Contest 1

1. I am a ubiquitous particle remarkable for the variety of matter in which I am

found.
2. I am not a fundamental particle.
3. Indeed, I am made up of two well-known particles,
4. one of which is a fundamental particle.
5. My spectral emission lines are described by the Ritz combination principle.
6. I am the subject of Bohr’s model.

Who am I?

Hydrogen

1. I am an optical device.
2. I have a reflecting surface.
3. I form virtual images of real objects.
4. The image I form of an object is as far behind me as the object is in front of me.
Who am I?

ANSWER Plane mirror

Riddle #1
1. I am a measuring instrument.
2. I am sometimes used to measure mass.
3. But I am designed to measure force.
4. I operate by Hooke, never by crook.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Spring balance

1. I am associated with simple harmonic motion

2. I am associated with functions especially with trigonometric functions
3. for y = subx, a am 2π
4. for y = tanx, I am π
5. I am generally an interval after which a function repeats itself
6. I satisfy the relation f(x=T) = f(x)
WHO AM I?
 ANSWER: Period

1. I am a field.
2. I am described by field lines.
3. My field lines are closest together where my field strength is greatest.
4. My field lines have no beginning and no end.
5. I am electromagnetic.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Magnetic field

1. I am a phenomenon that was discovered by a German physicist whose name I bear.

2. I can be used for converting thermal energy into electrical energy.
3. I am observed with two dissimilar conductors and
4. I occur in the presence of a temperature gradient.
5. I am the phenomenon that underlies the operation of a thermocouple.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Seebeck effect
Contest 2

1. I am a type of electric circuit.

2. I am named for a hinged device whose function is to close an opening.
3. I am characterized by a set of inputs whose states determine my output.
4. My simplest kind has only one input and one output.
5. I am the electrical realization of the operators in Boolean algebra.
6. Everything about me is logical.

Who am I?

Logic gate
Contest 3

1. I am a property of a periodic propagating disturbance.

2. Therefore, I am a property of a wave.
3. I describe a relationship that can exist between particle displacement and wave
propagation direction in a mechanical wave.
4. I am only applicable to waves for which displacement is perpendicular to the
direction of wave propagation.
5. I am that property of an electromagnetic wave which is demonstrated using a
polaroid film.

Who am I?

Polarization
Contest 4

1. I am a tubular device that usually contains a gas at low pressure.

2. I have a central electrode wire
3. which is held at a high potential relative to the case of the device.
4. Ions are produced when suitable particles enter a window that I have.
5. In this way, I indicate the presence and intensity of ionizing radiation.

Who am I?

Geiger-Müller tube
Contest 5

1. My name has been used for electricity.

2. And persons capable of accomplishing much are said to have lots of me.
3. But I am simply a physical quantity.
4. I am to work what jerk is to acceleration.
5. Work is to me what displacement is to velocity.

Who am I?

Power
Contest 6

1. I am a type of logic gate.

2. My output is high when all my inputs are low.
3. My output is low when all my inputs are high.
4. My output is again high when at least one input is low.
5. If my output is only low when all my inputs are high

What type of gate am I?

NAND
Contest 7

1. I am a physical quantity you may have first encountered in your study of

mechanics.
2. I have dimensions of work
3. But the joule is not my SI unit.
4. I quantify the turning effect of a force.
5. I am to force what angular momentum is to linear momentum.

Who am I?

Torque
Contest 8

1. I am a type of spectrum emitted by matter.

2. I am also observed in absorption spectra.
3. I am characterized by discreteness,
4. Because of which I can form series.
5. For hydrogen, portions of me form series that are given names such as Lyman,
Balmer, and so on.

Who am I?

Line spectrum
Contest 9

1. I am a city near the border between Ukraine and Belarus.

2. I gained world-wide notoriety for an event which occurred April 26, 1986.
3. Since then, I have been associated with the world’s most catastrophic nuclear
power event.
4. That event showed that a major nuclear accident at one location can spread
radioactive contaminants throughout the world.
5. Today, I am a ghost town, a tourist destination, and a wildlife haven.

Who am I?

Chernobyl
Contest 10

1. I am a type of surface.
2. I can be a plane surface, a spherical surface, or a cylindrical surface.
3. Indeed, I can have complicated geometry.
4. I am a surface in a region where an electric field exists.
5. No work is done when a point charge is moved from one point on me to another.
6. Wherever you find yourself on me, the value is the same.

Who am I?

Equipotential surface

1. If all pretensions are removed, I am just a beam of light.

2. I am found in homes, offices, hospitals, supermarkets, laboratories and so on.
3. I find widespread use in communications and entertainment.
4. When I was invented, I was called the “Death Ray”.
5. But I have rather brought life and joy to many.
6. I am special because the photons in my beam are all in phase and have the same
energy.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Laser
Contest 11

1. Thrust, field, current:

2. Thumb, first finger, second finger!
3. I am only a rule,
4. A left-handed rule.
5. I determine direction relationships for an electric motor.

Who am I?

Fleming left hand rule

Contest 12

1. I am an object which under ideal conditions may follow a path that is a conic
section.
2. In some common cases you have witnessed, my path is a parabola.
3. I am the object of study in ballistics.
4. I am that which is launched into space.
5. I am a projected object.

Who am I?

Projectile
Contest 13

1. I am a force.
2. You would be right in calling me the force
3. Because I am everywhere you look.
4. I am electromagnetic.
5. I specify the force on a charged particle
6. Moving in a region where both electric and magnetic fields may be present.

Who am I?

Lorentz force
Contest 14

1. I am an experiment
2. That was the first to directly demonstrate quantization of atomic energies.
3. I bear the names of the two gentlemen, James and Gustav,
4. Who first carried me out.
5. In a student laboratory, I come as a tube with cathode and anode and all
6. So that electrons undergo inelastic collisions with atoms only at particular
energies.

Who am I?

Frank-Hertz experiment
Contest 15

1. I am a scalar quantity closely associated with a particular vector quantity.

2. I am an electromagnetic quantity.
3. I am featured in Faraday’s law of electromagnetic induction.
4. Induced emfs equal my rate of decrease.
5. My SI unit is the weber.

Who am I?

Magnetic flux
Contest 16

1. I am a physical property of a material.

2. I am closely associated with speed;
3. However, I am a dimensionless quantity.
4. I characterize the change in velocity an electromagnetic wave undergoes when it
crosses the boundary between two media.
5. I am the ratio of speed of light in vacuum to speed of light in a medium.

Who am I?

Refractive index
Contest 17

1. I am a phenomenon that occurs in close association with change.

2. Indeed, you only observe me when change is occurring.
3. I am an inductive phenomenon.
4. I produce electromagnetic fields.
5. I am the principle underlying the operation of a transformer.

Who am I?

Electromagnetic induction
Contest 18

1. I am a phenomenon that occurs in damped oscillatory systems.

2. I am observed in driven oscillatory systems.
3. I am characterized by large amplitude oscillations.
4. Those large amplitude oscillations are most prominent at a specific driving
frequency.
5. I am credited with the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

Who am I?

