NSMQ Riddles

RIDDLES 2018, 2019, 2020
CONTEST 1 RIDDLE
1. I am a 3 digit number.
2. My first digit is a square.
3. I am an even number.
4. My digits are consecutive even integers.
5. My last digit is a cube.
6. The sum of my digits is 18.
Who am I? ANSWER: 468
……………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 2: RIDDLE
1. I am a frequency diagram
2. I can be used to determine the mode.
3. I can also be used to determine the median.
4. However I cannot be used to determine the mean.
5. I normally consist of rectangles placed side by side
6. I am partly a bit of History and partly a bit of Grammar.
Who am I? ANSWER: HISTOGRAM
……………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 3 ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a simple closed curve.
2. I have the same curvature at each of my points
3. I am defined by a point and a distance
4. I am in a limiting sense a regular polygon.
5. I am a common locus in a plane
6. I am all round
Who am I? ANSWER: CIRCLE
……………………………………………………………………………………
1. In a parallelogram, we are congruent.
2. We tend to face each other.
3. We are a geometrical measure.
4. We are measured by degrees or in radians.
5. We are not a distance measure.
Who are we? ANSWER: OPPOSITE ANGLES
………………………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a rule.
2. I am applicable to integration.
3. I am applicable only to definite integrals.
4. I provide an approximation for a definite integral.
5. I am associated with a quadrilateral with a pair of opposite sides parallel.
6. I am a rule for numerical integration.
Who am I? ANSWER: TRAPEZIUM RULE
CONTEST 6: RIDDLE
1. I am a type of differentiation
2. I am used for finding equation of a tangent or a normal to a circle.
3. My derivative is normally a function of both x and y
4. There is nothing explicit about me.
5. I am used for differentiating functions defined implicitly
Who am I? ANSWER: IMPLICIT DIFFERENTIATION
………………………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a nondescript object.
2. Frankly, I am not defined.
3. I am the least in the kingdom of Pythagoras, yet I am the starting point.
4. Without me, there are no geometrical objects.
5. I am the ultimate building block.
6. You still do not get the point?
Who am I? ANSWER: THE POINT
………………………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am an integer between 200 and 300
2. I am an odd number.
3. I am an exact square.
4. The sum of my digits is a single digit odd square.
5. My second digit is same as my first digit.
6. The number formed from my last two digits is an exact square.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a line segment associated with a regular polygon.

2. In a circle I am the radius.
3. In a regular polygon, I am the radius of the inscribed circle.
4. I am the shortest distance from the center of a regular polygon to a side.
5. Part of me is A POT.
6. The other part is a part of THEM
Who am I? ANSWER: APOTHEM

…………………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a rule in Mathematics.
2. I am used in differentiation.
3. There are a few of such rules.
4. I can be used to differentiate expressions like tan x and cot x.
5. I am used in differentiating rational functions.
6. In general I am used to differentiate a quotient of two functions.
Who am I? ANSWER: QUOTIENT RULE

……………………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a 2-digit number
2. I am between 50 and 100.
3. I am a prime number.
4. The number obtained by reversing my digits is also a prime number.
5. I am almost halfway between 50 and 100.
6. The sum of my digits is the base of the decimal system.
………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a 3-digit number
2. I am a palindromic number
3. Whichever way you read me, forward or backward, the value is the same.
4. My middle digit is a special prime.
5. The number formed by my last two digits is an odd cube.
6. The sum of my digits is a square just less than 20.

……………………………………………………………………………………….
1. We are angles associated with a polygon.

2. In a triangle, each one of us is equal to the sum of the interior opposite angles.
3. We are not inside the polygon.
4. Strangely, for any polygon our sum is two straight angles.
5. Each angle is formed from a side and an extended side of the polygon.
Who are we? ANSWER: EXTERIOR ANGLES

…………………………………………………………………………………………
1. In Latin my name means a location.

2. Throw the letter T into the mix and I am a migratory pest.
3. I may be a line, a circle, a curve or a region.
4. I am simply a set of points.
5. I am a set of points subject to some constraints.
Who am I? ANSWER: LOCUS

………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a limit.
2. I am a rate of change.
3. I am a gradient.
4. I am the basis of differential calculus.
5. I am a derived function.
Who am I? ANSWER: DERIVATIVE

………………………………………………………………………
1. I am an association of elements of two sets.

2. I take it two steps at a time.
3. I always have an inverse.
4. You can say I am a relation.
5. Like a binary operation I involve two elements at a time.
Who am I? ANSWER: BINARY RELATION

…………………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a 2-digit number.
2. I am a prime number.
3. The sum of my digits is the base of the decimal system.
4. The number obtained by reversing my digits is also a prime.
5. The difference of my digits is a square.
6. I am less than half a century.
………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a set.
2. I am quite a special set.
3. I am not the null set.
4. Neither am I the universal set.
5. I am a set with a cardinal number of one.
6. I have just a single element.
Who am I? ANSWER: SINGLETON

…………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a special point on a curve.

2. At me the tangent to the curve crosses the curve.
3. I am not necessarily a stationary point.
4. At me the first derivative need not be zero but the second derivative is zero.
5. I am a boundary point between the curve turning up and the curve turning down.
6. Upon a sound reflection you should get me.
Who am I? ANSWER: POINT OF INFLECTION

…………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a function of the form y = f(x)

2. I am a trigonometric function
3. My period is π but I am not a tangent function
4. I have a maximum of 1 at x = π/4.
5. I am not a cosine function.
6. I am definitely a sine function.
Who am I? ANSWER: y = sin2x
1. I am a 2-digit odd number.

