin's effectiveness against infections. Fleming, Florey and Chain shared the 1945 medicine Nobel Prize.
20 seconds to answer
Which of these would you least want to give up?
Poll — no right answer, players just vote.
- Antibiotics
- Refrigeration
- Indoor plumbing
- The internet
20 seconds to answer
Tim Berners-Lee proposed the World Wide Web in 1989 while working where?
- CERN, the particle physics laboratory near Genevacorrect
- MIT
- DARPA
- Bell Labs
Why
Tim Berners-Lee proposed the World Wide Web in 1989 at CERN near Geneva to help researchers share information. The first website and web server were running there by the end of 1990; the project was announced more widely on the Internet in 1991.
20 seconds to answer