Resonance

7. If all pretensions are removed, I am just a beam of light.

8. I am found in homes, offices, hospitals, supermarkets, laboratories and so on.
9. I find widespread use in communications and entertainment.
10. When I was invented, I was called the “Death Ray”.
11. But I have rather brought life and joy to many.
12. I am special because the photons in my beam are all in phase and have the same energy.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Laser
Contest 19

1. I am a periodic disturbance
2. That propagates in a direction parallel to the oscillatory motion I produce.
3. I am therefore a wave phenomenon.
4. I only propagate in material media: in gases, liquids, and solids.
5. If you can hear me,

Who am I?

Sound
Contest 20

1. I am a property of a moving object.

2. My value depends on the mass of the moving object.
3. I change when a force does work on an object.
4. I am the energy possessed by an object because of its motion.
5. At low speeds of an object, I am proportional to the square of the object’s speed.

Who am I?

Kinetic energy
Contest 21

1. I am an object of many parts.

2. I am an idealization.
3. Distance between any two parts of me never varies.
4. I am incapable of deformation.
5. I am that body whose elastic modulus is infinite.

Who am I?

Rigid body
Contest 22

1. I am an object that transmits electromagnetic radiation.

2. I transform a plane wave front into a wave front that converges towards a point;
3. And I transform a spherical wave front centered on that same point into a plane
wave.
4. You own two of me, each of which is rather more sophisticated than the version
of me you encounter in physics laboratories.
5. I am the eye of a camera.

Who am I?

Converging lens
Contest 23

1. I am a process in which energy is transmitted between two regions.

2. I am also a process in which energy is emitted from an object.
3. Further, I am the energetic emissions that emanate from an object.
4. I can be particulate or electromagnetic in nature.
5. I am the principal mode of energy transfer from the sun to the planets.

Who am I?

Radiation
Contest 24

1. I am a force but I am not a vector quantity

2. And my SI unit is not the newton.
3. Yet I am associated with motion.
4. I am the line integral of the electric field.
5. I am the rate of decrease of magnetic flux.

Who am I?

Electromotive force
Contest 25

1. I am a phenomenon that occurs at the boundary between two media.

2. I also occur in a medium whose density is not uniform.
3. I am the change in direction of propagation of a wave that occurs because of
differences in propagation velocity at different points.
4. I occur in such a manner that the waves and normal at a boundary all lie in the
same plane.
5. I am the deflection that occurs when light passes from one medium into another
of different propagation speed.

Who am I?

Refraction
Contest 26

1. I am an interference phenomenon.
2. I am characterized by periodic variations in wave amplitude.
3. I occur when waves of slightly different frequency are superposed.
4. I am characterized by a frequency which equals the detuning between the
superposed waves.
5. I am what you hear when two notes of slightly different frequency are sounded
together.

Who am I?

Beats
Contest 27

1. I am a physical property of a rigid body.

2. I have the dimension of the product of mass and length squared.
3. I am a measure of the tendency of a body to resist changes in its rotational state.
4. I relate angular velocity and rotational kinetic energy.
5. I am the ratio of angular momentum to angular velocity.

Who am I?

Moment of inertia
Contest 28

1. I am a theorem in mechanics
2. That is named after a French scientist named Bernard.
3. I apply to the equilibrium state of an object.
4. I give the relationship between three coplanar concurrent forces that act on a
body in equilibrium.
5. I recall the sine rule.

Who am I?

Lami’s theorem
Contest 29

1. I am a German scientist
2. Who deduced the nature of planetary orbits.
3. I discovered three empirical laws that accurately describe planetary motion.
4. One of my laws gives the geometry of the orbit of a planet.
5. Another one of my three laws relates orbital period of a planet to a linear
dimension of the orbit.

Who am I?

Johannes Kepler
Contest 30

1. I am a phenomenon associated with waves.

2. I occur for both transverse and longitudinal waves.
3. I account for differences between the wavelength of a spectral line emitted by a
stationary and a moving atom of the same element.
4. I am exploited in a device for determining the speed of vehicles travelling on a
highway.
5. I am the phenomenon in which an approaching siren sounds different from a
receding siren that sounds the same note as the approaching one.

Who am I?

Doppler effect
Contest 31

1. I am a property of an atomic nucleus.

2. I am not the atomic number of the nucleus
3. Neither am I the mass number of the nucleus.
4. But I am determined by both the atomic number and the neutron number of the
nucleus.
5. I am the difference between the mass of a nucleus and the total mass of the
nucleons it contains.

Who am I?

Mass defect
Contest 32

1. I am a model of the atom

2. That was proposed in 1904
3. soon after the discovery of the electron.
4. I predate the discovery of the nucleus
5. so I can be forgiven for likening the positive charge distribution in an atom to
soup or pudding.

Who am I?

Thomson model
Contest 33

1. I am a parameter used in the description of collision phenomena.

2. I am attributed to Isaac Newton.
3. I am a dimensionless parameter
4. With a value of unity for perfectly elastic collisions.
5. I am the ratio of the relative velocity after a collision between two particles to the
relative velocity before the collision.

Who am I?

Coefficient of restitution
Contest 34

1. I am a tension.
2. Not the axial load in a rod or the tension in a string but a tension all the same.
3. I operate on the surface of liquids.
4. I am responsible for the phenomenon of capillary rise.
5. I am the force per unit length that acts perpendicular to a line drawn on the
surface of a liquid.

Who am I?

Surface tension
Contest 35

1. I am a property of a material.
2. I have the same dimension and SI unit as pressure.
3. I am the stress at the peak of a stress-strain curve.
4. For ductile materials, I occur before fracture.
5. I am ultimate.

Who am I?

Ultimate Tensile Strength

(Or tensile strength)

1. If you only look at my units, you could easily confuse me with my friend because we
are both concerned with changing positions,
2. But whereas my friend does not mind where he ends up, I am very concerned about
where I am going!
3. When a force is applied, we both respond by changing,
4. But whereas my friend can only change in magnitude, I can change direction as well!
Who am I?
Answer: velocity, [friend is speed]
Contest 36

1. I am a physical property of a substance.

2. I am a measure of the ability of a material to conduct electricity.
3. I am the ratio of electric current density to electric field strength.
4. For most metals, my value decreases as temperature increases.
5. The SI unit of my reciprocal is Ω m.

Who am I?

Electrical conductivity
Contest 37

1. I am a quantity that characterizes propagation of electromagnetic waves.

2. I am a dimensionless number
3. Which for a given material varies with wavelength.
4. My dependence on wavelength gives rise to chromatic dispersion.
5. I am the property of a material that determines the degree to which a ray is bent
on passing from vacuum into the medium.

Who am I?

Refractive index
Contest 38

1. I am a type of material that is distinguished by band gap size.

2. I cease to conduct electricity at absolute zero
3. Because at absolute zero, my valence band is full whereas my conduction band is
empty.
4. My electrical conductivity increases as temperature is increased from absolute
zero.
5. I am the type of material that is used in fabricating active electronic devices.

Who am I?

Semiconductor
Contest 39

1. I am a relatively weak fundamental force.

2. Unlike the weak force, I am not implicated in any decay processes.
3. I am a long-range force
4. And I obey an inverse-square law.
5. I am the fundamental force that is responsible for the attractive interaction
between photons and massive objects.