2. Both my digits are consecutive prime numbers.
3. I am a multiple of 3, but none of my digits is 3.
4. When my digits are reversed, the number formed is also a multiple of 3.
5. The sum of my digits is a dozen.
6. I am a multiple of 5.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a polygon.
2. The sum of my interior angles is an odd multiple of π.
3. I have no center of symmetry.
4. In my regular form, I have n axis of symmetry where n is a single digit odd square.
5. All things being equal with respect to sides and angles, an interior angle has measure 7π/9
radians
Who am I? ANSWER: NONAGON
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a special point on a curve.
2. To be precise, there are two such points.
3. One of us is on top of the hill and the other at the bottom of the valley.
4. None of us is the greatest value or the least value inspite of our names
5. At me, everything seems to come to rest.
6. At me, the tangent is always horizontal.
Who am I? ANSWER: STATIONARY POINT
………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a function.
2. I may be a binomial as for a linear function.
3. I may be a trinomial as for a quadratic function.
4. I involve non-negative integer powers of the variable.
5. I am in the poly business.
6. Another example of me is the cubic function
Who am I? ANSWER: POLYNOMIAL FUNCTION (accept POLYNOMIAL)
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a ratio.
2. I am a quotient.
3. I am a function.
4. I am a quotient of polynomials.
5. My domain is determined somehow by the zeros of my denominator.
Who am I? ANSWER: RATIONAL FUNCTION
1. I am a very common curve.
2. I relate to a polynomial of degree 2.
3. I have a vertex which may be a maximum or a minimum point.
4. I am the sketch of the graph of the quadratic function.
5. I have no point of inflection.
6. I am a combination of a part of PARACETAMOL and a part of EBOLA.
Who am I? ANSWER: PARABOLA
………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a region inside a circle.
2. There is nothing major or minor about me.
3. I am definitely not a segment.
4. I am bounded by a pair of radii and an arc of the circle.
5. For a given circle, my area is proportional to the angle at the center.
6. Remember the formula area = ½ r2θ .
Who am I? ANSWER: SECTOR
…………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a quadrilateral
2. I have two pairs of congruent opposite sides.
3. I have two pairs of congruent opposite angles.
4. I have axes of symmetry
5. I have a center of symmetry
6. All my angles as well as my sides are congruent.
Who am I? ANSWER: SQUARE
…………………………………………………………….
1. I am a part of the logarithm of a number
2. I am myself a logarithm.
3. I am the logarithm of a number strictly between 1 and 10
4. Hence I am a number between 0 and 1
5. Part of me is a MAN.
Who am I? ANSWER: MANTISSA
……………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a polyhedron.
2. I am a regular polyhedron.
3. I have eight vertices and six faces.
4. My faces are congruent.
5. I am one of the simplest polyhedrons.
6. I am a in a way a unit for volume.
Who am I? ANSWER: CUBE
1. I am in a way a pyramid.
2. I am neither a tetrahedron nor a square pyramid.
3. My base is in reality not a polygon in a strict sense of the word.
4. My base is a polygon with infinitely many sides.
5. My base is in reality a circle.
6. My volume is given by the formula V = (1/3)πr2h.
Who am I? ANSWER: CONE
……………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am the sum of terms of a sequence
2. This makes me a series.
3. My terms have increasing powers of a constant
4. My name suggests I have something to do with the function f(x) = 2x.
5. My infinite sum when it exists is of the form a/(1 – r)
6. Part of me is an EXPONENT.
Who am I? ANSWER: EXPONENTIAL SERIES
………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a statistical measure.
2. In a way I measure variation from the mean.
3. I am a measure of dispersion or spread.
4. There is nothing standard about me.
5. I am the square of some deviation.
6. Mind you I am a measure of variation hence my name.
Who am I? ANSWER: VARIANCE
…………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a diagram of points in a plane
2. I am a statistical diagram.
3. I represent pairs of measurements (x, y)
4. I am used to represent how one measurement y relates to another say x
5. I indicate some level of correlation between x and y.
6. The points may be scattered all over the place hence my name.
Who am I? ANSWER: SCATTER DIAGRAM
………………………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a closed geometric figure. I am a polygon with 4 sides.
2. My main characteristic is congruency.
3. My diagonals are congruent.
4. Opposite sides and adjacent sides are congruent.
5. Opposite angles and adjacent angles are congruent.
1. I am a number.
2. I am a natural number.
3. I am normally an odd number except for one notable exception.
4. That notable exception is the base of the binary number system.
5. I am the building block in the factorization of integers.
6. I am my only non-trivial divisor.
Who am I? ANSWER: PRIME NUMBER
………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a power.
2. I am an index
3. I am an exponent
4. I am the power a number should be raised to obtain another number
5. If ax = y, then x = logay
6. 6 I have rules unto myself such as the product rule.
Who am I? ANSWER: LOGARITHM
………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a rule.
2. I am used to evaluate coefficients.
3. I am normally applied to rational functions.
4. I come into play when a rational function is expressed in terms of simpler rational functions.
5. I am the object of partial fractions.
6. I involve hiding some term or covering them up.
Who am I? ANSWER: COVER-UP RULE
……………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a geometrical figure.
2. I am a polygon.
3. I am a symmetrical figure but I am neither equilateral nor equiangular.
4. My diagonals produce two pairs of congruent isosceles triangles.
5. I have only one axis of symmetry.
6. I fly and I can be flown.
Who am I? ANSWER: KITE
………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am an equation.
2. To be precise, I am a quadratic equation.
3. I have in reality one root.
4. This means my quadratic expression is an exact square.
5. The sum of my roots is 12.
6. The product of my roots is an exact square.
Who am I? ANSWER: (x – 6)2 = 0, or x2 – 12x + 36 = 0
……………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a curve in the cartesian plane
2. I am the simplest such curve.
3. With me, it is no curve and no bend.
4. I am a curve with a uniform gradient
5. I offer the shortest distance between two points in the plane.
6. My equation can be put in the form y = ax + b
Who am I? ANSWER: STRAIGHT LINE
…………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a polygon.
2. When I am equiangular, I am not equilateral.
3. In my regular form, I fit my outline in 20 positions.
4. In my regular form I have a center of symmetry.
5. In my regular form I have 10 axes of symmetry.
6. In my regular form an interior angle has a measure of 144°.
Who am I? ANSWER: DECAGON
……………………………………………………………………………
1. In Mathematics, I may be a statement requiring a proof.
2. I may also be a question requiring a method of solution.
3. I am more than an equation or an inequality.
4. Life is full of me.
5. I am that which is to be solved.
6. If you still cannot solve the problem then you have a problem.
Who am I? ANSWER: PROBLEM
…………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a binary operation on the set of real numbers.
2. I am one of the four basic operations on the real numbers.
3. I am neither associative nor commutative.
4. I have no identity.
5. With me, there is a minuend and a subtrahend.
6. I result in a difference.
Who am I? ANSWER: SUBTRACTION
……………………………………………………………………
2. I am never negative.
3. Even though I am a mean, I am used as a measure of dispersion.
4. I am an average of deviations.
5. However, there is nothing standard about me.
6. I am a mean of the absolute deviations from the mean.
Who am I? ANSWER: MEAN DEVIATION
………………………………………………………………………………….
I am a 4 – digit number
My digits are distinct even integers.
The number formed by my first two digits is a square.
My last digit is a cube.
My third digit is a prime.
The number formed by my first two digits is the square of my last digit.
…………………………………………………………………………
2. I am concerned with variability in a given data set.
3. I cover a range of statistical quantities.
4. Examples of me are the range and mean deviation.
5. Others are variance and standard deviation.
6. It appears I am involved somehow with dispersion.
Who am I? ANSWER: MEASURE OF DISPERSION
……………………………………………………………………………….
1. There are three of us.
2. One of us is the median.
3. However the other two are not the mean or the mode.
4. We are ranked according to some order as first, second, etc
5. We can be obtained from the cumulative frequency diagram.
6. We divide a distribution into four equal parts.
Who are we? ANSWER: QUARTILES
……………………………………………………………….
1. I am the stuff Mathematics is all about.
2. I am a demonstration of a mathematical result or theorem.
3. I am generally a sequence of statements.
4. Each statement follows logically from the preceding statement.
5. The last statement is that which is to be established.
6. I am that which makes a theorem a theorem.
Who am I? ANSWER: PROOF
………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a polyhedron.
2. I sit on a polygonal base.
3. I am not a prism.
4. My faces are triangles intersecting in a common vertex.
5. An example of me is a tetrahedron.
6. An extreme example of me is a circular cone.
Who am I? ANSWER: PYRAMID
………………………………………………………………………………….
2. I am a palindromic number.
3. This means forward or backward, the value is the same.
4. All my digits are odd.
6. My last digit is an identity.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a special point on the graph of a function.
2. At me, the tangent changes from negative to positive.
3. Thus I am a turning point.
4. I relate to a least value for the function in my neighborhood.
5. I am characterized by a zero gradient and a positive second derivative.
Who am I? ANSWER: MINIMUM POINT
…………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a series or a sequence.
2. With me there is the same relation between consecutive terms.
3. I am classified as Arithmetic if there is a constant difference for consecutive terms.
4. I am classified as Geometric if there is a constant ratio for consecutive terms.
5. I am a Progress in Regression.
Who am I? ANSWER: PROGRESSION
,………………………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a trigonometric ratio.
2. I am one of the three basic trigonometric ratios.
3. I take values between -1 and 1 inclusive.
4. This excludes the tangent.
5. I take my maximum value for a zero angle.
6. I am zero for a right angle.
Who am I? ANSWER: COSINE
………………………………………………………………………………….
1. Iam a 3-dimensional figure.
2. I am formed of faces.
3. The faces intersect in edges.
4. The edges intersect in points called vertices.
5. In my regular form, my faces are congruent and my edges are congruent.
6. Examples of me are the cube, the tetrahedron and the octahedron.
Who am I? ANSWER: POLYHEDRON
1. I am an angle.
2. To be precise I am a type of angle.
3. I am common in triangles.
4. Every triangle has at least two of me.
5. My sine or cosine is non-negative.
6. I have a measure less than that of a right angle.
Who am I? ANSWER: ACUTE ANGLE
………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a scalar quantity.
2. I am in a way a function of a square matrix.
3. I am a sum or difference of products of terms of a square matrix.
4. For a 2 x 2 matrix, I am the difference of the products of the diagonal terms.
5. I am to a square matrix, what a discriminant is to a quadratic equation.
6. I determine if a square matrix has an inverse or not and hence my name.
Who am I? ANSWER: DETERMINANT
…………………………………………………………………………
1. We are a pair of numbers.
2. We have opposite signs.
3. We are odd numbers.
4. Our sum is -6.
5. Our product is – 7.
Who are we? ANSWER: 1 and -7
………………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a statistical diagram.
2. I am a plot of two sets of measurements.
3. I give an indication about the correlation between the two sets of measurements.
4. I consist of points scattered all over the plane.
5. That accounts for my name.
Who am I? ANSWER: SCATTER DIAGRAM
…………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I have a magnitude and a direction.
2. That makes me a vector quantity.
3. I am an influence.
4. I influence motion especially in the matter of acceleration.
5. To be precise I am the rate of change of momentum.
6. In simple terms, I am a push or a pull.
Who am I? ANSWER: FORCE
………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am an equation
2. To be precise I am a quadratic equation.
3. I definitely have real roots.
4. The sum of my roots is -7.
5. The product of my roots is one less the sum of my roots.
Who am I? ANSWER: x2 + 7x – 8 = 0
……………………………………………………………………
1. I am a binary operation on the set of real numbers.
2. I involve splitting into parts.
3. I am neither commutative nor associative.
4. I am the act of separating something into parts.
5. I give rise to a quotient and a remainder.
Who am I? ANSWER: DIVISION
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a compound statement formed from two simple statements.
2. I am true in 3 out of 4 instances.
3. I am characterized by the connective ‘or’.
4. I am always true except when both simple statements are false.
5. I take the form ‘P or Q’.
6. I am a part of a Disc and a part of an Injunction.
Who am I? ANSWER: DISJUNCTION
………………………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am simply a line segment.
2. I am associated with polygons and polyhedrons.
3. I am not an edge.
4. I lie completely inside the polygon or the polyhedron
5. In a polygon, I connect non-adjacent vertices.
6. In a polyhedron, I connect vertices not in the same face.
Who am I? ANSWER: DIAGONAL
………………………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a quadrilateral.
2. You will find me inside a circle.
3. I have a circumscribing circle.
4. My vertices lie on a circle.
5. My opposite angles are supplementary.
6. A rectangle is an example of me.
Who am I? ANSWER: CYCLIC QUADRILATERAL
…………………………………………………………………………………….
1. We are a set of points.
2. We are associated with a unique straight line.
3. Any two of us define the straight line.
4. Any three of us lie on the same straight line.
5. Generally, we are points that lie on the same straight line.
6. If points on the same plane are coplanar points, then who are we?
ANSWER: COLLINEAR POINTS (Accept COLLINEAR)
…………………………………………………………………………………….
1. We are a pair of real numbers.
2. We may be roots of a quadratic equation.
3. Our sum is -8.
4. Our product is -48.
5. We have opposite signs.
Who are we? ANSWER: -12, 4
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a geometrical measure.
2. I am associated with angles.
3. I relate to the least amount of rotation necessary from the overlapping position to the final
angle.
4. The instrument used is a protractor.
5. My units are degrees or radians.
Who am I? ANSWER: MEASURE OF AN ANGLE
……………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a function.
2. I am a polynomial function.
3. My graph intersects the x-axis at least once and at most three times.
4. I have at most two stationary points, a maximum and a minimum.
5. I always have one point of inflexion.
6. I have at most three zeros.
Who am I? ANSWER: CUBIC FUNCTION
……………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a vector.
2. I have a fixed length.
3. However, I have no fixed direction.
4. Every vector is a scalar multiple of me.
5. Examples of me are the vectors i and j.
6. I am a vector of unit length.
Who am I? ANSWER: UNIT VECTOR
…………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a vector.
2. As a vector, I am rather strange.
3. I have no particular direction.
4. I have a length which is nothing to write home about.
5. I am the identity for vector addition.
6. I am a constant under scalar multiplication.
Who am I? ANSWER: ZERO VECTOR
………………………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am more closely associated with a circle.
2. I am a part of a circle.
3. Mind you, I am not a sector.
4. Neither am I a segment of the circle.
5. I am as a matter of fact, a part of the circle.
6. I am a portion of the circumference of the circle.
Who am I? ANSWER: ARC
…………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a number system.
2. I am used in computing but I am not the binary number system.
3. My digits involve the decimal digits and the first 6 letters of the alphabets.
4. With me, each digit is equivalent to a byte of 4 bits.
5. My base is an even square.
6. I have 16 digits in all.
Who am I? ANSWER: HEXADECIMAL NUMBER SYSTEM (Accept hexadecimal)
………………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a type of data.
2. I am data arranged in categories.
3. The original data is replaced with groups of data.
4. Frequencies are assigned to the groups.
5. I am a frequency distribution in which intervals replace actual data.
6. With me, the operative word is groups.
Who am I? ANSWER: GROUPED DATA
……………………………………………………………………………………..
1. In geometry, I am a point, a line, or a plane.
2. I am an object in a class.
3. I am any of the terms in the array forming a matrix.
4. I am generally a member of a collection.
5. Chemically, I am the subject of the periodic table.
6. In that context, I am sometimes classified as a metal or a non-metal.
Who am I? ANSWER: ELEMENT
……………………………………………………………………………………….
1. I may be a number or a polynomial.
2. As a polynomial an example of me is f(x) = (x + 2)(x – 3)
3. As a number, an example of me is 6.
4. I am characterized by having proper factors.
5. I am also a purposely designed engineering material created by combining single materials to
produce a structural property not present in the single materials used.
6. An example in this context is fiberglass.
Who am I? ANSWER: COMPOSITE
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Contest 1
1. I am a physical quantity.
2. I characterize the state of an object.
3. I am a mechanical property of an object.
4. Indeed, I am a quadratic function of a dynamical property of an object.
5. I am that part of the mechanical energy of a moving object that is never negative.
Who am I? KINETIC ENERGY

