The ULTIMATE Richard Feynman Quiz

How much do you know about the life of the Nobel Prize winning physicist? A quark’s worth or an atom bomb’s. Put on your nerdy glasses and answer these questions. Answers below.

1 He played a key role in the development of quantum electrodynamics, drawing little diagrams that greatly simplified the equations. It won him a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. What is Quantum Electrodynamics anyway?

Physicist Richard Feynman would have been 100 years old this month.

A study of computing powers

A theory of expanding universes

A theory of how light and matter interact

2 Feynman was part of the team that investigated why the space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986. In a dramatic TV experiment, he proved that NASA’s booster rocket’s rubber seal might have malfunctioned on the freezing morning of the launch. How did he do it?

He dropped an O-shaped rubber ring into a glass of ice water

He set off a mini rocket live on TV

He catapulted a rubber seal into the sky

3 Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory is a Feynman fan. How has he emulated the physicist?

He plays the bongo drums

He frequents topless bars

He has a favourite sitting spot

4 The physicist also dabbled in amateur art, sketching young women. How did he sign his works?

Funman

Quarkmaster

Ofey

5 This entrepreneur says that if he’d watched Feynman’s Cornell lecture tapes earlier in life, he might have become a physicist. He eventually bought the rights to those videos, sharing them online for free. Who is he?

Elon Musk

Bill Gates

Mark Zuckerberg

6 Feynman helped build an atomic bomb for use against the Germans in the early 1940s, a move he later regretted. What was the name of the super-secret operation?

Alan Parson’s Project

Hello-Goodbye Project

Manhattan Project

7 For a decade, Feynman tried to reach this tiny Russian republic. His visa cleared months after his death. The name is now used for the online home for some of his lectures. Name it.

Tuva

Odessa

Cechnya

8 Which unusual source did he study to develop nanotechnology?

Indian train crowding

Raindrops on a windowpane

The social behaviour of ants

9 One of his most memorable classroom demonstrations involved swinging a bowling-ball pendulum across the room, standing millimetres away from its path as it swung back. What would he typically say after?

I want to show you that I believe in what I’m going to teach you over the next two years.

Physics saves lives

Physics is inseparable from mathematics

10 As an MIT student, Feynman applied every summer for a job here, but despite the highest recommendations, was rejected, possibly because he was a Jew. Which company was it?

Hershey’s Chocolates

Bell Telephone Laboratories

Otis Elevators

Answers after the jump. Watch Feynman discuss the science behind the beauty of a flower here:  

Answers

1 A theory of how light and matter interact

2 He dropped an O-shaped rubber ring into a glass of ice water

3 He plays the bongo drums

4 Ofey

5 Bill Gates

6 Manhattan Project

7 Tuva

8 The social behaviour of ants

9 I want to show you that I believe in what I’m going to teach you over the next two years.

10 Bell Telephone Laboratories