Who am I?

Gravity
(Or gravitation)

Riddle #3

1. I am an optical device.
2. I form images.
3. My images are real and inverted.
4. I form equally sharp images of objects near and far.
5. I used to be called camera obscura.
6. You know me by my hole.

WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Pinhole camera
Contest 40

1. I am electromagnetic radiation
2. Emitted by a charged particle as it decelerates and loses energy in the field of
another charged particle.
3. Because of this, my name contains the German word for braking.
4. I am characterized by a continuous spectrum.
5. I accompany characteristic x-rays emitted from an x-ray tube.

Who am I?

Bremsstrahlung

1. I am a physical constant that governs one of the fundamental interactions in nature.

2. The interaction I govern is a long range one;
3. Whose effects extend over astronomical distances.
4. My value is small and the interaction I govern is weaker than the other long range
interaction of nature.
5. I determine the strength of the interaction between particles with mass.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Gravitational constant

RIDDLES

13. If all pretensions are removed, I am just a beam of light.

14. I am found in homes, offices, hospitals, supermarkets, laboratories and so on.
15. I find widespread use in communications and entertainment.
16. When I was invented, I was called the “Death Ray”.
17. But I have rather brought life and joy to many.
18. I am special because the photons in my beam are all in phase and have the same energy.
WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Laser

1. I am one of the several molecular geometries.

2. You may not be very familiar with me, but it does not mean you do not know me.
3. Have you thought of the shape of PCl5?
4. Imagine a symmetrical shape formed from the hybridization of one d, one s and three p
orbitals.
 5. Can you imagine the shape obtained by putting two ammonia molecules together back to
back?
6. I am therefore a bipyramid
7. Before I became a bipyramid, I had a three sided base.
WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Trigonal Bipyramid

RIDDLES

1. I operate on the basis of an effect that is sometimes undesirable.

2. I am however very useful.
3. You may find me in electronic appliances and electrical installations.
4. I use mutual inductance to desirable effect.
5. I transform voltages in alternating circuits.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Transformer
Riddle #1
1. I am a measuring instrument.
2. In one embodiment of me, I am a liquid-in-glass device.
3. I may be made of a u-shaped tube.
4. I have at least one open end.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Manometer
5. I am a disturbance that transports energy.
6. I am a type of wave.
7. A common example of me is a mechanical wave.
8. I am characterized by oscillations parallel to the propagation direction.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Longitudinal wave

Riddle #1

6. I am a constituent of an atom.
7. I am found in the nucleus.
8. The number of me together with the number of my partner in the nucleus determines the
mass number of an atomic nucleus.
9. I am neutral.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Neutron
Riddle #2

1. I am a particle.
2. I have charge.
3. I am heavy, so I am called baryon.
4. My charge is positive.
5. When I am paired with an electron, I form hydrogen.
6. You find me along with neutrons in the nucleus of an atom.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Proton
Riddle #3

1. I am named for an ancient Greek scientist.

2. That scientist invented a screw.
3. He is claimed to have shouted Eureka!
4. By me you can determine relative densities.
5. I can tell you the upthrust on a body in a fluid.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Archimedes’ Principle

Riddle #2
1. I am a device for energy conversion.
2. I operate between two temperatures.
3. The efficiency with which I convert energy depends on the temperatures between which I
operate.
4. I convert energy of disordered motion to an ordered form of energy.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Heat engine

1. I am a type of magnetic material.

2. I am a linear material;
 3. That is, my magnetization varies linearly with magnetic field.
4. I have negative susceptibility.
5. I am repelled by the poles of a strong magnet.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Diamagnetic material

1. I am a property of a solid material.

2. I operate by Hooke, never by crook.
3. I characterize elastic deformations.
4. I am quite Young.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Young’s modulus
Riddle #3

1. I am an electrical device.
2. I can store electrical energy.
3. I can carry both direct and alternating current.
4. The energy I store is proportional to the square of the current I carry.
5. The voltage across my terminals is proportional to the rate of change of current I carry.

WHO AM I?
ANSWER:: Inductor

Riddle #5 (Tie Break)

1. My siblings and I are a set of triplets.

2. I come into play whenever two objects interact.
3. I insist that forces that come into play during the interaction always occur in matched
pairs.
4. These paired forces act in opposite direction.
5. Their magnitudes are however the same.
6. You still do not know who I am? Well, my siblings and I are laws enacted by the same
scientific lawyer.
WHO AM I?

ANSWER: (Newton’s) Third Law of Motion.

Riddle #2

1. I am an indicator.
2. I have a cap.
3. You can call me rich because a part of me is made of gold.
4. I am not very rich because I only have a leaf of gold.
5. I can tell the presence of electric charge.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Gold-leaf electroscope

1. I am a type of electromagnetic radiation.

2. I am capable of ejecting electrons from atoms.
3. I am produced when energetic charged particles are decelerated.
4. I am also produced when inner shell electrons in an atom make transitions to lower levels.
Who am I?
ANSWER: X-ray

Riddle #3

1. I am a physical constant.
2. I am a measure of the strength of a natural force.
3. That force obeys an inverse square law.
4. It is a weak force because I have a very small value.
5. Indeed, it is weaker than the other natural force that obeys an inverse square law.
6. It acts between objects with mass.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Gravitational constant
Riddle #4

1. I am a vector quantity.
2. I am derived from another vector quantity.
3. I am just the rate of change with time of that other vector.
4. .My magnitude can be constant while I am changing.
5. When that happens I describe uniform motion on a circle.
6. My magnitude is called speed.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: VELOCITY

Riddle #2

1. I am a wave.
2. I am actually two waves in one.
3. My component waves usually have oscillations in perpendicular planes.
4. I am known to have a wide range of frequencies.
5. My lowest frequency is zero hertz.
6. I have no known highest frequency.
7. I am a transverse wave.
8. I travel at the speed of light.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Electromagnetic wave
1. I am an optical device.
2. I have a curved reflecting surface.
3. I form virtual images of real objects placed between me and my focal point.
4. I am called concave.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Concave mirror

RIDDLE # 1

1. I am named for a famous physicist.

2. I am a law of nature.
3. I tell the magnitude and direction of forces acting on interacting objects.
4. I am called third.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Newton’s third law
RIDDLE 2

1. I am an optical device.
2. I am transparent so light can pass through me.
3. When light rays parallel to my axis pass through me they are refracted to pass through my
focal point.
4. I am called convex.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Convex lens
RIDDLE 1
1. I am a law of nature.
2. I am named for a famous physicist.
3. I tell the rate at which a hot object loses heat.
4. I am a law of cooling.