……………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 2
2. I am actually a rate.
3. I quantify the decay of a radioactive object:
4. The greater I am, the greater the number of disintegrations in a given interval.
5. For a single decaying species, I am proportional to the number of decaying species
present.
Who am I? ACTIVITY
……………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 3
1. I am a physical property of a substance.
2. I am a mechanical property.
3. I am useful for describing the elastic properties of a substance.
4. I relate load and deformation.
5. I equal the ratio of tensile stress to tensile strain.
Who am I? YOUNG’S MODULUS
………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 4
1. Even though I am energy density,
2. My commonly used SI unit is not joule per cubic meter.
3. I am often seen in equations of state.
4. I am one of the quantities that appear in Boyle’s law.
5. I am constant in isobaric processes.
Who am I? PRESSURE
………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 5
2. I am a dynamical quantity.
3. I am a vector quantity.
4. I sum to zero when an object is in equilibrium.
5. I am that which causes a stationary object to move.
Who am I? Force
CONTEST 6
1. I am a named object in the solar system.
2. I am not self-luminous;
3. So I am not the sun.
4. I have an orbital period of nearly 30 days as determined relative to the sun.
5. I have a cratered surface only one view of which is visible from earth.
6. I wax and wane.
Who am I? MOON
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 7
1. I am a geometric figure.
2. I arise in several contexts in physics, including polarization of electromagnetic waves and
gravity.
3. I am a closed curve.
4. I have two axes of symmetry.
5. I describe the orbit of a particle moving under gravity in a closed orbit about a fixed
particle.
Who am I? ELLIPSE
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 8
1. I am a named law in both physics and chemistry.
2. I am invoked in certain situations when energy remains constant.
3. I am often encountered in the study of thermodynamics.
4. I am a law that governs ideal gases.
5. I characterize the isotherms of an ideal gas.
Who am I? BOYLE’S LAW
…………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 9
1. I am a type of force.
2. I am associated with one of the long-range fundamental forces.
3. I am dissipative:
4. My work is always negative.
5. I am the force that prevents a car moving in a circle from skidding.
Who am I? FRICTION
………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 10
1. I am a mechanism by which energy is transported.
2. For point sources in free space, I am governed by an inverse square law.
3. I am the mechanism by which electromagnetic energy is propagated.
4. I can operate in vacuum as well as in material media.
5. I am the process by which energy from the sun reaches the earth.
Who am I? RADIATION
……………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 11
1. I am a ratio.
2. I am dimensionless.
3. I usually range from zero to unity.
4. I am often expressed as a percentage.
5. I express a relationship between input energy and output energy.
Who am I? EFFICIENCY
CONTEST 12
1. My name suggests I am a mechanical quantity.
2. I am called power;
3. However, I am not measured in watts.
4. I am used to describe an optical system.
5. I am measured in diopters.
Who am I? OPTICAL POWER
………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 13
1. I am a wave phenomenon.
2. I occur at the boundary between two media.
3. For electromagnetic waves, I occur when the wave propagates towards a medium of
lower refractive index.
4. When I occur, the wave is confined to one medium.
5. For electromagnetic waves, I occur when the angle of incidence exceeds the critical angle
for the two media.
Who am I? TOTAL INTERNAL REFLECTION
………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 14
4. I am zero when an object is in equilibrium.
5. I am the rate of change of another vector quantity.
Who am I? ACCELERATION
……………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 15
2. My SI unit is one of the base units in the SI system
3. My name suggests weightiness;
4. However, I am distinct from weight.
5. I quantify the amount of matter in an object.
Who am I? MASS
………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 16
1. I am a particle that can be found in atoms.
2. I am not a fundamental particle.
3. Like the electron, I am a spin-1/2 particle.
4. I am found in the nucleus of an atom together with another particle.
5. I am electrically neutral.
Who am I? NEUTRON
………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 17
1. I am a type of progressive wave.
2. I transport energy without transporting matter.
3. I cannot be polarized.
4. I only propagate in material media.
5. A sound wave is an example of me.
Who am I? LONGITUDINAL WAVE
CONTEST 18
1. I am a particle that can be found in atoms.
2. I am a spin-1/2 particle.
3. I account in part for the mass of an atom.
4. I am found in the nucleus of an atom, either alone or together with another particle.
5. I have a positive electric charge.
Who am I? PROTON
………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 19
1. I am a conductor.
2. An essential part of me is a spike at one of my extreme ends.
3. One of my ends is grounded.
4. You can think of me as insurance against an atmospheric electrical event.
5. That atmospheric event is usually accompanied by a bright emission by which I am
known.
Who am I? LIGHTNING ROD
……………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 20
1. I am a two-terminal device.
2. I am used in both ac and dc circuits.
3. I have a polarity dependent resistance.
4. I am a one-way valve for electric current.
5. I have been used as a detector in certain radio sets.
Who am I? DIODE
………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 21
1. I am a process encountered in physics.
2. I am associated with electric fields.
3. I cause a change in charge distribution.
4. I operate remotely.
5. I am the process by which a conductor can be charge without bringing it into contact with
another object.
Who am I? CHARGING BY INDUCTION
…………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 22
1. I am one of the fundamental forces of nature.
2. I am a long-range force.
3. As a long-range force, I obey an inverse-square law.
4. I am always a conservative force.
5. I am the weaker of the two known long-range fundamental forces.
Who am I? GRAVITY
……………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 23
1. I am a device used in temperature control applications.
2. I am usually configured to open and close a switch or valve in response to temperature
changes.
3. In construction, I contain two dissimilar materials bound together.
4. I operate on the principle that materials of different thermal expansivity expand by
different amounts for the same temperature change.
5. I am called a strip because of my usual geometry.
Who am I? BI-METALLIC STRIP
CONTEST 24
1. I am a law in physics.
2. I specify a linear relationship between two variables.
3. I am usually encountered in the study of mechanics.
4. Wherever you find linear elastic behavior, there you find me.
5. I am the law that relates force and extension for a linear spring.
Who am I? HOOKE’S LAW
……………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 25
1. I am one of the fundamental interactions of nature.
2. I have an association with a long-range force.
3. That long-range force obeys an inverse-square law.
4. I do not obey such an inverse-square law myself.
5. Yet we are the only pair of fundamental interactions that have successfully been unified.
Who am I? WEAK INTERACTION
……………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 26
1. I am a type of emission.
2. I am electromagnetic in nature.
3. I am characterized by a continuous spectrum.
4. I am emitted by all bodies.
5. I am energy emanating from an object because of its temperature.
Who am I? THERMAL RADIATION
……………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 27
1. I am a type of optical image.
2. I can be formed by concave mirrors.
3. I can also be formed by converging lenses.
4. I am characterized by an apparent intersection of rays.
5. I really existed before the internet was invented, my name notwithstanding.
Who am I? VIRTUAL IMAGE
………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 28
1. I am a type of motion.
2. I occur in situations in which force and displacement are linearly related.
3. Specifically, I am the type of motion executed by a particle which moves under a force
proportional and opposite to displacement of the particle.
4. An example of me is the projection unto a diameter of a particle which moves at constant
speed on a circle.
5. I am approximated by a simple pendulum undergoing small amplitude oscillations.
Who am I? SIMPLE HARMONIC MOTION
……………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 29
1. I am a naturally occurring isotope of a notorious element.
2. I am radioactive, decaying by alpha emission with a long half-life.
3. I am responsible for much of the helium found in natural gas.
4. I am non-fissile.
5. I can, however, be converted into fissile plutonium-239.
6. My mass number is 238.
Who am I? Uranium-238
………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 30
3. I characterize the state of motion of an object.
4. I am the product of a scalar and a vector quantity.
5. I am to force what velocity is to acceleration.
Who am I? LINEAR MOMENTUM
…………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 31
1. I am an optical device.
2. I am triangular in cross-section.
3. My functionality arises from the dependence of my refractive index on wavelength.
4. I cause a wavelength-dependent angular deviation of light.
5. I am used in some spectrometers, where my dispersion of light is exploited to determine
the wavelength components of a light source.
Who am I? Triangular prism
…………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 32
1. I am a phenomenon in which elementary particles are emitted.
2. The emitted particles carry one unit of the fundamental charge;
3. And they are negatively charged.
4. Emission occurs upon absorption of a photon.
5. Emission is only possible when the photon energy exceeds a threshold value.
Who am I? PHOTOELECTRIC EFFECT
………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 33
1. I am a vector field associated with charges.
2. I exert a force on a charge;
3. However, the force is only non-zero when the velocity of the charge has a component
perpendicular to me.
4. I am produced by charges in motion.
5. I am a component of one of the fundamental interactions.
Who am I? MAGNETIC FIELD
……………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 34
1. I am a type of electromagnetic radiation.
2. I occupy a region of the electromagnetic spectrum that is not visible to humans.
3. I am frequently produced by bombarding a target with accelerated electrons.
4. I have energies below the range for typical gamma radiation.
5. I am more energetic than visible radiation.
Who am I? X-RAY
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 35
2. I am one of the quantities in the ideal gas equation of state.
3. My SI unit is equivalent to J m−3.
4. My SI unit is also equivalent to N m−2.
5. I am the constant quantity in Charles’ law.
Who am I? PRESSURE
…………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 36
1. I am a property of a material.
2. I am temperature-dependent.
3. I am an electrical property.
4. I distinguish between good and poor conductors of electricity.
5. I am to resistance what density is to mass.
Who am I? RESISTIVITY
……………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 1
1. I am a thermodynamic process.
2. I am accompanied by changes in internal energy whenever work is involved with me.
3. For reversible processes, I am equivalent to an adiabatic process.
4. I occur with no change in a measure of the degree of disorder in a system.
5. I am the thermodynamic process in which entropy remains constant.
Who am I? ISENTROPIC PROCESS
……………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 2
1. I am a three-terminal device.
2. I am a logic gate.
3. I behave as an inverter when my inputs are connected together.
4. My output is low when my inputs are both high.
5. My output is high when any of my inputs is low.
Who am I? Two-input NAND gate
……………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 3
3. My SI unit is the kg m s−1 or the N s .
4. I am evaluated as the integral of force over time.
5. I am numerically the area under a force-time graph.
6. I equal change in linear momentum.
Who am I? IMPULSE (OF A FORCE)
…………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 4
1. I am a type of periodic disturbance.
2. I am composed of two disturbances of the same periodicity.
3. I arise when the two disturbances are superposed.
4. I am produced when a pair of equal but oppositely propagating periodic disturbances are
superposed.
5. I have points called nodes where displacement is always zero.
Who am I? STANDING WAVE
…………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 5
1. I am a type of material.
2. I have a distinctive magnetic behavior which is strongly temperature dependent.
3. I lose my distinctive magnetic qualities above a critical temperature.
4. My characteristics arise from strong interactions between the elementary units I am
composed of.
5. I count iron, nickel, and cobalt among my members.
Who am I? FERROMAGNETIC MATERIAL
………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 6
1. I am a named effect in physics.
2. I am associated with waves.
3. I am used by astronomers to determine the speeds of stars and galaxies.
4. This they do by determining wavelength differences between the radiation from the
celestial objects and known spectra from stationary sources.
5. I am the phenomenon in which relative motion between an observer and a source of
waves results in frequency shifts.
Who am I? DOPPLER EFFECT
……………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 7
2. I am repetitive.
3. I occur in the motion of an object about a stable equilibrium position.
4. An essential requirement for my occurrence is a force which acts in a direction opposite
to displacement.
5. I am periodic.
Who am I? PERIODIC MOTION
……………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 8
1. I am a physical quantity that describes the state of motion of an object.
2. I am a derived vector quantity.
3. My derivative is closely related to the agents of change.
4. My primitive is position.
5. I am the limit of the ratio of displacement to duration as duration tends to zero.
Who am I? VELOCITY
………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 9
1. I am a named law in physics.
2. I specify a distance-time relation.
3. I arise in the study of gravity.
4. I apply to the closed orbits of an object moving under the gravity of another object.
5. I am the last member of a group of laws named after the same scientist.
Who am I? Kepler’s Third Law
………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 10
1. I am an optical instrument.
2. My most important components are light gathering elements arranged in a certain way.
3. I have an objective and an eyepiece, each of which transmits visible light.
4. My objective has a shorter focal length than my eyepiece.
5. I produce enlarged images of small objects.
Who am I? Light microscope
……………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 11
2. I am named for a scientist who is named for laws of motion, of gravity, and of cooling.
3. I am a law that is studied in mechanics, hardly in temperature changes.
4. I specify the evolution of the dynamical state of an object in the absence of agents of
change.
5. I am the first member of a group of related laws in mechanics.
Who am I? Newton’s First Law of Motion
……………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 12
1. I am a property of a solid.
2. I am a point on the stress-strain diagram of a material.
3. I am greater than the proportionality limit.
4. For brittle materials, I am close to the proportionality limit.
5. I am the greatest stress a material can sustain and still return to its original shape.
Who am I? Elastic limit
………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 13
2. I have two inputs and one output.
3. The output column of my truth table contains as many zeros as ones.
4. My output is 1 when both of my inputs are 0 .
5. My output is 1 when both of my inputs are 1.
6. My output is 0 when exactly one of my inputs is 1.
Who am I? Two-input Exclusive NOR logic gate
………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 14
1. I am a property of a material.
2. I am temperature-dependent:
3. I usually increase with temperature.
4. I am the ratio of the magnitude of electric field to the magnitude of current density.
5. I have low numerical values for metals.
6. I am the material property that connects the electrical resistance and the geometry of an
object.
Who am I? Resistivity
…………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 15
1. I am everywhere.
2. Yet I am nowhere.
3. I am a massless particle.
4. I travel at the greatest speed that can be.
5. I mediate the long-range fundamental interaction that is characterized by two charge
polarities.
Who am I? Photon
……………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 16
2. In kinetic theory, I am expressed in terms of the mean square of a dynamical variable.
3. I am dimensionally equivalent to energy density.
4. Ordinarily, I am given as a ratio of a dynamical quantity and a geometric quantity.
5. I am one of the variables in Boyle’s law.
Who am I? Pressure
…………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 17
1. I am a measurement technique.
2. I operate on the basis of a named effect in physics.
3. I am employed in velocity measurements.
4. I have been used to measure blood flow.
5. I am the technique of velocity measurement in which Doppler frequency shifts are
determined.
Who am I? Doppler velocimetry
………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 18
1. I am a device for studying interference of waves.
2. I am named for one of my inventors.
3. My claim to fame is the Michelson-Morley experiment.
4. That experiment showed that the speed of light is independent of earth’s rotation,
5. And thereby laid to rest the question of the ether.
Who am I? Michelson Interferometer
,………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 19
1. I am a spectral range in the electromagnetic spectrum.
2. My name suggests extremity, but I am neither the greatest nor the least as far as spectral
bands are concerned.
3. I gained notoriety in the days leading to the birth of modern physics when the word
catastrophe came be used along with me.
4. I am germicidal so I am frequently used for sterilization in barber and beauty shops.
5. I am frequently simply referred to by the letters “u” and “v.”
Who am I? Ultra violet
………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 20
1.
I am a named effect.
2.
I am exploited in refrigeration because of my capacity to cause cooling.
3.
I am known to cause cooling of all gases except three at room temperature.
4.
One of the gentlemen for whom I am named is well-known for his “mechanical
equivalent of heat.”
5. I am responsible for the cooling that leads to condensation on the neck of an inflated
bicycle inner tube when deflated by slightly opening its valve.
6. I am the effect in which a real gas undergoes a temperature change when forced through
an orifice.
Who am I? Joule-Thomson effect
………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 21
1. I am a phenomenon associated with waves.
2. I am responsible for the color of coated lenses.
3. I produce a periodic modulation when waves are superposed.
4. I am responsible for the spectacular colors of a soap bubble.
5. I am responsible for the bright and dark fringes observed in the Newton rings experiment.
Who am I? Interference
…………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 22
1. I am a two-terminal device.
2. I have a non-linear current-voltage characteristic.
3. My electrical behavior depends on the polarity of the signal applied to me:
4. In one polarity condition, I appear to be a good conductor whereas in the opposite
condition I do not.
5. I have a single pn junction.
Who am I? Diode
…………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 23
1. I am a simple machine.
2. When friction is present as is usually the case in real situations, my efficiency is less than
unity.
3. I am characterized by an angle.
4. When friction is taken into account, my efficiency is given by the reciprocal of one plus
the friction coefficient times the cotangent of my angle.
5. My velocity ratio is the cosecant of my angle.
Who am I? Inclined plane
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 24
1. I am a type of force.
2. More precisely, I am a force per unit length.
3. I characterize the interface between two media.
4. I am a consequence of the cohesive forces that act between molecules.
5. I am called tension.
Who am I? Surface tension
………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 25
1. I am a process in which particles are emitted.
2. Even though the particles I emit are identical to β−¿¿ particles, they are never called β
particles.
3. I am governed by a work function, which plays an important role in the rate at which I
proceed.
4. I remain an important process employed in x-ray tubes.
5. I am a thermal phenomenon.
Who am I? Thermionic emission
……………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 26
1. I am a three-terminal device.
3. I behave as a buffer when my inputs are connected together.
4. My output is low when my inputs are both low.
5. My output is high when at least one of my inputs is high.
Who am I? Two-input OR gate
……………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 27
1. I am a formula.
2. I only involve addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
3. You may have first encountered me in your study of optics.
4. I relate an optical property of a specific type of object to its geometry.
5. I am the formula that gives the power of a lens in terms of the radii of its surfaces.
Who am I? Lens maker’s formula
…………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 28
1. I am an electromagnetic quantity.
2. I am a type of current.
3. I am unusual because I am not concerned with the actual transport of charges.
4. I flow through the space separating the plates of a capacitor even though no charge ever
crosses that space.
5. I am the current associated with a changing electric field.
Who am I? Displacement current
………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 29
1. I am a fundamental constant.
2. I have an exact value in terms of which certain SI units are now defined.
3. I feature in expressions for the electron Compton wavelength.
4. I am also called upon whenever the frequency of an electromagnetic wave of known
wavelength is to be calculated.
5. I gained fame through the celebrated expression that relates the mass and total energy of
a particle at rest.
Who am I? Speed of light in vacuum
……………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 30
1. I am a fluid-like substance.
2. I am neither liquid nor gas.
3. I am composed of positive and negative charges, usually in nearly equal amounts.
4. I can be found in electric arcs: I feature prominently in lightning and fluorescent lamps.
5. I am matter at such a high temperature that it is dissociated into ions and electrons.
Who am I? Plasma
…………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 31
1. I am an experiment that was performed towards the end of the nineteenth century.
2. I was billed to prove the existence of something that is now known not to exist.
3. Such was my success that a new approach to physics emerged from my results.
4. I am named for the two scientists who first performed me.
5. I am just an experiment that saw the end of the luminiferous ether and provided a nail for
its coffin.
Who am I? Michelson-Morley experiment
………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 32
1. I am an empirical law in physics:
2. I was first formulated on the basis of experimental observations but I can now be justified
using modern theories of physics.
3. I involve the frequencies of characteristic x-rays.
4. I relate characteristic x-ray line frequency and atomic number.
5. I state in part that the frequency of the K α line for an element is proportional to the square
of one less than the atomic number of the element.
Who am I? Moseley’s law
………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 33
1. I am a principle that is of interest to both physicists and chemists.
2. I am encountered in statistical theories of matter:
3. I am derived in kinetic theory.
4. My currency is half the Boltzmann constant times absolute temperature.
5. For a given temperature, I assign equal energy to each degree of freedom.
Who am I? Equipartition principle (Principle of equipartition of energy)
……………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 34
6. I am a physical constant.
7. I am associated with a law that bears my name.
8. I appear in studies of thermal radiation.
9. I can be expressed in terms of the Boltzmann constant, the Planck constant, and the speed
of light in vacuum.
10. I relate total radiated intensity and temperature.
11. My SI unit is the W m−2 K−4 .
Who am I? Stefan-Boltzmann constant (or Stefan’s constant)
CONTEST 35
1. I am a law in physics.
2. I am named for the two scientists who discovered me.
3. I specify a physical property of solids.
4. I embody the idea that a mole of an elemental substance contains the same number of
atoms as a mole of any other elemental substance.
5. I am the law that states that the molar specific heat capacity of an ideal monoatomic solid
equals three times the molar ideal gas constant.
Who am I? Dulong-Petit law
………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 36
2. I express a relationship between two physical properties of a solid material.
3. I relate a thermal property and an electrical property of a metal.
4. I am in the conductivity business.
5. I am the law that gives the temperature dependence of the ratio of the thermal and
electrical conductivities of a metal.
Who am I? Wiedemann-Franz law
……………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 37
1. I am a physical phenomenon.
2. I am associated with energy levels.
3. I arise in systems with more than one degree of freedom.
4. I am closely associated with symmetry.
5. I am the property of an energy level of being associated with two or more quantum states.
Who am I? Degeneracy
………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 38
1. I am a phenomenon that demonstrates the existence of electromagnetic forces on charge
carriers.
2. I give direct evidence of the presence of electrons and holes in a semiconductor.
3. I operate on the basis of the deflection of charges in magnetic and electric fields.
4. I am responsible for a transverse voltage across a slab of current-carrying metal in a
perpendicular magnetic field.
5. I am used for direct measurement of the electron drift velocity in metals.
Who am I? Hall effect
…………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 39
1. I am a parameter that is used in quantitative descriptions of collisions.
2. In the Rutherford scattering experiment in which an alpha particle approaches a nucleus
essentially at rest, I equal angular momentum divided by the magnitude of the initial
momentum of the alpha particle.
3. In Rutherford scattering, I am related to scattering angle:
4. The greater my value, the smaller the scattering angle.
5. I am the perpendicular distance between the line of approach of an incoming projectile
and a parallel line through the center of the target field.
Who am I? Impact parameter
……………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 40
1. My name suggests I am an assembly of a definite number of parts.
2. The number 6.626 070 15 ×10−34 is very important to me.
3. I used to be based on water.
4. I later came to be derived from an artefact whose permanent home is in a northern
latitude.
5. I have now shed all my relics in full embrace of Planck.
Who am I? Kilogram
……………………………………………………………………………………
