Can also do a simple
9 items, one heavier, balance scale. How many weighs.
2, 3 vs 3, then 1 vs 1
A boy had a 5 foot fishing pole. He was getting on a bus.
The driver told him it wasn’t allowed. Nothing over 4 feet was legal.
He got off went to store and got on the next bus. What did he buy? The pole was not cut or bent.
A box, 3x4
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Take the number in a gross
Divide by the oz in lb
Divide by the homophone for No in German
Multiply by the number of sides in a heptagon
144/16/9*7=7
Or any variation on the theme
Keeping in mind that this is a bar game and I assume not exclusively for people with STEM degrees…
How many sides in a nonagon? (9)
(If that’s too easy then go for a dodecahedron or something even more esoteric.)
What is the name for the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter? (pi)
Who is considered the father of calculus? (Isaac Newton… although if you want controversy you could perhaps rephrase so the right answer is Leibniz)
You could put something actuarial in there… like who has a higher expected age at death: a female newborn baby or a 75 year old male? (75 year old)
Maybe something about Arabic numerals if you want to try to rile some ignoramus’s political sensitivities. Are they writing their answers down? Ask them to write the number 23 in Arabic numerals. Some people will probably write XXIII because they weren’t paying attention and other people will have no clue what Arabic numerals are and annoyed that you’re asking some esoteric Middle Eastern trivia while others will be snickering at how easy the question is.
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You could have them name 10 irrational numbers.
Also maybe something involving imaginary numbers would be fun, but assuming you want it to be easy enough for people to get it can’t be too hard. The average non-math major probably never studied imaginary numbers in school.
So maybe just have them pick the two imaginary numbers from a list.
-3, 2pi, ln(e), 6i, 12^(-1), sqrt(-4)
Or something like that. One point for each one they get. Or they have to get them both to get any points (your game, your rules). Or you could make it easier and they only have to pick one of two or only put one in the list.
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Putting numbers in order from smallest to largest maybe:
IX, 3pi, e, log(10000), sqrt(81), 5+7*0-2
Or something involving scientific notation: the National debt is estimated to be $31.4 trillion dollars. Write that number in scientific notation. (It’s harder if you pick something where they have to move the decimal point.)
For science, balancing an equation.
Questions involving units:
What is a more common name for 43,560 square feet? (Acre)
How many feet in a mile? (5,280)
Or something involving light-years.
The nearest star other than our sun is estimated to be a little over 4 of this unit of measurement from earth.
Which is larger: 1 trillion miles or 1 light year?
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I like the Space questions…
Name the largest planet in the solar system
Generally accepted age of the Earth
Describe an experiment used to test one of Einstein’s theories
Which planet is closest to the Earth most of the time? (Mercury!)
What is the nearest star to the Earth besides the Sun?
Name a galaxy other than the Milky Way
Name the long planned telescope launched on Christmas morning 2021
What is the word to describe the farthest point in an planet’s orbit?
Would you need more rocket fuel from the Earth to get to Pluto or the Sun?
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Science - Pick A, B, C, or D. Which list of these contains a word that is not in the periodic table of elements:
A. Aluminum_Platinum_Bismuth_Niobium
B. Calcium_Flourine_Sulfur_Tennessine
C. Caesium_Erbium_Harmonium_Tin
D. Krypton_Helium_Plutonium_Copper
Harmonium, also called Reed Organ, free-reed keyboard instrument that produces sound when wind sent by foot-operated bellows through a pressure-equalizing air reservoir causes metal reeds screwed over slots in metal frames to vibrate through the frames with close tolerance.
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You call chemistry science!? It’s merely applied physics! /s
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People, people, this is bar trivia, not actuarial major trivia. Gotta be a lot easier and a lot more fun. @T-roy is gonna need questions like:
What is the name for a body with gravitational force so strong that even light cannot escape? (black hole)
How many laws of motion are there? three
What are the four forces acting on an airplane? Lift, thrust, drag, gravity
What is the square root of 1,024? 32
What is 3 to the seventh power? whatever it is
What is 50, written in binary? that is, all 1s and 0s… 110010
A ‘byte’ is a unit of storage of computer information. One ‘kilobyte’ is one thousand bytes. How many kilobytes is a Gigabyte? one million
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You could also do one of those things where you say, “Pick a number between 1 and 10, then”
and you perform several operations on it, getting the end result to be 4. And they’re gonna be like, “Wait, that was it? How can everyone pick a different number and get the same answer and be right?”
I like this one.
Match the Letter with the number (I can do half points, I have yet to see that done - its math)
A. 43,560
B. 1,609
C. 42
D. 86,400
- The meaning of life
- Acre
- Seconds in a day
- Mile
There should be one two answers that could throw people off as well. Hmmm…
Name 10:
Elements
Moons of any planet except Earth (so moons around Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, etc.) [personally, I can get 7 right now: Europa, Phobos, Deimos, Ganymede, Calisto, Io, Charon [which is around Pluto, so maybe you give it credit anyway], etc. so 10 should be a challenge but maybe doable]
shapes (2D or 3D or either, your call)
Well you have a plethora of difficult questions to choose from. An order of operations question could fit in your list. Something that’s close to 42, but not.
Which means the average in a bar trivia game will be 1.4.
For science maybe something about the difference between speed and velocity and/or the difference between weight and mass.
The air speed velocity of a swallow! … and the right answer is “African or European?”
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How many protons in a water molecule?
How much does a 1m cube of water weigh?