Who am I?
Newton’s law of cooling

1. So far as Mathematics and Physics are concerned, I am a force to reckon with.

2. I am credited with the development of Calculus.
3. I am a great scientist of the seventeen century.
4. I have several laws to my credit.
5. My first name is Isaac.
6. I am a measure of force.
Who am I?
ANSWER:Newton

1. I made an important discovery in 1846.

2. The discovery has been formulated into a Law named after me.
3. My first name is Thomas.
4. I measured the relative speed with which a gas in a sealed container would leak out of a
small hole
5. I realized that in relative terms the molar mass is the determining factor.
6. In recent times the phenomenon I investigated is mixed up with the process of one gas
diffusing into another.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Thomas Graham

1. I am a heavenly body.
2. I am visible in the night sky.
3. I am a planet.
4. Indeed, besides the Moon, I am the brightest object in the night sky.
5. I am the hottest planet in the Solar System.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Venus

Riddle 1
1. I am a property of matter.
2. My value is large when a large mass occupies a small volume.
3. I tell the mass of a unit volume of substance.
4. I am the ratio of mass to volume.
Who am I?
Density

RIDDLE 2

1. I am the basis of mathematical reasoning.

2. I am involved with statements, truth tables and rules of syntax.
3. I am concerned with validity of mathematical arguments.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Logic

RIDDLE 4

1. If I were time, I would be instantaneous.

2. I am a measure of the turning effect of a force.
3. The larger the perpendicular distance of a force from a point, the larger I am.
4. I am called moment.

Who am I?
Moment of a force
Riddle #2

1. I am a liquid.
2. I have an unusual property not shared by most liquids.
3. Over a certain temperature range, I expand when most liquids contract.
4. My density is higher than the density of my solid and it can float in me.
5. If my solid is ice,
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Water

Riddle #2

1. I am a machine.

2. I make your work easy by reducing the effort you need to lift a heavy load.

3. I am the first in my class.

4. I have a fulcrum, which lies between the effort you apply and the load you wish to
lift.

5. My fulcrum is closer to the load than to the effort.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Class 1 lever

Riddle #2

1. I am a disturbance.

2. I carry energy.

3. I can transport energy between two distant points in a medium.

4. When I do, I do not carry particles of the medium with me between the points.

5. The particles of the medium oscillate in my presence.

6. They may oscillate in the direction of my propagation or perpendicular to that

direction.
 WHO AM I?

ARiddle #3

1. I am a physical property of substances.

2. My value depends on the type of substance.
3. My value also depends on temperature.
4. For metals, my value usually decreases as temperature increases.
5. I determine how well a substance conducts electricity.
If my value for a substance is high, the substance is a good conductor of electricity.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Electrical conductivity

ANSWER: Wave

ROUND 4 – Riddles

Riddle #1

1. I am a phenomenon associated with waves.

2. I change the direction of propagation of a wave.
3. I occur when a wave meets a boundary between two media.
4. I occur when the wave speed in one of the media is different from the wave speed in
the other medium.
5. I am responsible for a pool of water appearing shallower than it actually is.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Refraction
Riddle #2
1. I am an optical device.

2. I form images of objects.

3. The images I form cannot be received on a screen.

4. They are the same distance from me as the objects they represent.

5. The images I form are laterally inverted.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Plane mirror

1. I am a process in which electrons are emitted.

2. It is usually arranged that I emit electrons into an evacuated space.
3. I am facilitated by the application of an electric potential to my emitting element.
4. The greater the potential gradient near an emitting element, the more effective it is.
5. So an electron emitter that is based on me is usually made into a sharp point.
6. I operate at both high and low temperatures.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Field emission

5. I am a field.
6. I am described by field lines.
7. My field lines are closest together where my field strength is greatest.
8. My field lines originate and terminate on point sources and point sinks.
9. My point sources are positive and my point sinks are negative electric charges.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Electric field

1. I am not one who likes much talk

2. I prefer action, so I’m on the side of forces
3. I am available when you need to turn things around and rotate objects about a pivot
4. I can work alone, or as a couple
5. And strangely, I act better at a distance.
6. Who am I?
Answer: Torque

Riddle #2

1. I am thought to flow but I am not a fluid.

2. I am associated with energy.

3. I aid the transfer of energy between objects whose temperatures are different.

4. I am associated with radiation, conduction, and convection.

5. An object feels hot to the touch when I am transferred to you.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Heat

Riddle #3

1. I am a phenomenon associated with waves.

2. I am associated with the frequency of a wave.

3. Because of me, the pitch of the horn of an approaching car appears to drop as the car
passes you.

4. I am named after Christian Doppler.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Doppler effect

Riddle #4

1. I am an electrical device.

2. I was accidentally invented by van Musschenroek.

3. My earliest form became known as a Leyden jar.

4. I can store electric charge.

5. The charge I store is proportional to the potential difference across my terminals.

WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Capacitor

Riddle #2

1. I am an optical instrument.
2. I can make objects appear larger than they are.
3. I can also make objects appear smaller.
4. I am usually made with glass.
5. I have two surfaces.
6. One of my surfaces is convex.
7. I am called converging.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Converging lens

1. I am a type of material frequently used in electronic devices.

2. I am semiconducting.
3. I may contain two types of charge carriers—electrons and holes;
4. But I have a larger concentration of electrons than of holes.

Who am I?

ANSWER: N type semiconductor

1. I am a heavenly body.
2. I am visible in the night sky.
3. I am a solitary satellite.
4. I orbit the only presently known habitable planet in the solar system.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Moon

1. My name suggests I am a vertical distance.

2. But I need not be vertical.
3. I describe the position of a virtual image.
4. I am the illusion that a clear pool of water is shallow.
5. I can be used with the true depth of a transparent liquid to determine the refractive
index of the liquid
Who am I?
ANSWER: Apparent depth

1. I am a type of force that acts on charged particles.

2. I act on stationary charges.
 3. I act on moving charges as well.
4. I am named for the scientist whose name is also given to the phenomenon of length
contraction.
5. I have two parts: an electric part and a magnetic part.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Lorentz force

1. I occur when a wave encounters the boundary between the media.

2. I return the incident wave back into the medium of incidence.
3. In doing so, I do not permit transmission of the wave into the other medium.
4. I only occur for a limited range incidence angles.
5. And only when the wave speed in the medium of incidence is smaller than the wave
speed in the other medium.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Total internal reflection

1. If I were part of a building, I would be the basic units that are assembled into a wall.
2. But I am not part of a building, even though you may find me at building construction
sites.
3. I am a simple machine.
4. I comprise two sets of pulleys linked by a single string.
5. I have an ideal mechanical advantage that is determined by the number of string sections
supporting the load bearing pulley system.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Block and tackle

1. I am a property that varies from point to point on earth.

2. I also vary with time.
3. I am a property of the terrestrial magnetic field.
4. I arise because the magnetic and geographic north poles of the earth do not coincide.
5. I am the angle between the magnetic north pole and the geographic north pole.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Declination

1. I am different numbers on different scales but I represent the same point.

2. On one scale I am 671.7;
3. On another I am 212.
4. I am a reference point on a temperature scale.
5. I am the temperature of pure water boiling at normal atmospheric pressure.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Upper fixed point

1. I am a type of interaction.
2. Because I am an inverse square law force,
3. I am said to be long range.
4. If I had charges as does that other long range force, they would all have only one
sign.
5. I am always attractive.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Gravitational interaction

1. If I were of a biological disposition, I could be a pathological swelling or

enlargement;
2. Or a mass of one kind of tissue enclosed in a different kind of tissue.
3. But I am only a zero.
4. A standing wave on a string fixed at both ends has one of me in the first overtone;
5. And two of me in the second overtone.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Node
RIDDLE #3

1. I am a law of nature.

2. I am named after a physicist.

3. I describe the interaction between a magnetic field and a circuit.

4. I tell the direction of induced electromotive forces.

Who am I?