RIDDLE MC 1
1. I am relatively small and cute.
2. My central atom has sp3-hybridised orbitals.
3. My shape is inevitably tetrahedral.
4. I am natural when I am mined.
5. I am a greenhouse gas whether I am in my pure state or oxidised.
6. With my penta-atomic molecules, I am the smallest member of a homologous series.
Who am I? Methane.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
RIDDLE MC 2
1. I am an inorganic compound, a liquid of low boiling point and very soluble in water.
2. Though one of my atoms uses sp3-hybridised orbitals my molecule is linear.
3. I have as many as three pairs of non-bonding electrons.
4. I am acidic whether in the pure state or in solution and I have three other siblings which are
also acidic.
5. Among us I have the weakest ability to donate a proton simply because I have the shortest
and strongest bond.
6. I have an atom derived from the lightest member of the halogens.
Who am I? Hydrogen Fluoride Or Anhydrous Hydrofluoric Acid
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
RIDDLE MC 3
1. I am a cation comprising four atoms.
2. My central atom possesses sp3-hybridised orbitals.
3. I am trigonal pyramidal in shape.
4. I have only one pair of non-bonding electrons.
5. I am the strongest acid that can exist in water.
6. I have atoms from two different elements including oxygen.
Who am I? Hydronium ion or Hydroxonium ion.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 4
1. I am one of the characteristic points any matter can have.
2. Two of us are the same but named according to the orientation.
3. I am unique.
4. I am sensitive to heights above sea level because they intimidate me.
5. Whether in practice I come out as a point or a range it does not matter because my name does
not change.
6. Atmospheric pressure is important to me because I am only obtained when a vapour pressure
measures up to it.
Who am I? Ans: Boiling point.
RIDDLE MC 5
1. I am an inorganic compound.
2. To be more precise I am an oxide with triatomic molecules.
3. My two elements are both non-metals bonded in the ratio of 2:1.
4. I am gaseous at room temperature but can easily be liquefied under pressure.
5. I am usually stored in thick, strong walled glass containers.
6. My two elements belong to the same group in the Periodic Table and I have a characteristic,
pungent smell.
Who am I? Sulphur IV oxide (SO2 gas)
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE MC 6
1. I am an inorganic, covalent compound
2. I am a colourless liquid with penta-atomic molecules.
3. My central atom is derived from an element which in its pure state possesses metallic bonds.
4. My other atoms are derived from an element in Group VII or 17
5. I am tetrahedral in shape.
6. My central atom is the fourth element in Group IV while my other atoms are the second
element in Group VII or 17
Who am I? Tin IV chloride or SnCl4
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE MC 7
1. I am an organic compound with the molecular formula C2H2O4.
2. I do not possess any carbon atom with sp3-hybridised orbitals.
3. My two carbons are joined by a single covalent bond.
4. I produce copious effervescence with aqueous NaHCO3.
5. I am used as a primary standard in volumetric analyses.
6. My molecule has a line of symmetry through the carbon-carbon single bond.
Who am I? Ethanedioic acid OR Oxalic acid
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE MC 8
1. I am an organic compound comprising the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.
2. I may be classified as an acid derivative.
3. When I am hydrolysed in a base, I result in the formation of a one-carbon compound and a
two-carbon anion.
4. My one-carbon product from hydrolysis contains a carbon-nitrogen covalent bond and no
oxygen.
5. My two-carbon hydrolysate only needs a proton to become a neutral compound.
6. While my nitrogen-containing compound is the first member of its homologous series the
oxygen-containing one is the second in its homologous series.
Who am I? N-methylethanamide
RIDDLE MC 9
1. I and my sibling have a lot in common except perhaps our colour.
2. We both contain covalent bonds.
3. While my sibling uses sp2-hybridised bonding orbitals I have only sp3.
4. We both form giant networks.
5. The tetrahedron shape of my unit renders me an indestructible figure.
6. For this reason, I am used as a tool edge for cutting hard rocks and glass among other uses.
Who am I? Diamond
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
RIDDLE MC 10
1. I am not found on the breakfast table, but my name sounds like a dairy product.
2. I am not by definition, a member of the Arrhenius family.
3. But Bronsted and Lowry are proud to have me as a family member.
4. I am edible but I provide no nutrients like other milks.
5. I am used to neutralise excess stomach acid.
6. I and Epsom Salt have a common cation.
Who am I? Milk of Magnesia OR Aqueous suspension of magnesium oxide (MgO)
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE MC 11
1. I am made in the laboratory by reacting an inorganic acid and a base.
2. I am therefore an inorganic salt, highly soluble in water.
3. I am a white solid.
4. The base from which my cation is derived is manufactured on a large scale by the Haber
Process.
5. A cousin of mine which is a trioxonitrate V dissolves with enormous absorption of heat.
6. My anion is derived from the acid you would obtain by adding concentrated H2SO4 to
common salt.
Who am I? Ammonium Chloride OR NH4Cl
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
RIDDLE MC 12
1. I am a law governing the behaviour of a form of matter.
2. I recognise that the average kinetic energy of the component particles is proportional to the
temperature of that form of matter.
3. I recognise also that if temperature is increased the particles will move faster.
4. I predict that the particles at a higher temperature will strike the walls of their container
harder.
5. If the pressure on the container cannot increase it is obvious to me that the container will
have to expand.
6. I am the Law that governs the behaviour of that form of matter under those circumstances.
Who am I? Charles’ Law
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE MC 13
1. I am a branch of Physical Chemistry.
2. I am interested in both the reactants and the products of chemical reactions.
3. If I am carefully executed it is possible to bring some order into a reaction.
4. My aim at any time is to describe how fast or slow a chemical transformation is.
5. My name is derived from a Greek word that means ‘to move’.
6. Surely you need a good stop watch or clock to practice what I do best.
Who am I? Chemical Kinetics
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 14
1. I hate anaerobic conditions
2. I also hate anhydrous conditions.
3. I watch whom I am in contact with; I do not venture out if a very electropositive metal is
close by.
4. With copper I can safely and happily come out
5. My operations can be likened to a voltaic cell with its two half-cells.
6. I render the chief architect of the Industrial Revolution economically not viable.
Who am I? Rusting of Iron. (Do not accept corrosion of iron)
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 15
1. I am a transformation associated with some, and not all, matter.
2. Temperature is of relevance.
3. No covalent or ionic bonds are broken during the transformation.
4. I am a characteristic of some solids.
5. These solids tend to have weak intermolecular forces.
6. I am at work when a piece of dry ice brought out of the thermos flask disappears without a
trace.
Who am I? Sublimation
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 16
1. I am a phenomenon experienced at the atomic level.
2. The protons in the nucleus and the electrons outside the nucleus are relevant to me.
3. I keep vigil over the valence electrons.
4. As a phenomenon I increase across a Period of the Periodic Table.
5. I decrease down a Group in the Periodic Table
6. Imagine you were a valence electron, I am the net positive charge you would feel as a result
of the nucleus.
Who am I? Effective Nuclear Charge
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 17
1. I am a useful analytical tool in Science.
2. Surprisingly I cannot handle salts.
3. But ironically, I deal with ions only.
4. I create positively charged ions.
5. I have a chamber for vapourisation of substances.
6. The gaseous species are ionised before they are made to encounter electric and magnetic
fields after which they are measured as mass to charge ratios.
Who am I? Mass Spectrometer. (Not Mass Spectrophotometer)
RIDDLE MC 18
1. I am almost always in use when some type of quantitative analyses is being undertaken.
2. Ideally, I should be manufactured with Pyrex glass but sometimes I am not.
3. I have two openings.
4. Sometimes I have a uniform shape but often I carry a pot belly.
5. One of my openings is shaped such that I can deliver tiny drops of liquid.
6. I am never clamped like my cousin when I am being used in transferring exact volumes.
Who am I? Pipette
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE MC 19
1. I am an inorganic substance.
2. Indeed, I am an inorganic salt comprising two simple ions.
3. My cation is derived from an element of Group I of the Periodic Table.
4. My anion comes from almost the opposite side of the Table, in Group VII or 17.
5. Chemically and physically I am not far from the common salt you know
6. While we share a common cation, my anion normally lives one floor below that of my
common friend.
Who am I? Sodium bromide (NaBr)
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 20
1. When I occur, there is no net gain or loss.
2. Representing me on paper hardly involves a trial-and-error approach.
3. I have several agents and I operate through them.
4. In any operation I usually use two agents that complement each other.
5. Electrons, not protons, constitute our lingua-franca.
6. My two halves are easily recognizable, and I do not guarantee maintenance of oxidation
states.
Who am I? Redox Reactions or Reduction-Oxidation Reactions
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 21
1. My name literally means heat on wheels.
2. I am a branch encountered in two disciplines in Physical Sciences.
3. In my rounds I freely distribute energy which can do your work for you.
4. My free energy comes along with some randomness.
5. I am useful in predicting if a chemical transformation is feasible or not even before you go to
the laboratory.
6. I can even identify which reaction is likely to attain equilibrium.
Who am I? Thermodynamics
……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE MC 22
1. I am an organic compound.
2. I have carbon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms in my molecules.
3. I trust that I am a good candidate for a lesson on intermolecular hydrogen bonding.
4. I have an appropriate functional group on each of my three carbons.
5. I am hardly synthesised in the laboratory or in a factory as I abound in nature.
6. You must undertake saponification of a vegetable oil to free me.
Who am I? propan-1,2,3-triol or glycerol or glycerine
RIDDLE MC 23
1. I am a well-known organic reaction.
2. I am used in preparing a mono-substituted halo-compound.
3. Poly-substituted compounds may be formed if I am not terminated in good time.
4. I am catalysed by UV light.
5. My organic reactant is methane and that is what makes me an organic reaction.
6. Chlorine, my other reagent must be in the gaseous state.
Who am I? Chlorination of methane.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE MC24
1. I am a rule used for housekeeping in the world of electrons.
2. I am useful when a type of structures is being considered for covalent molecules.
3. My origins are traced to the stabilities of inert gases.
4. The rule insists that each covalent bond should consist of two shared electrons.
5. Do you remember the electrons in the valence shell of five of the inert gases?
6. Eight is my magical number.
Who am I? The Octet Rule
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 25
1. I am a class of reagents in chemistry especially in organic chemistry.
2. Our members may be charged or neutral
3. We have special attraction to sites where electron charge is minimal if not absent.
4. If we had our way, we would attack till we hit the nucleus of the central atom of the substrate.
5. We love to execute substitution reactions especially under polar conditions.
6. The line between us and bases is usually very thin.
Who are we? Nucleophilic Reagents
………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE MC 26
1. My discovery dates to the 19th Century.
2. A British scientist went all out to show how small I am.
3. I was supposed to be indestructible then, but he was wrong.
4. Most of my physical being is empty space.
5. I differ in size and mass from element to element.
6. I have a nucleus, positively charged where all my mass is centred.
Who am I? (The) Atom
……………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 27
1. I am closely associated with a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in
1909.
2. He devised a clever method for my synthesis.
3. I am a covalent compound when I am in my pure state, made up of penta-atomic molecules.
4. All my constituent atoms are non-metals.
5. I guess when a fellow German discovered a non-bacterial method of fixing atmospheric
nitrogen the idea of manufacturing me from a cheap raw material became feasible.
6. Centuries ago I was named ‘aqua fortis’ because unlike water I am ‘strong’ and not kind to
the skin.
Who am I? Trioxonitrate V Acid or Nitric Acid or HNO3
RIDDLE MC 28
1. There is geological evidence that I appeared on the scene about 2 billion years ago.
2. I was supposed to have been produced as a result of photolysis of water vapour.
3. But some scientists hold the view that I am mostly of biological origin.
4. Currently I am the most abundant among my peers on earth.
5. I form up to 48% of the earth’s crust, atmosphere and surface water put together.
6. I am a molecular element with atomic number 8.
Who am I? Oxygen
…………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 29
1. I am useful in all Science laboratories and not just in the Chemistry laboratory.
2. But I am not that conspicuous especially if I am the micro size.
3. I may be kept in a drawer or cupboard in the laboratory.
4. An expensive form of me is made with nickel.
5. I could be made of glass or plastic material and have a flat or oval-shaped or tapered end.
6. I could have a wooden handle to make the scooping of solid material from bottles easier.
Who am I? Spatula
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 30
1. I am an inorganic solid.
2. I am made up of a simple cation and a complex anion.
3. While my cation is a Group I metal belonging to Period 4, my complex anion contains a d-
transition element and a non-metal.
4. In my pure, crystalline state, I am not black or pink coloured but dark purple coloured.
5. I am a powerful oxidising agent in either acid or basic medium.
6. I am used for sterilising vegetables at home, also in medicine and in redox titrations in the
laboratory.
Who am I? Potassium tetraoxomanganate VII KMnO4
………………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 31
2. My molecules have as many as 13 atoms from three different elements.
3. I have a functional group noted for strong intermolecular hydrogen bonding.
4. My empirical formula, C4H9O is the same as my molecular formula.
5. My carbon backbone is not a straight one.
6. I cannot be oxidised with acidified K2Cr2O7 like my primary and secondary cousins.
Who am I? 2-Methyl-2-propanol Or 2-Methyl-propan-2-ol
…………………………………………………………………………………
RIDDLE MC 32
1. I am a branch of general science, but I am often mentioned or studied in Chemistry.
2. I am often undertaken to satisfy scientists’ curiosity.
3. Many skills are needed to appreciate me.
4. Correct states of matter, their texture and colour are my mile stones.
5. Melting and boiling point measurements and use of a range of reagents of different pH are
my life blood.
6. In my more sophisticated form, reagents and a rack full of test tubes give way to machines
and meters.
Who am I? Qualitative Analyses
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE MC 33
2. I am bipolar because in my pure form I have both a negative charge and a positive charge in
my molecule
3. Chemically I am amphoteric.
4. My molecules are negatively charged in alkaline solutions and positively charged in acid
solutions.
5. I belong to a class of compounds that can be obtained by hydrolyses of proteins.
6. Of the class I am the only one that cannot bend the plane of polarised light.
Who am I? 2-Aminoethanoic acid OR Glycine
…………………………………………………………………………
RIDDLE MC 34
1. I am a piece of glassware.
2. I used to be made exclusively of pyrex glass but these days my plastic version is also
available.
3. I come in different sizes.
4. I am almost always graduated.
5. Unfortunately, I am not useful when work of high precision is being undertaken.
6. With my upright posture and a spout, you cannot mistake me for some other glassware.
Who am I? Measuring Cylinder
……………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 35
1. I am an inorganic solid.
2. I am made up of a metallic cation and a simple non-metal anion.
3. My cation in solution will precipitate out as a black solid when H2S gas is bubbled through
the solution.
4. My anion in solution will form a precipitate with silver ions even in the presence of dilute
HNO3.
5. The silver derivative of my anion is white and is soluble in dilute ammonia.
6. I am very soluble in hot water, but I crystallise out readily when my hot solution cools.
Who am I? Lead (II) Chloride OR PbCl2
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 36
1. I am a metallic element.
2. I belong to one of the major series in the Periodic Table, characterised by incomplete 5f sub-
shell.
3. I was named after a planet in the Solar System.
4. I show variable valences of 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
5. I have several isotopes whose masses spread over a range of 15 mass units but all having
atomic number of 92.
6. I, nuclear weapons and nuclear energy generation, we are all synonymous.
Who am I? Uranium
………………………………………………………………………………………..
RIDDLE MC 37
1. I am quite modest in my demands because one is enough for me.
2. Since I am harmful to humans all efforts are made to avoid me especially in all consumables.
3. I am not restricted to just the world of organic or inorganic compounds; I occur in both
worlds.
4. There are medicines and special diets meant to remove me from the human body.
5. An unpaired electron is my free asset.
6. Pairing my single electron radically eliminates me.
Who am I? Free Radical
……………………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE MC 38
1. I exist in several forms.
2. My colloidal form is man-made.
3. When my molten form is poured in a thin stream into cold water, I take the form not far from
that of high-density polythene.
4. My most natural form is described as rhombic.
5. Melt my stable form and let it cool, I solidify into needle-shaped, colourless crystals.
6. As an element of atomic mass 32, I show enantiotropy, a kind of allotropy.
Who am I? Sulphur
…………………………………………………………………………………………
RIDDLE MC 39
1. I am a saturated organic compound.
2. I do not possess any functional group of significance.
3. The atoms in my molecules are from just two elements, carbon and hydrogen.
4. My carbon backbone is neither straight nor branched.
5. For what I am, you might think I am a flat molecule, but I am not.
6. With six in a ring, my carbon atoms have the luxury of maintaining their exact tetrahedral
angles.
Who am I? Cyclohexane
…………………………………………………………………………………………
RIDDLE MC 40
1. I and my family emerged as a result of mankind’s recognition of the wave and particle
characteristics of subatomic particles.
2. We are milestones of a mathematical solution to the problem of the mechanics of a subatomic
that considers the property that if you can locate the particle precisely, you cannot determine
its linear momentum precisely and vice versa.
3. One of us determines the energy the of the sub-particle and is represented by a certain letter.
4. One of us and I describe the region around the nucleus where the subatomic particle has
appreciable probability of being found.
5. Yet another describes the orientation of the spin of the subatomic particle.
6. I determine the magnitude of the orbital angular momentum of the subatomic particle and
like the others I am represented by a certain letter.
What is my letter? (The letter) l (Small L) (Quantum numbers of l are 0 to n-1)
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a 3 digit number between 200 and 250
4. I am an exact exponential.
5. As an exponential, 7 and 3 play a role so far as the base and index are concerned.
6. To be precise, I am a cube of 7.
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a polygon.
2. In my regular form, the measure of an interior angle is twice that of an exterior angle.
3. In my regular form, I fit my outline in 12 positions.
4. Also in my regular form, I have 6 axes of symmetry.
5. The sum of my interior angles is 4π radians.
Who am I? ANSWER: HEXAGON
…………………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a process in Mathematics especially in Algebra
2. For numbers I involve prime numbers.
3. For polynomial expressions, I involve linear and or quadratic polynomials.
4. I involve a product of several terms.
5. I am the opposite of Expansion.
6. Part of me is a Factor and the other part is almost like a Station.
So Who am I? ANSWER: FACTORISATION
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE (CONTEST 4)
1. I am a power to reckon with.
2. I am a symbolic representation of a product.
3. I am a product of a number or letter with itself several times.
4. I am represented by two numbers or letters, or a number and a letter.
5. I have a base and an exponent hence my name.
Who am I? ANSWER: EXPONENTIAL
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a type of polygon.
2. I am quite common with triangles.
3. With me there is no congruency in any form.
4. No two of my sides are congruent.
5. No two of my angles are congruent.
6. Remember I am quite common with triangles.
Who am I? ANSWER: SCALENE POLYGON
……………………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a type of integration.
2. I am associated with definite integrals.
3. I am a method for finding an approximate value of a definite integral.
4. An example of me is the Trapezium Rule.
5. I am used for finding definite integrals that cannot be evaluated exactly.
6. I offer an approximate value for the definite integral
Who am I? APPROXIMATE INTEGRATION or NUMERICAL INTEGRATION.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a formula.
2. There are so many formulas in Mathematics.
3. Formulas are used to solve problems in Mathematics and Science.
4. I am an algorithm for solving an equation.
5. I am quite a famous one.
6. I am a formula for solving a quadratic equation.
Who am I? ANSWER: QUADRATIC FORMULA
………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a process in Mathematics.
2. I am generally associated with quadratic expressions.
3. I am definitely not factorization.
4. I am used to derive the quadratic formula.
5. I can be used to obtain the coordinates of the vertex of a quadratic curve.
6. My main objective is to obtain an exact square.
Who am I? COMPLETING THE SQUARE
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a three digit number.
3. My first digit is a prime.
4. My last digit is the same as my first digit.
5. My second digit is an exact square.
Who am I? 545
…………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND5: RIDDLE
1. I am a polygon.
2. I can be equilateral without being equiangular
3. I can also be equiangular without being equilateral.
4. I fit my outline in 16 places in my regular form.
5. In my regular form, an exterior angle measures π/4 radians.
6. I have 4 pairs of everything so far as polygons go.
Who am I? ANSWER: OCTAGON
……………………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a three-digit number.
3. If you reverse me, the number obtained is an even number.
4. My last digit is a square.
5. My first digit is also a square.
6. My second digit is a cube.
Who am I? 489
…………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
6. My second digit is the same as my first.
…………………………………………………………………….
1. I am generally a line.
2. You can say I am a mirror line.
3. I am popularly associated with a quadratic curve.
4. I divide a quadratic curve into two symmetrical parts.
5. For an isosceles triangle there is one of me.
6. For a circle, I am infinite in number.
Who am I? Line of Symmetry or Axis of Symmetry
……………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a ring-shaped geometric figure.
2. I am like a doughnut in a plane.
3. I am bounded by two circles.
4. These circles are concentric.
5. I am the region between two concentric circles.
6. These circles share a common center.
Who am I? ANNULUS
………………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
4. My first digit is an even number.
5. My second digit is an even prime.
6. The number formed by my last two digits is an exact square.
Who am I? 625
………………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am the stuff Arithmetic is made of.
2. I am simply an operation or to be precise a type of operation.
3. I combine two terms to produce a third term.
4. Examples of me are the arithmetic operations of addition and subtraction.
5. Others are multiplication and division.
6. Remember I combine two terms at a time.
Who am I? BINARY OPERATION
……………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
3. I am the largest of my kind.
4. I am an even number.
5. Hence I am not 81.
Who am I? 64
………………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a type of function.
2. I keep on repeating myself after a complete cycle called a period.
3. I am used to describe physical phenomena such as oscillations and waves.
4. Examples of me are the trigonometric functions such as sine and cosine functions.
5. There is no limit to my repetitions.
So who am I? PERIODIC FUNCTION
……………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a type of data.
2. There are normally two of us.
3. With my counterpart, the variable can normally take one of an infinite number of values in an
interval.
4. I can take one of a definite set of integer values.
5. I am rather discreet in my actions.
6. An example of me is the number of attendances at a Hospital on a Monday.
Who am I? DISCRETE DATA
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am an instrument.
2. I have an association with a right angle triangle.
3. Parallel lines are my main objective.
4. I am a mathematical instrument.
5. I have nothing to do with a set even though part of me is a square.
Who am I? SET-SQUARE
………………………………………………………………………………………….
1. I am a solid 3 –dimensional figure.
2. I have a base.
3. I have triangular faces which meet in a common vertex.
4. My base is generally a polygon.
5. My volume is given by the formular V = 1/3 base area x height
Who am I? PYRAMID
……………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
2. I am a linear expression in several variables.
3. I am associated with Linear Programming.
4. I am the object of optimization.
5. I am that function which is to be maximized or minimized
6. I definitely have an objective.
Who am I? OBJECTIVE FUNCTION
…………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am any of the parts when a surface or area is divided into 4 equal parts.
2. In the rectangular coordinate plane, there are 4 of me bounded by the axes.
3. I may be classified as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.
4. In astronomy, I am an instrument for measuring altitude and angle of celestial bodies.
5. I am a 90 degree arc representing a quarter of a circle.
6. Part of me is a Quad and for the rest you can rant about.
Who am I? QUADRANT
…………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a rigid body motion.
2. To be precise, I am a reflection.
3. I am a linear transformation in the Cartesian plane.
4. I am represented by the matrix

