Brain Teasers
What has cities, but no houses; forests, but no trees; and water, but no fish?
What is a map?
This ancient device, invented in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE, is often called the single most important invention.
What is the wheel?
This language family includes French, Spanish, and Italian.
What is Romance?
This philosopher’s “golden mean” taught virtue lies between extremes.
Who is Aristotle?
This country is home to Machu Picchu.
What is Peru?
I’m taken from a mine, locked up in a wooden case, and used by almost everyone. What am I?
This inventor’s contributions to alternating current (AC) electricity rivaled Thomas Edison’s direct current (DC).
Who is Nikola Tesla?
The dot above a lowercase “i” or “j” has this specific name.
What is a tittle?
This Chinese thinker emphasized filial piety and proper social relationships.
Who is Confucius?
This landlocked country has the highest elevation capital city in the world: La Paz.
What is Bolivia?
The person who makes me sells me. The person who buys me never uses me. The person who uses me never knows it. What am I?
What is a coffin?
This scientist, while studying pea plants, laid the foundation for modern genetics.
Who is Gregor Mendel?
The word “alphabet” itself comes from the first two letters of this ancient writing system?
What is the Greek alphabet (alpha + beta)?
øren Kierkegaard is considered the father of this branch of philosophy.
What is existentialism?
This city’s name means “the end of the world” in Arabic, and it’s one of the hottest inhabited places on Earth.
What is Timbuktu?
What English word retains its pronunciation even after you remove four of its five letters?
What is queue?
The Haber-Bosch process, developed in the early 20th century, made this critical chemical compound available on a mass scale.
What is ammonia (NH₃)?
This extinct language was deciphered thanks to the Rosetta Stone.
What is Egyptian hieroglyphics?
This philosopher’s “categorical imperative” stressed duty-based ethics.
Who is Immanuel Kant?
This sea, shrinking rapidly due to irrigation, was once the fourth-largest lake in the world.
What is the Aral Sea?
If you have it, you don’t share it. If you share it, you don’t have it.
What is a secret?
This 17th-century Dutch scientist improved the microscope and is often called “the father of microbiology.”
Who is Antonie van Leeuwenhoek?
This is the only word in English that ends with the letters “mt.”
What is dreamt?
Michel Foucault studied the relationship between power and knowledge in institutions like prisons, hospitals, and schools. His work belongs to this century.
What is the 20th century?
The Silk Road historically connected China with this sea, linking Asia to Europe.
What is the Mediterranean Sea?