ANSWER: Lenz’s law

Riddle #2

1. I am a property of a moving object.

2. I change on an impulse.
3. I am conserved when net force is zero.
4. I am the product of mass and velocity.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Linear momentum

Riddle #2

1. I am phenomenon of nature.
2. I am associated with waves.
3. I can be observed when two waves combine.
4. I can cause two sound waves to produce an intensity that is larger than the sum of the
intensities of the waves.
5. I can also produce zero intensity.
6. I can be constructive or destructive.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Interference
ROUND 4 – Riddles
Riddle #1

1. I am an engine.
2. Unlike most engines, I am sometimes only used once.
3. I operate by Newton’s third law.
4. I have a nozzle out of which high-speed gases are ejected.
5. I carry both fuel and oxidizer, so I can operate in outer space.
6. I am presently the only type of engine that can move a spacecraft from the surface of

earth into outer space.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Rocket engine

Riddle #2

1. I am a phenomenon of nature.
2. I operate near coastal regions.
3. I am caused by the fact that the heat capacity of water is greater than that of land.
4. I can keep the land near coastal areas cool.
5. I am wind and I blow a cool breeze.
WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Sea breeze

Riddle #1

1. I am a very small particle.

2. Some say I am the nearest physical approximation to a mathematical point.
3. I am not made up of other particles.
4. Because of that I am one of the fundamental particles of the universe.
5. I carry a negative charge.
6. Every neutral atom has as many of me as protons.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Electron

Riddle #1
1. I am a heavenly body.
2. I can light up the sky.
3. I do not produce light of my own.
4. I am a natural satellite of earth.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Moon

ROUND 4 – Riddles

Riddle #1

1. I am a form of energy.
2. Systems in thermal equilibrium have definite values of me.
3. When heat is added to a system I may increase.
4. I may also increase when work is done on a system.
5. I am associated with the motions and interactions of the microscopic constituents of a
system.
6. I am said to be internal.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Internal energy

Riddle #1

1. I am an electronic device.
2. I am made with two types of semiconductor.
3. One type, the p-type, is sandwiched between two slices of n-type semiconductor.
4. Under suitable conditions, a small current flowing into the p-type material causes a large
current to flow in the n-type material.
5. Because of this property, I can be used to amplify weak electrical signals.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: NPN transistor

Riddle #2
1. I am a force of nature.
2. I am not the strongest force.
3. I am one of the long range forces.
4. My effects extend from interatomic distances to cosmic distances.
5. I am responsible for many everyday phenomena, though you may not associate me with
them directly.
6. For example, it is because of me you do not fall through the floor.
7. If you are still wondering who I am, I am the interaction between charged particles and
current carrying conductors.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Electromagnetic force

Riddle #3
1. I am a law of nature.
2. I am named after a French physicist.
3. This physicist’s work with me was preceded by the work of Cavendish.
4. I describe the interaction between stationary electric charges.
5. I am an inverse-square law.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Coulomb’s law

Riddle #1

1. I am associated with electromagnetic waves.

2. By me you can obtain the energy of an object.
3. I am a universal constant.
4. My value is the same for all electromagnetic waves.
5. No material object is known to have a speed greater than my value.
WHO AM I?

ANSWER: Speed of light in vacuum

Riddle #4

1. When issues get serious, I am much appreciated.

2. No matter how high one reaches, I can surely bring you down to earth.
3. As the saying goes, whatever goes up must surely come down.
4. Indeed I am a force to reckon with. The letter g defines my true essence.
5. Sir Isaac Newton had a lot to do with me.
6. I am the universal gravy train on which everyone can take a free ride.

WHO AM I?

ANSWER: GRAVITY

ROUND 4 – Riddles

Riddle #1

1. I am a logic gate.
2. I have two inputs and one output.
3. When one of my inputs is at logic level 1, my output may be at level 1.
4. My output is always at level 0 when at least one of my inputs is at level 0.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Two-input AND gate

Riddle #1

1. I am a property of materials.
2. I am associated with heat.
3. I am also associated with temperature.

4. My SI unit is .
5. I am a measure of how much heat you need to change the temperature of unit mass of a
substance.
WHO AM I?
1. ANSWER: SPECIFIC CAPACITY
 2. I am a phenomenon associated with waves.
3. I do not discriminate between transverse and longitudinal waves
4. I prefer dealing with two or more waves at the same time, my business is in how they
interact.
5. I can be destructive at times, but I can be constructive too.
Who am I?

ANSWER: interference

1. I am a principle
2. That describes the behavior of fluids.
3. I am responsible for operation of hydraulic machines.
4. My name contains the name of an SI unit.
5. I specify how a pressure change is transmitted in a fluid.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Pascal’s principle

1. I am a two terminal device commonly found in a physics laboratory.

2. I am used for measuring an electrical quantity.
3. In my digital version, I display readings that change sign when my terminals are
interchanged.
4. When a charged capacitor is connected across my terminals, I give a reading that
decreases relatively slowly with time.
5. Showing that I have a high internal resistance.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Voltmeter

1. I am closely associated with energy.

2. But I am not energy itself.
3. I characterize regions of space in which electric fields exist.
4. My negative gradient equals electric field strength.
5. I am a measure of the work done in moving a unit positive charge from a reference point
to a field point.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Electric potential
1. I am the path of a moving object;
2. So I am a trajectory.
3. Geometrically, I am a conic section.
4. I am the trajectory of an object moving with constant speed.
5. But whose velocity is not constant.
6. I am the path of an object whose distance from a fixed point is fixed.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Circular trajectory (or circle)

1. I am a phenomenon associated with waves.

2. I occur at the boundary between two material media.
3. I only occur when the wave velocities in the media on each side of the boundary
are different.
4. When I occur, the direction of propagation of a wave changes
5. In such a manner that the angle of incidence is different from the angle the
outgoing wave makes with the normal.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Refraction

1. Though I am not a wave, I am described using terms like frequency and period.
2. I prefer to move about freely, but sometimes I do not have my way when friction appears
and dampens my spirits
3. If you can hear a sound, then I am at work inside your ears.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Vibration

1. I am a property of matter.
2. For some materials, I decrease when temperature is increased.
3. For most metals, I decrease as temperature is decreased.
4. At sufficiently low temperatures, I can vanish.
 5. A state in which I am zero is called superconducting.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Resistivity
Riddle #4

1. To the average citizen, I am a nuisance.

2. I am a phenomenon of nature.
3. I am associated with waves of all kinds.
4. I am observed when waves are combined.
5. I can produce intensities that are larger than the sum of the intensities of the combined
waves.
6. I can also produce zero intensity.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Interference

RIDDLE 2

1. I am a laboratory instrument.
2. I have arms, one of which is called the ratio arm.
3. You might think of using me to cross a river.
4. By me you can determine electrical resistances.

