Video Games
Originally given the Japanese title “Puckman”, what 1980s arcade game was inducted into the Guinness Book of Records as the "Most Successful Coin-Operated Game" in 2005?
Pac-Man
What is the oldest known chemical explosive?
Black powder, also known as gunpowder.
At the 2010 Academy Awards, the winning film for Best Animated Feature was a Disney-Pixar film featuring Kevin, Charles Muntz, Carl, Russell, and a dog named Dug. What is this helium-inflated film?
Up
In a football game, what’s it called when a player loses control (and therefore possession) of the ball before they have a chance to score, get tackled, or go out of bounds?
Fumble
Which spooky 2001 GameCube game starring Mario’s brother got a reboot for Nintendo Switch in 2019?
Luigi's Mansion
Which Swedish chemist invented dynamite in 1867?
Alfred Nobel.
According to the tagline of the 1979 sci-fi/horror classic Alien, "In space, no one can hear you" do what?
Scream
"The Run for the Roses" and "The Fastest Two Minutes in Sports" are both colloquial names for a horse race that occurs on the first Saturday of May in which U.S. State?
Kentucky
In the game Halo, what is the name of Master Chief's AI sidekick? Microsoft later re-used this name for their own product.
Cortana
What kind of event occurs when an explosive's chemical decomposition is slower than the speed of sound?
A deflagration.
James Earl Jones said he only made $7,000 for his role as which character in “Star Wars: A New Hope?”
Darth Vader
Since he pitched 749 games in his 22-year career (including a perfect game in 1904), which MLB player has an award for great pitchers named after him?
Cy Young
Skyrim is the fifth installment of what epic open-world videogame series by Bethesda Softworks?
The Elder Scrolls
Why does an explosive's velocity of detonation (VOD) increase with the charge diameter?
Because larger diameters reduce energy loss from the sides of the explosive charge. This loss, known as "edge effect," decreases the overall reaction pressure and temperature, slowing the detonation.
What mystical item, in this case taking the form of a goblet, appears in the title of a 1975 Monty Python movie parodying Arthurian legend?
The Holy Grail
Appropriately given the STEM focus of the school, the sports teams of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are known by what professional-sounding name?
Engineers
What video game franchise debuted in 2001 as a hybrid real-time strategy and puzzle video game centered on part-collecting for a crashed rocket ship (the SS Dolphin) with the help of plant-animal hybrids?
Pikmin
The brisance of an explosive describes its shattering ability. What is the standard test used to measure this property?
The Trauzl lead block test, which measures the expansion of a cavity in a lead block after an explosive is detonated inside.
In his 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan invoked the quote "Where we're going, we don't need roads." from what 1985 cult classic Robert Zemeckis-directed film?
Back To The Future
What sport joins ice hockey as one of two national sports of Canada?
Lacrosse