5. I map the point (x, y) into the point (y, x)
6. I am used to give the graph of the inverse of a function.
Who am I? REFLECTION IN THE LINE y = x.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am simply a test.
2. I am a test in Mathematics.
3. I involve a line of undefined slope in the Cartesian plane.
4. I determine if a graph or a curve defines a function.
5. If a vertical line cuts a curve in two points, the curve does not define a function.
Who am I? VERTICAL LINE TEST
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am an equation.
2. I have at least one root.
3. I can have two roots.
4. I have at most three roots.
5. I am a polynomial equation with at most 4 terms
6. If I was a geometric object, I would be a cube.
Who am I? CUBIC EQUATION
…………………………………………………………………………………….
RIDDLE
3. I have a pair of congruent sides.
4. I have only one pair of parallel sides.
5. I have two pairs of congruent angles.
6. I am obtained by truncating an isosceles triangle.
Who am I? ISOSCELES TRAPEZIUM
…………………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a symbol.
2. To be precise, I am an alphabet.
3. I am used as a notation for a unit vector along an axis.
4. I am often used to represent the identity function.
5. As an alphabet I am a vowel.
6. If I am that I am, then
Who am I? ANSWER: i
………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE (RIDDLE 29)
1. I have no limits.
2. I have no boundaries.
3. I am greater than any arbitrary large number.
4. Mind you I am not really a number.
5. I am unlimited in spatial extent.
6. Part of me is FINITE but that is deceptive since I am anything but finite.
Who am I? ANSWER: INFINITE
……………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a relation between several variables.
2. You can say I am a type of variation.
3. However I am not an inverse variation.
4. Neither am I a partial variation.
5. I express how a single variable varies with respect to two or more other variables.
6. It appears there is a joint ownership in the enterprise.
Who am I? JOINT VARIATION
………………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND5: RIDDLE
1. I am a solid geometric figure.
2. You can say I am a polyhedron.
3. I am bounded by six rectangular faces.
4. I have 12 edges and 8 vertices.
5. In my regular form I am a cube.
So who am I? CUBOID
………………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a type of calculus.
2. I am used to find areas under a curve and volumes of solids of rotation.
3. You can say I am involved with integration of functions.
4. I am used in solving differential equations such as in Mechanics.
5. To put it bluntly I am the calculus of Integration.
6. I relate somehow to an integer.
Who am I? INTEGRAL CALCULUS
……………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am generally a function.
2. I may be a polynomial, a rational or a trigonometric function.
3. I am the stuff integrals are made of.
4. You will find me under the integration symbol.
5. I am that which is to be integrated.
6. Part of me is quite GRAND and part is also a part of INTEGER.
Who am I? ANSWER: INTEGRAND
………………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
3. My first digit is an identity.
4. My last digit is also an identity.
6. Forward or backward, the value is the same.
Who am I? 161
………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a geometric figure.
3. I have two pairs of congruent sides.
4. I am not a parallelogram.
5. I have a pair of congruent opposite angles.
6. I have a single axis of symmetry.
Who am I? KITE
……………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a trigonometric function of the form y = f(x).
2. I am a continuous oscillating function.
3. I have a period T = 2π radians.
4. I have an amplitude of 5.
5. For x = π/2, I reach a maximum value.
6. For the interval 0 ≤ x ≤ π/2, I am an increasing function.
Who am I? y = 5sinx
………………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
2. My diagonals bisect the vertex angles.
3. My diagonals are perpendicular
4. My diagonals bisect each other
………………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I occur in cartesian geometry
2. I am a distance.
3. I am a distance from a point to a line.
4. I am the shortest distance from a point to any point on the line.
5. I am given by the length of a perpendicular from the point to the given line.
Who am I? PERPENDICULAR DISTANCE
………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I may consist of facts, figures and symbols
2. I may be a collection of numbers or measurements.
3. I represent raw, unprocessed facts or information
4. I am the basis for statistical analysis.
5. I can be organized into graphs or charts.
6. I am plural in nature.
Who am I? DATA
………………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND5: RIDDLE
1. I am a statement.
2. I am always true.
3. I am often referred to as the Logical Truth.
4. Remember I am always true.
5. For example, ‘’ When a coin is tossed, it is either Head or Tail’’
6. Part of me is TAUT and part is LOGY as in ecology
Who am I? TAUTOLOGY
……………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND5: RIDDLE
1. I am a type of motion
2. I am a restricted motion in an interval.
3. I am produced by an elastic force.
4. I am described mathematically by the sine or the cosine function.
5. I am a to and fro motion.
6. I am characterized by my simplicity and harmonicity.
Who am I? SIMPLE HARMONIC MOTION
………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a type of number.
2. I am a whole number.
3. Every integer can be factorised in terms of me in a unique way.
4. I am the ultimate divisor of integers.
5. I have only two divisors.
6. I am unique in the sense that only I can divide myself apart from 1.
Who am I? PRIME NUMBER
……………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
2. My digits are an identity and two squares.
4. My first digit is a square.
6. In Nigeria, I am a law against financial criminal activities.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a polygon.
2. The sum of my interior angles is 2 straight angles.
3. That makes me a quadrilateral.
4. I am equiangular but not equilateral.
5. My diagonals bisect each other but are not perpendicular.
6. Adjacent sides are perpendicular.
Who am I?: RECTANGLE
………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a three digit odd number
2. My digits are all prime.
3. The sum of my digits is 15
4. My digits form an increasing linear sequence.
5. My successive digits differ by 2.
Who am I?: 357
……………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
2. I am divisible by 5.
3. My first digit is 2 more than my last digit.
4. My second and third digits are both squares.
5. My second digit is odd and my third digit even.
Who am I? 7945
…………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a solid geometric figure.
2. You can say I am a polyhedron.
3. I am like two identical square pyramids stuck base to base.
4. I have eight triangular faces and 12 edges.
5. I also have 6 vertices.
6. If a polygon of eight sides is an octagon, then who am I?
Who am I?: OCTAHEDRON
……………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am statistical in nature.
2. I am often called variability.
3. I represent scatter or spread.
4. I am the amount by which a set of measurements deviate from the mean.
5. When the measurements are close to the mean, I am less.
6. When the measurements are far from the mean, I am more.
Who am I? DISPERSION
……………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a function.
3. My graph is symmetrical about the y – axis.
4. With me, the sign of the independent variable x makes no difference.
5. In other words f(-x) = f(x)
6. I am generally even-handed in my dealings.
Who am I?: EVEN FUNCTION
………………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a point.
2. I do not represent a binary operation.
3. I am used in the decimal representation of numbers.
4. I separate the integer part from the fractional part of a decimal number.
5. I am a type of point.
6. You still do not get the point?
Who am I? DECIMAL POINT
……………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am associated with a statistical distribution.
2. There are nine of me.
3. We divide a frequency distribution into ten equal parts.
4. I may be classified as first, second, third, …etc.
5. My fifth is the median or second quartile.
6. I represent a tenth of the sample or population.
Who am I? DECILE
………………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am generally a statement in Mathematics or Logic.
2. I am often the basis of proving a theorem.
3. I need no proof myself.
4. With me other statements may be proved.
5. I am a statement accepted without proof.
Who am I? AXIOM
…………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am often called the center.
2. I am also known as the bary-centre.
3. I am the point of location of the center of mass of an object.
4. For a triangle, I am the point of intersection of the medians.
5. My name sounds like I am the center of a rod.
Who am I? CENTROID
…………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a graph.
2. I am a travel graph.
3. My gradient indicates speed of travel.
4. When I am horizontal, it indicates the body is at rest.
5. I am a plot of distance against time.
Who am I? DISTANCE – TIME GRAPH
………………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
3. My last digit is a cube.
4. The sum of all my digits is an odd square digit.
5. In my prime factorization, I am a product of an even square and an odd cube.
6. My middle digit is an identity of no consequence.
Who am I? 108
……………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am something to be reckoned with.
2. I am a divisor.
3. I am an integer that divides another integer.
4. I can also be a polynomial that divides another polynomial.
5. I can also be anything that affects an organism in a habitat.
6. I may also be any substance that functions in a specific biochemical process.
Who am I? FACTOR
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. According to the ancient Greeks, I am that which has no part.
2. I am one of the undefined terms in Geometry.
3. I am the basic unit of geometry.
4. All other things are made of me.
5. I am normally represented by a dot.
6. Stop beating about the bush and get straight to the point.
Who am I? POINT
……………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a geometric entity.
2. I am generally undefined.
3. I have only length and nothing else.
4. I am composed of points.
5. I may be straight or curved.
6. I am in general unlimited in extent.
Who am I? LINE
…………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a number system.
2. With me, the base is a square between 10 and 20.
3. Like the binary system, I am used in computers.
4. Each of my digits is equivalent to a byte of 4 bits.
5. With me, there are 16 digits with some digits represented by A, B, C, D, E, F.
Who am I? HEXADECIMAL NUMBER SYSTEM (Accept Hexadecimal)
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. From my name, you may mistake me for a playing mantis.
2. I am a part of a logarithm.
3. I am the decimal part of a logarithm.
4. I am a positive number found in a four-figure table.
5. I am usually the logarithm of a number between 1 and 10.
6. For log30 = 1.4771, I am 0.4771.
Who am I? MANTISSA
………………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am Greek in origin.
2. I am famous for a geometric text The Elements which is still useful after 2000 years.
3. I was one of the pillars of Geometry in some bygone era.
4. Part of me is a Lid and part is a part of Eucalyptus.
5. I am associated with a certain type of Geometry.
Who am I? ANSWER: EUCLID
……………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a single digit decimal number.
2. My square, is the reverse of twice me.
3. A number is divisible by me if the sum of its digits is divisible by me.
4. I am by the way also a square.
Who am I? ANSWER: 9
……………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a three-digit odd number.
2. The sum of my first and last digits is twice my second digit.
3. My middle digit is the product of the first two prime numbers.
4. My last digit is the square of my first digit.
5. My digits are all multiples of 3.
6. My digits form a linear sequence.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
We are a pair of angles.
We are both acute angles.
We are the acute angles in a right angle triangle.
Our sum gives the right type of angle.
Examples of us are 33֯ and 57֯.
Who are we? COMPLEMENTARY ANGLES
…………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a process in Mathematics.
2. I am used in solving a quadratic equation.
3. Mind you I am not factorization.
4. I am used in deriving the quadratic formular.
5. I involve obtaining a square of a linear term from a quadratic expression.
Who am I? COMPLETING THE SQUARE
………………………………………………………………………………………..
1. We are a set of formulae.
2. We are much in use in trigonometry.
3. We involve sum or difference of angles.
4. We are used to compute for example the sine or cosine of the sum or difference of two
angles.
5. An example of us is sin(A + B) = sinAcosB + cosAsinB
Who are we? COMPOUND ANGLE FORMULAE
………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE CONTEST 31