Who am I?
Wheatstone bridge

1. I am a phenomenon in which fundamental particles are emitted.

2. I often occur with refractory metals,
3. But I am also known to occur with certain compounds.
4. I am useful in x-ray generators,
5. Where I occur in the hot cathode.

Who am I?

ANSWER: Thermionic emission

 1. I am a type of motion.
2. That can occur on a straight line.
3. As well as on a curve.
4. My distinguishing feature is a linear relation between acceleration and
displacement.
5. I am periodic.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Simple harmonic motion

1. I am synonymous with simplicity.

2. I approximate motion about an equilibrium point.
3. I am described by an equation that contains a term that is linear in displacement.
4. There is harmony wherever I am found.
5. I am a motion whose direction opposes the agent causing it.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Simple harmonic motion

1. I am an emission process.
2. I occur only in the presence of photons.
3. I am a process in which photons are emitted.
4. For every photon already present, I generate a new photon.
5. I ensure that the photon generated is coherent with the photon whose presence caused the
emission.
6. I can thus be used to construct a light amplifier.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Stimulated emission

1. I am closely associated with solids.

2. However, there is an important class of liquids with which I am also associated.
3. Some of these liquids are used in modern information display devices.
4. I am lattice with basis.
5. I am a regular repeating pattern of atoms or molecules.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Crystal
 RIDDLE 3

1. I am a device for measuring temperature.

2. Unlike many temperature measuring devices, I can measure temperatures without
being in contact with the object whose temperature I measure.
3. I operate by measuring thermal radiation.
4. My name begins with the Greek word for fire
Who am I?
ANSWER: Pyrometer

RIDDLE 4

6. I am a property of a substance.
7. If I were a vessel, I would be how much it can hold.
8. I am high if a large amount of heat is required to change the temperature of a substance.
9. I describe unit mass of substance.
Who am I?
ANSWER: pecific heat capacity
Riddle #1

1. I am impatient.
2. I act with force.
3. My effect is change in momentum.
4. I am the average of a force times the time over which it acts.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Impulse

Riddle #1

1. I am a meter of sorts.
2. I operate on the principle of equilibrium.
3. When I give a reading I am in thermal equilibrium with an object.
4. When I give the same reading for two different objects, the objects are in thermal
equilibrium.
5. I usually have a scale with equal divisions between a lower fixed point and an upper fixed
point.
6. My readings have such units as Rankine, kelvin, Fahrenheit, and Celsius.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Thermometer

Riddle #2

1. I am an electronic material.
2. I conduct electricity.
3. However, I am not as good a conductor as other materials, such as metals.
4. Still, I conduct electricity better than other materials of my type.
5. I come in two types, n and p.
6. My p type has an excess of holes.
7. My n type has an excess of electrons.

WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Doped semiconductor or Extrinsic Semiconductor

Riddle #4
1. I am a type of force.
2. I am a vertical force.
3. I always act upward.
4. You probably know me by the effect I have on an object in a fluid.
5. I keep floating objects afloat.
6. I cause submerged objects to appear to have lost weight.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER UPTHRUST OR BUOYANT FORCE

Riddle #1

1. I am a universal constant.
2. I am the fundamental unit of action.
3. I have the same dimension as angular momentum.
4. My usual SI unit is J s.
5. Expressions in which you find me include Einstein’s energy of a photon and
Bohr’sangular momentum of an atom.
6. The product of me and frequency equals energy.
WHO AM I?
ANSWER: Planck constant

RIDDLE 4

1. I am an electrical device.
2. I am frequently made with wires and permanent magnets.
3. I can also be made without permanent magnets.
4. I usually produce rotary motion when an electric current is made to pass through me.

Who am I?
Electric motor
RIDDLE 3

1. I am an energy converter.
2. I am made with wires and magnets.
3. Versions of me exist that are not made with magnets.
4. I convert mechanical energy into electrical energy.
Who am I?

Generator

RIDDLE 4
1. I am a property of a substance.
2. I have dimensions of reciprocal temperature.
3. I give the change in length of an object when its temperature changes.
4. I am fractional change in length per unit temperature change.
Who am I?

Coefficient of thermal expansion

 RIDDLE 4
1. I am a law that is applied in electrical circuits.
2. I am named after a German physicist.
3. I describe voltages in a circuit.
4. I can be stated as the sum of the potential differences around a closed loop is zero.

Who am I?

Kirchhoff voltage law

Accept Kirchhoff second law

RIDDLE 2

1. I am a physical quantity.
2. I am a property of a rotating object.
3. I have dimensions of energy times time.
4. I am moment of the product of velocity and mass.

Who am I?
Angular momentum

1. I am a property of a concave spherical mirror.

2. I am a point on the principal axis of the mirror.
3. Rays parallel to the axis come to a focus as far from the pole as from me.
4. I am twice as far from the mirror as the focus.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Centre of curvature

RIDDLE 3
1. I am a type of motion.
2. I can occur when objects move on a straight line or when they move on a curve.
3. With me, acceleration is always proportional but opposite to displacement.
4. I am simple.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Simple harmonic motion

RIDDLE 1
 1. One may act on account of me.
2. I am a measure of change of momentum.
3. I am a product of force and time.
4. Generally I am a large force acting for a short time like a footballer kicking a ball.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Impulse
RIDDLE 4

1. I am a sound generator.
2. I can vibrate to generate a sound note with a definite frequency.
3. I have two prongs or tines which determine the frequency of the note I produce.
4. I produce sound when my tines are struck.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Tuning fork

RIDDLE 4

1. I am an optical device.
2. I can transport light over long distances and around corners.
3. I have a core and a cladding.
4. My core has a higher refractive index than my cladding.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Optical fiber

RIDDLE 1
1. I am a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted.
2. I do not occur spontaneously.
3. Heat has no part with me.
4. I occur when light of appropriate wavelength is incident on a photocathode.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Photoelectric effect

1. I am a dynamical property of a moving object.

 2. I am associated with rotational motion.
3. I may be varying even when the net force on an object is zero.
4. I am to rotational motion what linear momentum is to rectilinear motion.
5. I am constant when net torque is zero.
6.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Angular momentum

1. I am a type of solid.
2. I am distinguished by my electrical conductivity and how it behaves with temperature.
3. At absolute zero, I have a full valence band and an empty conduction band.
4. I have such a large energy difference between my conduction and valence bands that.
5. At room temperature, there are hardly any electrons in my conduction band.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Insulator
 1. I am a device for generating high potential differences.
2. I produce such high potential differences I have been used in particle accelerators.
3. I only produce modest current levels.
4. So you are not likely to be harmed if you were to touch the dome of the version of
me you find in a student laboratory;
5. However, your hair may stand on end.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Van de Graaf generator

RIDDLE 1
1. I am a phenomenon associated with waves.
2. I occur when two equal amplitude waves are combined.
3. I am produced by waves with slightly different frequencies.
4. When I am produced by two sound notes, a sound whose frequency is the frequency
difference of the two notes is produced.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Beats

RIDDLE 4

1. I am a property of a bipolar junction transistor.

2. My value varies from transistor to transistor.
3. I relate the collector current to the base current.
4. High gain transistors have large values of me.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Transistor current gain (Or transistor beta.)

