Questions & Answers
Browse all 20 questions from the
Landmarks of Scientific Discovery study set below.
Each question shows the correct answer — select a study format above to practice interactively.
1
Who is credited with the first laboratory synthesis of urea, effectively bridging the gap between organic and inorganic chemistry in 1828?
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A
Friedrich Wöhler
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B
Justus von Liebig
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C
Dmitri Mendeleev
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D
August Kekulé
2
Which scientist is credited with the first successful measurement of the speed of light using a rotating mirror apparatus in 1862?
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A
Albert A. Michelson
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B
Léon Foucault
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C
Ole Rømer
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D
Hippolyte Fizeau
3
The first observation of the phenomenon of radioactivity was made in 1896 by which scientist using uranium salts?
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A
Marie Curie
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B
Pierre Curie
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C
Henri Becquerel
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D
Ernest Rutherford
4
In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered the antibacterial properties of Penicillium notatum, but who led the team that first successfully isolated penicillin for clinical use in 1940?
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A
Howard Florey and Ernst Chain
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B
Selman Waksman
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C
Gerhard Domagk
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D
Louis Pasteur
5
Which astronomer provided the first observational evidence that the universe is expanding by noting the redshift of distant galaxies in 1929?
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A
George Gamow
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B
Fred Hoyle
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C
Edwin Hubble
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D
Georges Lemaître
6
What was the first synthetic plastic polymer, created by Alexander Parkes in 1862 and demonstrated at the 1862 Great International Exhibition?
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A
Bakelite
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B
Celluloid
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C
Parkesine
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D
Nylon
7
Who successfully performed the first isolation of a virus (the Tobacco Mosaic Virus) in crystalline form in 1935?
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A
Wendell Meredith Stanley
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B
Dmitri Ivanovsky
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C
Martinus Beijerinck
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D
Jonas Salk
8
Which scientist conducted the first experiment to demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic waves, confirming Maxwell's theories in 1887?
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A
Nikola Tesla
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B
Heinrich Hertz
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C
Guglielmo Marconi
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D
James Clerk Maxwell
9
The first evidence of the 'greenhouse effect' was identified in 1856 by which researcher, who noted that carbon dioxide traps heat?
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A
John Tyndall
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B
Svante Arrhenius
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C
Eunice Newton Foote
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D
Guy Stewart Callendar
10
Who was the first person to successfully isolate an individual element using electrolysis, discovering potassium and sodium in 1807?
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A
Humphry Davy
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B
Michael Faraday
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C
Antoine Lavoisier
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D
Joseph Priestley
11
In 1798, the first successful vaccination procedure was performed by Edward Jenner to protect against which disease?
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A
Polio
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B
Smallpox
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C
Measles
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D
Influenza
12
Which physicist was the first to propose the existence of the neutrino to explain the conservation of energy in beta decay in 1930?
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A
Enrico Fermi
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B
Wolfgang Pauli
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C
Richard Feynman
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D
Werner Heisenberg
13
The first functional fuel cell was invented in 1839 by which scientist?
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A
William Grove
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B
Christian Friedrich Schönbein
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C
Wilhelm Ostwald
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D
Francis Thomas Bacon
14
Who was the first to classify plants and animals into a formal hierarchical system, known as 'Systema Naturae', in 1735?
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A
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
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B
Charles Darwin
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C
Carl Linnaeus
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D
Gregor Mendel
15
Which team was the first to achieve the direct imaging of an exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star in 2008?
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A
Hubble Space Telescope team
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B
Kepler mission team
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C
Marois et al.
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D
James Webb team
16
In 1911, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was the first to observe which phenomenon in mercury when cooled to near absolute zero?
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A
Superconductivity
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B
Bose-Einstein condensation
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C
Superfluidity
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D
Quantum entanglement
17
The first successful artificial synthesis of an element (technetium) via nuclear transmutation was achieved in 1937 by whom?
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A
Glenn Seaborg
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B
Emilio Segrè and Carlo Perrier
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C
Irène Joliot-Curie
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D
Ernest Lawrence
18
Who is credited with the first description of the circulation of blood in the human body, published in 'Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus' in 1628?
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A
Andreas Vesalius
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B
William Harvey
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C
Marcello Malpighi
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D
Galen
19
In 1952, which scientist provided the first experimental evidence that DNA, not protein, is the genetic material in bacteriophages (the Hershey-Chase experiment)?
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A
Rosalind Franklin
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B
Martha Chase and Alfred Hershey
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C
James Watson and Francis Crick
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D
Oswald Avery
20
The first demonstration of a functional transistor, which revolutionized electronics, was achieved in 1947 by whom?
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A
Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley
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B
Jack Kilby
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C
Robert Noyce
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D
Gordon Moore