1. In geometry I am a property of exact fitting.
2. Two figures with the same shape and size have me.
3. For example two line segments with same length satisfy me.
4. With integers, I am a relation between two integers relative to a fixed integer.
5. Two integers a, b are related if their difference is divisible by a fixed integer m.
Who am I? CONGRUENCE
…………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a rule.
2. I am used to solve a triangle.
3. There are at least two such rules.
4. In my application, I involve all three sides and an angle.
5. You can view me as a generalization of Pythagoras theorem.
6. Definitely I am not the tangent rule.
Who am I? COSINE RULE
………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am an organization of data.
2. I am an organization of raw data into an ordered form.
3. I indicate the number of times an event or a measurement occurs.
4. I may be presented as a histogram.
5. I may also be presented as a pie-chart.
Who am I? FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a rough value.
2. I am a result whose accuracy is not exact.
3. I am almost correct or exact but not precise.
4. I am an estimation of a number.
5. I may be obtained by rounding a number to its nearest place value.
Who am I?: APPROXIMATION
……………………………………………………………………………………..
1. I am a three-digit odd number.
2. My digits form a decreasing exponential sequence.
4. All my digits are odd numbers.
5. My first digit is the square of my second digit.
Who am I?: 931
………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a four digit even natural number.
2. The sum of my digits is an odd square digit.
3. I am in the lower half of the twenty first century.
4. My last digit is twice the sum of my first three digits.
5. My third digit is a multiplicative identity.
6. The number formed by my last two digits is a square less than a score.
Who am I? 2016
………………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a compound statement.
2. I literally add two simple statements together.
3. I am true only if both component simple statements are true.
4. I am partly a junction.
5. I may be mistaken for a con man.
6. I am of the form ‘P and Q’.
Who am I? CONJUNCTION
…………………………………………………………………………………
1. I am a solid figure bounded by 8 faces.
2. I am of course an octahedron.
3. I am composed of 2 hexagonal bases and 6 rectangular faces.
4. I have 18 edges.
5. You can say I am a prism.
6. To be precise, I am a prism with a hexagonal base.
Who am I? HEXAGONAL PRISM
…………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am an angular measure in degrees.
2. I am used to represent the direction of a point relative to another point.
3. In a machine I am a device to reduce friction between the fixed and moving parts.
4. As an angle I am measured clockwise from a fixed direction.
5. I am represented by three digits.
6. My name sounds like a bear with a ring
Who am I? BEARING
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
ROUND 5: RIDDLE
1. I am a function.
2. My graph approaches the x-axis but never touches it.
3. I am neither a polynomial function nor a rational function.
4. In economic terms I am associated with a rapid growth.
5. My variable occurs as an index with a constant base.
6. I am also associated with radioactive decay.
Who am I? EXPONENTIAL FUNCTION
…………………………………………………………………………………….
ROUND 5: RIDDLE ( EXTRA EXTRA)
1. I am a quadratic equation.
2. My leading coefficient is an identity.
3. My coefficients are integers.
4. However I have no real roots.
5. The sum of my roots is 4.
6. The product of my roots is 5.
Who am I? x2 – 4x + 5 = 0
CONTEST 1
1. I am a branch of physics.
2. I am concerned with the study of certain stationary objects.
3. Those objects are distinguished by an attribute that may be positive or negative.
4. That attribute is always a multiple of a fundamental quantity.
5. I am electric.
Who am I? Electrostatics
……………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 2
1. I am a property.
2. I am a property that varies with a specific thermodynamic variable.
3. That variable is closely associated with thermal equilibrium.
4. I am exploited in devices for measuring temperature.
5. I am thermometric.
Who am I? Thermometric property
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 3
6. I am a type of periodic disturbance.
7. I propagate from point to point,
8. Thereby transporting energy between the points.
9. This energy transport occurs without matter transport.
10. I am progressive.
Who am I? Progressive wave
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 4
7. I am an example of translational motion.
8. I am not curvilinear.
9. I occur along a straight line.
10. There is something rectangular about me.
Who am I? Rectilinear motion
……………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 5
9. I am to position what acceleration is to velocity.
10. My SI unit is the m s−1.
Who am I? Velocity
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 6
9. I am the difference between two vector quantities.
10. My SI unit is a base unit.
11. I am change in position.
Who am I? Displacement
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 7
6. I am a branch of physics.
7. I am studied in mechanics.
8. I am not statics.
9. I am a branch of mechanics devoted to motion.
10. I am the study of motion without regard to its cause.
Who am I? Kinematics
CONTEST 8
6. I am a type of material.
7. I am distinguished from other materials by my electrical properties.
8. I am not a good conductor of electricity.
9. I am not insulating at room temperature.
10. My electrical conductivity is intermediate between that of an insulator and a good conductor.
Who am I? Semiconductor
………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 9
6. I am a mechanical quantity.
8. I am the moment of another vector quantity.
9. I am not torque.
10. The J s is one of my SI units.
Who am I? Angular momentum