RIDDLE 3

1. I am a property of a wave.
2. I am not frequency.
3. I am also not the amplitude.
4. I am determined by two successive points in the same phase on a wave.
5. I am the distance between such a pair of points.
 Who am I?

ANSWER: Wavelength

RIDDLE 4

1. I am a German scientist.
2. There are three laws named after me.
3. I discovered that planets move in elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus.
4. I also discovered that a line from the sun to a planet sweeps out equal areas in
equal times.
5. My third law gives the relationship between the orbital period of a planet and the
length of the major axis of its orbit.

Who am I?

ANSWER: Johannes Kepler

RIDDLE 4

1. I am a form of energy.
2. I am not always conserved because I can be transformed into other forms.
3. I am part of the total mechanical energy of an object.
4. I am conserved in elastic collisions.
5. I am the energy possessed by an object by virtue of its motion.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Kinetic energy
RIDDLE 2

1. I am an electronic device.
2. I can amplify electrical signals but I have other uses too.
3. I have a high voltage gain and my input impedance is high.
4. I have two inputs, an inverting input and a non-inverting input.
5. When I am used as an amplifier, a feedback resistor is connected across my output
and my inverting input.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Operational amplifier

RIDDLE 2
1. My name suggests I am in the scaling business
2. I am a physical quantity.
3. I am completely at a loss as I have no sense of direction
4. I am just a magnitude
5. Examples of me are temperature, mass and work
Who am I?
ANSWER: SCALAR

RIDDLE 4

1. I am an agent of change.
2. Without me, a stationary object remains stationary.
3. Without me, a body moving uniformly continues to do so.
4. You find me whenever linear momentum changes.
5. I equal the rate of change of linear momentum
Who am I?

ANSWER: Force

RIDDLES

RIDDLE 1

1. For a hollow cone, I am a sector of a circle

2. For a hollow rectangular box, I am a cross
3. For a hollow cylinder, I am a rectangle
4. For a square pyramid, I am a star.
5. Generally, I represent the outline of a geometric figure
Who am I?

ANSWER: Net

RIDDLE 3

1. I am a property of a material.
2. I determine the speed of electromagnetic waves in a material.
3. For the same material, I usually have different values for different wavelengths.
4. Of course, for different materials, I have different values even for the same wavelength.
5. I have the same value as the ratio of the speed of light in vacuum to the speed of light in
the material.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Refractive index

RIDDLES

RIDDDLE 1.
1. I am a physical quantity.
2. I am one of the few fundamental physical quantities.
3. I am so important that there are many different units of me.
4. I am said to flow, but I am not a liquid.
5. I am a measure of the interval between events.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Time

RIDDLE 1

1. I am an SI unit of a physical quantity.

2. I am not a base unit.
3. My symbol contains a single capitalized letter.
4. I am named for a scientist who studied the conversion of mechanical energy into thermal
energy.
5. I can replace the unit N m.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Joule
RIDDLE 4

1. I am a vector quantity.
2. I describe motion.
3. For rectilinear motion, I am parallel to the path.
4. I have a component perpendicular to the path when the direction of motion changes.
5. I have a component parallel to the path when speed changes.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Acceleration
RIDDLE 3
1. I am a force.
2. I act on bodies in contact.
3. I do not do any work when the bodies move relative to each other while in contact.
4. I always act perpendicular to the contact surface of the bodies.
5. I am sometimes called reaction.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Normal force or normal reaction

1. I am a type of emission.
2. That spans a very wide continuous frequency range.
3. I am electromagnetic in character.
4. I am distinguished by my spectral features,
5. Which include a peak intensity that occurs at a temperature-dependent frequency?
6. And a total radiant emission that varies as the fourth power of temperature.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Blackbody radiation

1. I am a rather simple device,

2. A transporter you may say;
3. From one vessel to another:
4. My cargo is always fluid,
5. The destination always lower than the port of origination.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Siphon

6. I am a type of disturbance.
7. I propagate through material media.
8. I can transport energy without transporting the particles of the medium.
9. I cause the particles of the medium in which I propagate to oscillate.
10. I cause the particles of the medium to oscillate perpendicular to the direction in which I
propagate.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Transverse mechanical wave
1. I am a law of nature.
2. I am a conservation law.
3. I am a law of mechanics and of heat.
4. I express the relationship between internal energy, heat, and work.
Who am I?

ANSWER: First Law of Thermodynamics

1. I am virtually everywhere on this planet.

2. Though I am a stable compound it is my polymeric form that you are most familiar
with.
3. My polymers may or may not be edible.
4. My molecules can exist in the open straight chain form or in a heterocyclic form.
5. If you find me in my open chain form you can easily trap my alkanal functional
group.
6. Breakdown starch or cellulose by hydrolysis and you would find me.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Glucose
1. I am a magnetic material.
2. I become strongly magnetized in an external magnetic field.
3. I am characterized by a hysteresis loop.
4. My hysteresis loop is thin;
5. Therefore, I am used in electromagnets.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Soft ferromagnetic material
1. I am a type of mechanical disturbance.
2. That propagates through a material medium
3. I am characterized by compressions and rarefactions.
4. I am longitudinal, just like my cousin who is known to excite auditory response in
humans.
5. I have no such effect on humans and I am ultra.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Ultrasound
 1. I am an experiment conducted in the 1910’s
2. By two gentlemen whose names I bear.
3. Electrons accelerated through a low-pressure vapour cell produced a current with
maxima and minima as a function of accelerating voltage.
4. In this way, I demonstrated that electrons undergo inelastic collisions with atoms only
at particular electron energies,
5. Proving that atomic energies are quantized.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Frank-Hertz experiment

10. I am a force field.

11. I am described by an inverse distance potential.
12. I am always attractive.
13. My sources are massive particles.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Gravitational field
6. I am an experiment in science.
7. I was first conducted by Michael Faraday.
8. So I am named after him.
9. I demonstrate that electric charge resides on the surface of a conductor.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Faraday ice pail experiment
1. I am a type of motion.
2. I may occur at constant velocity;
3. That is, with zero acceleration.
4. But I can also occur with non-zero acceleration.
5. When a body undergoes my kind of motion, every part of it is displaced by the
same vector,
6. And its orientation remains unchanged.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Translation

1. You can think of me as a compass.

 2. Because I tell directions; however, I cannot help you on a sea voyage.
3. I am a rule.
4. I assign the direction of such quantities as magnetic field of moving charges,
torque, and angular momentum.
5. I am left-handed in a world that is a mirror image of the real world.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Right-hand rule

1. I was born on the fifteenth day of a month in 1564.

2. In a town which rhymes with a popular flatbread dish.
3. My last name rhymes with a region in Israel.
4. I have been called father of many things: of astronomy, of physics, and of science.
5. I am credited with the experiment at the leaning Tower of Pisa.
6. Which established that objects of different weight fall in the same time;
7. Except that many historians believe I did not actually conduct such an experiment.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Galileo Galilei

7. I am a semiconductor device.
8. I am composed of a pn junction.
9. I am usually forward biased in operation.
10. I emit electromagnetic radiation.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Light emitting diode (LED)
6. I am a physical quantity.
7. I am determined by force and area.
8. I am measured in pascals.
9. I am given by the product of modulus and strain.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Stress

1. I am a device for energy transformation.

2. I operate between two temperatures.
 3. I accept thermal energy at a high temperature and
4. Reject thermal energy at a lower temperature.
5. I do useful mechanical work in the process.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Heat engine

1. I am a type of force.
2. Whenever I am present, the velocity of an object changes.
3. My value for a moving particle depends on the path of the particle.
4. I am zero for motion along a straight path.
5. My magnitude is proportional to the square of speed.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Centripetal force

1. I am a branch of physics.
2. I used to be thought of as separate branches of physics.
3. I encompass all the phenomena related to electric charges.
4. I also encompass all phenomena related to electric and magnetic fields.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Electromagnetism

1. I am a particle.
2. I am emitted in certain nuclear reactions.
3. I am positively charged.
4. I am called first.
5. I have a mass of 4 amu.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Alpha particle
1. am derived from the principle of equipartition of energy.
2. I was invented to describe the radiation emitted by a heated object.
3. I am one of the precursors to the presently accepted theory for the radiation emitted by a
heated object.
4. I was successful in describing the low frequency portion of the blackbody spectrum.
5. I am associated with what has come to be known as the ultraviolet catastrophe.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Rayleigh-Jeans law

Riddle #2

1. I am distinguished by my electrical conductivity.

2. Which increases as temperature increases.
3. I am a type of semiconductor material.
4. I am not intrinsic.
5. I can be made by introducing controlled amounts of a trivalent element into silicon.
6. I have more holes in my valence band than electrons in my conduction band.
Who am I?
ANSWER: P-type semiconductor

1. If I were a child I would have just graduated from a nursery school and starting a new
phase of my education.
2. But I am not a child but an inanimate system.
3. I have three distinct parts, working in harmony.
4. I usually have a bridge not for humans but for electrons.
5. I convert irreversibly chemical energy into electrical energy.
6. One of my names suggests I am a citizen of the most south–easterly region of Ghana.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Primary Voltaic cell.
1. I am a property of the constituents of matter.
2. I am not mass.
3. But all particles that have me also have mass.
4. Although not all particles that have mass also have me.
5. I distinguish a positron from an electron, a proton from an anti-proton.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Electric charge
5. I am a natural phenomenon.
6. I am associated with waves.
7. I occur when waves encounter obstacles or apertures.
8. I am most pronounced when the wavelength of the wave is comparable to the obstacle or aperture.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Diffraction

1. I am an optical device.
2. I aid the observation of objects that could otherwise not be seen with the naked eye.
3. I may be made of a short focal length objective lens.
4. I may also have an eye piece
5. I magnify small objects.
Who am I?

ANSWER: (Optical) microscope

6. I am an electrical current.
7. I am often unwanted.
8. I am produced when a conductor moves in a magnetic field.
9. I am also produced in a conductor lying in a changing magnetic field.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Eddy current

1. I am one of the variables that describe the state of a gas.

2. I am a measure of the energy density of an ideal gas.
3. I am proportional to the mean-square speed of the molecules of an ideal gas.
4. I am also proportional to the density and temperature of an ideal gas.
5. I have such units as torr and bar.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Pressure

1. I am a form of energy.
2. Although I am associated with the configuration of particles.
3. I have nothing to do with gravity.
4. I am associated with deformations.
5. I describe the energy stored in a deformed ideal spring.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Elastic Potential Energy

1. I was first demonstrated theoretically.

2. But countless experiments affirm my validity.
3. I describe the radiation emitted by a heated object.
4. I am a law.
5. That relates the temperature of an object and the wavelength for peak emission from the object.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Wien’s displacement law

1. I am a helical object.
2. Other than my helical shape, I have nothing in common with DNA.
3. I can produce magnetic fields.
4. The magnetic field I produce has a strength proportional to the current I carry.
5. I can produce a nearly uniform magnetic field when I am made very long and wound with tight
coils.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Solenoid

1. I am a mechanism for energy transfer.

2. In transferring energy, I cause the particles of a medium to move.
3. I cannot transfer energy through vacuum.
4. I am a heat transfer mechanism.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Convection

1. I am a property of matter.
2. I vary with temperature.
3. For water, I attain a maximal value at 4 ℃.
4. Because my value for ice is less than that for water, ice floats on water.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Density

8. I share a name with a venerable biblical character.

9. I was also born on a day that is popularly celebrated in honor of the birth of another biblical
character.
10. But I am best known for several laws of nature named after me.
11. I wrote the Principia,
12. which was published in 1687
13. and which set forth among other things the laws governing the interaction of objects with mass.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Isaac Newton

1. I am a rigid body motion.

2. With me, the figure and its image are congruent.
3. Under me, you are what you see even though the sense of an image is reversed.
4. I produce a mirror image.
5. I am associated with an axis of symmetry.
6. I map a figure one to one onto its image.
Who am I?

ANSWER: Reflection

6. I was first studied in detail in1602.

7. By an Italian scientist.
8. Who is well known for demonstrating that different masses fall through equal heights in equal
times?
9. For several hundred years, I was used for making the best instrument for measuring a basic
physical quantity.
10. Until the invention of the quartz crystal oscillator.
11. An idealized form of me comprises a point mass and a massless string.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Pendulum
 7. I am a radioactive element.
8. I have two letters in my chemical symbol.
9. I decay by alpha emission.
10. With a lifetime of about 2300 y.
11. I was used in making self-luminous watch and clock dials.
12. Until it was discovered that I had been killing the watchmakers.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Radium

6. I was discovered by experiment.

7. I am named for the scientist who discovered me.
8. His name is also given to the unit of an electrical quantity.
9. Although I am called a law, I am not a universal law because.
10. I am an empirical law.
11. I only apply in those instances when current is proportional to potential difference.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Ohm’slaw

1. I share a name with a biblical character.

2. An SI unit is named after me
3. for my pioneering work on heat
4. which established a now well-known principle of thermodynamics.
5. I am Prescott.
Who am I?
ANSWER: (James Prescott) Joule
1. I am a form of electromagnetic radiation.
2. Emitted by excited atoms.
3. I am produced when outer shell electrons fall into an inner shell vacancy.
4. My wavelength is unique to the atom from which I am produced.
5. I am given labels such as K α and K β.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Characteristic X-ray

1. I am a semiconductor device.
2. I am composed of both p type and n type semiconductors.
3. And I have a pn junction.
4. Light of appropriate wavelength falling on my pn junction generates electrons and holes.
5. In this manner, I convert light into electrical current.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Photodiode

1. I am an experiment.
2. I was conducted by Fletcher and another physicist who goes by Robert.
3. I demonstrate that electric charge is quantized.
4. I am conducted with small charged particles of oil.
5. That are introduced into the electric field between two parallel plates.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Millikan Oil Drop Experiment

Riddle #3

1. I am a heat engine.
2. Like any heat engine, I convert thermal energy into mechanical energy.
3. I am a type of internal combustion engine.
4. I have a turbine for compressing air,
5. I also have a nozzle where hot gases are ejected and thrust is developed.
6. I am a prime mover for airliners.
Who am I?
ANSWER: Jet engine