………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 10
6. I am a model of the atom.
7. I was invented to describe the arrangement of charges in an atom.
8. One of my predictions is that the hydrogen atom should have only one spectral line.
9. Another one of my predictions is that large angle scattering in Rutherford scattering are
extremely unlikely.
10. I have been likened to a baked dessert containing plums.
Who am I? Thomson model (Or plum pudding model)

……………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 11
6. I am a phenomenon involving electrons.
7. Bound electrons are liberated when I occur.
8. I involve a collision between a photon and an electron.
9. The photon is absorbed in the process.
10. Only photons with energy above a threshold value succeed in ejecting an electron.
What effect am I? Photoelectric effect

…………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 12
6. I am a type of heat engine.
7. As a heat engine, I convert heat into mechanical energy.
8. I am distinguished by a combustion chamber I possess.
9. Within this combustion chamber, fuel is burned to produce high temperature gases that do work
on some of my mechanical parts coupled to the chamber.
10. I am widely used in modern vehicles.
Who am I? Internal combustion engine

………………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 13
6. I am a property of an object.
7. Specifically, I am a mechanical property.
8. I describe the state of motion of an object.
9. I am not kinetic energy.
10. My SI unit is the kg m s−1 in base units.
Who am I? Linear momentum
CONTEST 14
8. I describe a property of a moving object.
9. I am a rate of change of a mechanical quantity.
10. I give the rate at which velocity changes.
11. I am to velocity what velocity is to displacement.
Who am I? Acceleration
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 15
6. I am a type of wave.
7. I am characterized by oscillations perpendicular to the direction of wave propagation.
8. I am composed of two oscillating quantities.
9. The two oscillations occur in perpendicular planes at the same frequency.
10. An example of me stimulates vision.
Who am I? Electromagnetic wave
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 16
6. I am the wavelength of a wave.
7. My wave is unusual because it is not directly observable.
8. I depend on the speed of an object:
9. The faster the object, the smaller I am.
10. I am inversely proportional to the magnitude of the linear momentum of an object.
Who am I? De Broglie Wavelength
………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 17
8. In SI base units, my unit is kg m2 s−2.
9. I arise when the point of application of a force moves in the direction of the force.
10. I equal change in kinetic energy.
Who am I? Work
…………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 18
6. I am a fundamental particle.
7. I have both mass and electric charge.
8. I am found in abundance in neutral atoms:
9. There are as many of me in a neutral atom as there are protons in its nucleus.
10. If I am electric without a trick
Who am I? Electron
………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 19
6. I am a quantity associated with the motion of an object.
7. I am only fully specified by my magnitude and my direction.
9. I am indeed the rate of change of another quantity which is also a rate of change.
10. I am the vector quantity whose product with mass has dimensions of force.
………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 20
7. I occur in the presence of a restoring force.
8. I am characterized by a period,
9. Which is the reciprocal of my frequency.
10. I am the type of motion exhibited by a gently moving pendulum.
Who am I? Simple harmonic motion
CONTEST 21
6. I am one of the physical quantities that specify the state of a system.
7. I am an intensive property.
8. For two systems in mechanical equilibrium, I am the same for the two systems.
9. For an ideal gas, I am proportional to temperature at constant volume.
10. I am described as force per unit area.
Who am I? Pressure
………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 22
6. I am a principle.
7. I am a named principle.
8. I am encountered by physics students in their study of fluids.
9. I specify a relationship between buoyant forces and weight of displaced fluid.
10. I can be studied in experiments using a can whose name is a famous interjection.
11. If eureka is the name of the can,
Who am I? Archimedes’ Principle

………………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 23
1. I am a dynamical quantity related to force.
3. For a constant force, I have the same direction as the force, but my magnitude is different.
4. I am the area under a force-time graph.
5. I equal change in momentum.
Who am I? Impulse
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 24
1. I am a physical quantity associated with periodic phenomena.
2. I am one of two quantities that characterize the repetitiveness of a periodic phenomenon.
3. I am the reciprocal of the other quantity.
4. This other quantity tells the number of times the periodic phenomenon occurs in a unit interval.
5. I am a duration.
Who am I? Period
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 25
2. My numerical value is larger for copper than for glass.
3. I am a thermal property.
4. The greater my value is, the better a substance conducts heat.
5. I am the proportionality factor that relates the rate of heat flow to cross-sectional area and
temperature gradient.
Who am I? Thermal conductivity

……………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 26
1. I am a named series.
2. I am a series of spectral lines.
3. I occur in the spectrum of the hydrogen atom.
4. I am the hydrogen atom spectral series with a series limit of approximately 91 nm.
5. I am the hydrogen atom spectral series that arise from transitions to the ground state.
Who am I? Lyman series

……………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 27
1. I am a type of radiation emitted by charged particles.
2. My spectrum is continuous.
3. I do not have a long-wavelength limit.
4. I occur whenever a charged particle decelerates and loses energy.
5. For a beam of charged particles accelerated through a potential difference, I have a short-
wavelength limit determined by the potential difference.
6. My name contains the German word for braking.
Who am I? Bremsstrahlung
……………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 28
1. I am a physical quantity that characterizes the state of motion of an object.
2. For a stationary object, I am zero.
3. I am a vector quantity so I cannot be kinetic energy.
4. For a slowly moving object, half my scalar product with velocity gives kinetic energy.
5. If I am directly proportional to velocity,
Who am I? Linear momentum

…………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 29
1. I am a named series of spectral lines.
2. The number 2 distinguishes me from other series.
3. I am a series of spectral lines in the spectrum of the hydrogen atom.
4. My series limit is very nearly 365 nm.
5. I am the hydrogen atom spectral series that lies in the visible region of the electromagnetic
spectrum.
Who am I? Balmer series

…………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 30
2. I am usually a transverse wave.
3. I am composed of two waves that are perpendicular to each other.
4. I range in frequency from zero to infinity.
5. I propagate at the ultimate speed.
Who am I? Electromagnetic wave

………………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 31
2. I am defined as a ratio of two quantities, one of which is itself a dimensionless ratio.
3. I quantify dimensional changes of an object under load.
4. I am not the Young modulus.
5. I relate bulk stress to bulk strain.
6. My SI unit is the pascal.
Who am I? Bulk modulus

…………………………………………………..
CONTEST 32
1. I am one of the base units in the SI system.
2. I am one of the two SI base units that honor a scientist,
3. So my symbol is capitalized.
4. My symbol is the first letter of the alphabet.
5. I quantify a rate of flow.
6. I am equivalent to the coulomb per second.
Who am I? Ampere
CONTEST 33
1. I am one of the thermodynamic variables that characterize the equilibrium states of a system.
2. I am an intensive variable.
3. I alone determine the internal energy of an ideal gas.
4. My value is the same for two systems in thermal equilibrium.
5. Mathematically, I am the partial derivative at constant volume and number of particles of
internal energy with respect to entropy.
Who am I? Temperature
………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 34
1. I am a particle.
2. I have mass so I can interact via the gravitational force.
3. I am found in all neutral atoms.
4. I interact via the electromagnetic force.
5. I also interact via the strong force.
6. A neutral atom has as many of me in its nucleus as its electrons.
Who am I? Proton
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 35
1. I am one of the four fundamental forces.
2. I am a long-range force.
3. I am the force that accounts for the deflection light passing near a star.
4. I am the force responsible for the interaction between particles with mass.
5. I am always attractive.
Who am I? Gravity Or gravitational force

………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 36
1. I am a physical quantity that characterizes the state of motion of an object.
2. For a stationary object, I am zero.
4. I characterize the state of rotation of an object.
5. Half my scalar product with angular velocity gives rotational kinetic energy.
6. I am moment of momentum.
Who am I? Angular momentum

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 1
6. I am a named effect.
7. I am indeed one of three closely related effects.
8. We are associated with energy conversion.
9. I am named for one Thomas, who rediscovered me after Volta.
10. I am the effect in which heat is converted directly into electricity.
Who am I? Seebeck effect

………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 2
6. I am an elementary particle.
7. I am a neutral spin-1 particle.
8. I am massless.
9. I am the particle that mediates electromagnetic interactions.
10. I am emitted when excited atoms de-excite.
Who am I? Photon
CONTEST 3
1. I am a dimensionless physical quantity.
2. It is usually desirable that my value be close to unity.
3. I am a measure of how well energy is converted from one form to another.
4. I specify a quality of heat engines.
5. For a pair of temperature baths, a Carnot engine has the greatest value of me.
Who am I? Thermal efficiency

………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 4
1. I am a chemical element.
2. I am a blue-grey solid at room temperature.
3. I am remarkable for my electrical properties,
4. which are intermediate between those of such elements as copper and those of such elements as
Sulphur.
5. I am the most widely used semiconducting element:
6. I am the shoulders on which the electronics industry rides.
Who am I? Silicon
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 5
1. I am a property of fluids.
2. I am a temperature-dependent property.
3. For gases, I generally increase with temperature,
4. Whereas for liquids, I generally decrease with temperature.
5. I am a measure of a fluid’s resistance to deformation at a specified rate.
Who am I? Viscosity
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 6
1. I am a property of a substance.
2. I am an electromagnetic quantity.
3. I am dimensionless.
4. My value for vacuum is exactly unity.
5. I am the ratio of the speed of light in a substance to the speed of light in vacuum.
Who am I? Refractive index

……………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 7
1. I am a property of an object.
2. I am a mechanical property.
3. In SI base units, I am measured in kg m2.
4. For a collection of particles, I am the sum of the products of the mass of each particle and its
distance squared from an axis.
5. I am a second moment of mass.
Who am I? Moment of inertia

…………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 8
2. I am indeed one of three closely related effects.
3. We are associated with energy conversion.
4. I am named for one Charles, who discovered me.
5. I am the effect employed in thermoelectric coolers.
Who am I? Peltier effect
CONTEST 9
1. I am an optical instrument.
2. In my simplest form, I have a single optical element.
3. I have an objective, not a goal.
4. In modern forms, I am equipped with an electronic device with many of the features of the
human eye.
5. I am the instrument that brings small objects into view.
Who am I? Microscope
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 10
1. I am a property of an electrical circuit.
2. I characterize the electrical behavior of ac circuits.
3. I am a frequency-dependent property.
4. I describe resistance-inductance-capacitance circuits.
5. I reduce to reactance when resistance is zero.
Who am I? Impedance
……………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 11
1. I am a mechanical property of an object.
2. I can be zero when an object is in motion.
3. I can be non-zero when an object is stationary.
4. I am responsible for changes in both speed and direction of motion of an object.
5. I am the rate of change of velocity.
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 12
1. I am an object found in a nuclear reactor.
2. I owe my functionality to how I interact with neutrons.
3. I have strong affinity for neutrons.
4. I am used to vary the power output of a nuclear reactor.
5. I am just a rod.
Who am I? Control rod

……………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 13
1. You may have first encountered me in physics as a ratio.
2. Later, you may have learned that I vary with depth in a fluid.
3. You may have used my name to describe situations in which someone is persuaded or influenced
to do something.
4. I am one of the physical quantities in Boyle’s law.
5. I have dimensions of energy density.
Who am I? Pressure
………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 14
1. I am a neutral particle.
2. I am not a fundamental particle.
3. I am a nuclear particle.
4. My name suggests an association with heat,
5. But I am only as warm as room can be.
Who am I? Thermal neutron

…………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 15
1. I am a property of certain electrical devices.
2. I characterize the electrical behavior of those devices in ac circuits.
3. I am a frequency-dependent property.
4. For ideal capacitors, I vary inversely with frequency.
5. For ideal inductors, I am proportional to frequency.
Who am I? Reactance
……………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 16
1. I am a strand of a homogeneous material.
2. I may also be made up of concentric homogeneous materials
3. The materials I am made of may be organic or inorganic.
4. I confound the principle that light propagates in straight lines.
5. I form the backbone of optical communication networks.
Who am I? Optical fiber

……………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 17
1. I am an angle encountered in the study of optics.
2. I am not the angle of a prism;
3. I am also not the angle of refraction.
4. I am the angle of incidence beyond which no transmission occurs.
5. A trigonometric function evaluated with my value gives a ratio of refractive indices.
Who am I? Critical angle

…………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 18
1. I am so well-known my name is used to describe the lack of imagination or foresight.
2. I am a defect of vision.
3. I am the condition in which light from an object is brought to a focus in front of the retina,
4. I am corrected with lenses with negative optical power.
5. If my synonyms are short-sightedness and nearsightedness,
Who am I? Myopia
……………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 19
1. I am a number that specifies how well energy is transformed from one form to another.
2. I am a ratio larger than unity.
3. I am used to describe refrigerators.
4. You may think of me as the ratio of heat removed to work done.
5. I am to a refrigerator what thermal efficiency is to a heat engine.
Who am I? Coefficient of performance

………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 20
1. I am found in nuclear reactors.
2. My presence ensures a desirable energy distribution of neutrons.
3. I may be as simple as ordinary water.
4. Or as exotic as heavy water.
5. I am responsible for converting fast neutrons into thermal neutrons.
Who am I? Moderator
CONTEST 21
1. I am a ratio.
2. In SI units, I am measured in C kg−1.
3. For an electron, my value is nearly −1.759 ×1011 C kg−1 .
4. I am an important quantity in mass spectrometry.
5. My value for the electron was first determined by J. J. Thomson.
Who am I? Charge-to-mass ratio

………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 22
2. I am a field quantity that varies in space and time.
3. I originate from a force,
4. But I am not a force.
5. I am indeed the force on a unit positive test charge.
6. If one of my SI units is V m−1,
Who am I? Electric field

…………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 23
1. I am a radiation emitting object.
2. I am remarkable for the energy distribution of the radiation I emit.
3. I only emit photons.
4. I emit photons of all wavelengths.
5. I also absorb photons of all wavelengths.
Who am I? Blackbody
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 24
1. I am a named effect associated with electrons.
2. I am a process in which electrons are emitted.
3. I involve a collision between bound electrons and photons.
4. I occur in the interaction between bound electrons and photons that exceed a threshold energy.
5. I am the effect for which Einstein was awarded the Nobel prize.
Who am I? Photoelectric effect

……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 25
2. I am capable of being polarized.
3. I am characterized by oscillations perpendicular to direction of wave propagation.
4. An example of me is an electromagnetic wave.
5. Another example of me is the seismic S wave.
Who am I? Transverse wave

……………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 26
1. I am a type of electric generator.
2. I transform the energy I receive into electrical energy.
3. I am a heat engine because I transform heat into the ordered electrical form of energy.
4. I am the heat engine that transforms heat energy directly into electrical energy.
5. I operate on the basis of the Seebeck effect.
Who am I? Thermoelectric generator

CONTEST 27
1. I am a physical quantity associated with gravity.
3. I am also a field quantity that varies in space and time.
4. I have the same dimensions as energy divided by mass.
5. I am gravitational potential energy per unit mass.
Who am I? Gravitational potential

…………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 28
2. I am applied in mechanics,
3. Where together with two other laws, I am used to solve problems in dynamics.
4. I am a law of motion.
5. I am the last but not the least of three.
Who am I? Newton’s third law (of motion)

…………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 29
1. I am a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted.
2. I essentially involve a collision between a photon and a free electron.
3. In the process, a scattered photon of lower energy than the incident one appears.
4. The scattered photon has a wavelength that depends on the cosine of the scattering angle.
Who am I? Compton effect

…………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 30
1. I am a wave phenomenon that is frequently used to distinguish wavelike behavior from particle
behavior.
2. I am closely associated with a linear principle.
3. I demand coherence.
4. Diffraction is sometimes my ally.
5. I can be destructive or constructive or somewhere in-between.
Who am I? Interference
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 31
1. I am a mechanical quantity that describes the state of a gas.
2. I am temperature dependent.
3. For an ideal gas, I vary as the square root of temperature and inversely as molecular mass.
4. My square is directly proportional to the average translational kinetic energy of a molecule.
5. For ideal gas molecules, I equal the square root of three times the product of the molar ideal gas
constant divided by the molar mass of the gas.
Who am I? Root-mean-square speed

………………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 32
1. I am an energy unit.
2. I represent a rather small amount of energy.
3. I am associated with the change in kinetic energy of a charged particle moving through a
potential difference.
4. Expressed in terms of me, the ground state energy of the hydrogen atom is less than 20.
5. I am the work associated with transporting a unit fundamental charge through a potential
difference of one volt.
Who am I? Electron-volt
CONTEST 33
1. I am an experiment that demonstrated diffraction.
2. I am noteworthy for the waves that are used in performing me.
3. I am credited to two gentlemen, both of whose names I bear.
4. I demonstrate diffraction of electrons by a crystal.
5. I thereby confirm the existence of matter waves.
Who am I? Davisson-Germer experiment

…………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 34
1. I am a conductor of electricity.
2. I am special because I can conduct an electric current without generating any heat.
3. I have zero resistivity.
4. In most cases, I acquire my zero resistivity properties at very low temperatures.
5. I behave as a perfect diamagnetic material.
Who am I? Superconductor
…………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 35
1. I am a property of matter.
2. I am a temperature-dependent property.
3. I am specified for matter in the liquid state.
4. I am a consequence of cohesive forces in a liquid.
5. If my SI unit is the N m−1,
Who am I? Surface tension

………………………………………………………………………………………………….
CONTEST 36
1. I am a vector field
2. I can be conservative or non-conservative.
3. I have point sources, which can be positive or negative.
4. My divergence is a measure of my source density.
5. Point or otherwise, my sources are always multiples of a fundamental charge.
6. I am the field surrounding electric charges.
Who am I? Electric field.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 37
1. I am a destructive phenomenon.
2. On close examination, I neither create nor destroy, yet I destroy.
3. I cause matter to disappear, always preserving energy balance.
4. I involve a particle and its antiparticle.
5. Specifically, I am the event in which an electron meets its nemesis.
Who am I? Electron-positron annihilation (Or pair annihilation)

………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONTEST 38
1. I am a ubiquitous physical quantity.
2. I am a truly conserved quantity, notwithstanding that I may take unfamiliar forms.
3. I may be quantized; I may have a continuous spectrum.
4. I may be great; I may be small.
5. No work is accomplished without me;
6. Nothing exists that is not me.
Who am I? Energy
CONTEST 39
1. I am a bound state of a collection of particles.
2. One of the particles that compose me is unique because it is itself a bound state of other
particles.
3. That unique particle is held together by a force much greater than the force that holds me
together.
4. I occur in many varieties, each of which is distinguished by a property of the unique particle
conventionally labelled Z .
5. You are composed of a great number of me.
Who am I? Atom
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
CONTEST 40
1. I am a field particle.
2. As such, I mediate one of the known interactions.
3. Like all field particles, I am a boson.
4. I mediate a long-range interaction.
5. I am an uncharged spin 1 particle.
6. I am the particle that accounts for the fact that your seat supports you against gravity.
Who am I? Photon

NSMQ Riddles

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

NSMQ Riddles

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

NSMQ Riddles

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

RIDDLES 2018, 2019, 2020

1. I am a line segment associated with a regular polygon.

Who am I? ANSWER: APOTHEM

Who am I? ANSWER: QUOTIENT RULE

Who am I? ANSWER: 727

1. We are angles associated with a polygon.

Who are we? ANSWER: EXTERIOR ANGLES

CONTEST 14 ROUND 5: RIDDLE

1. In Latin my name means a location.

Who am I? ANSWER: LOCUS

Who am I? ANSWER: DERIVATIVE

1. I am an association of elements of two sets.

Who am I? ANSWER: BINARY RELATION

Who am I? ANSWER: SINGLETON

1. I am a special point on a curve.

Who am I? ANSWER: POINT OF INFLECTION

1. I am a function of the form y = f(x)

CONTEST 21 ROUND 5: RIDDLE

1. I am a 2-digit odd number.

Who am I? KINETIC ENERGY

4. I am represented by the matrix

ROUND 5: RIDDLE CONTEST 31

Who am I? Angular momentum

Who am I? Thomson model (Or plum pudding model)

What effect am I? Photoelectric effect

Who am I? Internal combustion engine

Who am I? Linear momentum

Who am I? Simple harmonic motion

Who am I? Archimedes’ Principle

Who am I? Thermal conductivity

Who am I? Lyman series

Who am I? Linear momentum

Who am I? Balmer series

Who am I? Electromagnetic wave

Who am I? Bulk modulus

Who am I? Gravity Or gravitational force

Who am I? Angular momentum

Who am I? Seebeck effect

Who am I? Thermal efficiency

Who am I? Refractive index

Who am I? Moment of inertia

Who am I? Peltier effect

Who am I? Control rod

Who am I? Thermal neutron

Who am I? Optical fiber

Who am I? Critical angle

Who am I? Coefficient of performance

Who am I? Charge-to-mass ratio

Who am I? Electric field

Who am I? Photoelectric effect

Who am I? Transverse wave

Who am I? Thermoelectric generator

Who am I? Gravitational potential

Who am I? Newton’s third law (of motion)

Who am I? Compton effect

Who am I? Root-mean-square speed

Who am I? Davisson-Germer experiment

Who am I? Surface tension