Science & Nature · Inventions
Inventions Trivia Quiz
Eureka! Who invented famous things, and the odd stories behind them. Some were total accidents.
112 questions · 2 to 12 players, or solo · Typed answers, close enough counts
About this quiz
This Inventions Trivia Quiz has 112 questions: 40 easy, 44 medium and 28 hard. It is free. Play it with friends in a room for 2 to 12 players, on phones or in a browser, or play it solo. Type your answers: close enough counts, so a small typo still scores.
Sample questions
20 of the 112 Inventions questions in this pack. Think of your answer, then open it.
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Charles Goodyear's 1839 discovery made rubber tough enough for shoes and which other product now linked to his name?
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Tyres
He found it when rubber and sulfur touched a hot stove. A tyre company was named after him decades later.
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Which country gave the world zero as a number, with written rules from mathematician Brahmagupta around 628 CE?
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India
The Sanskrit 'shunya' passed through Arabic 'sifr' and became 'zero' and 'cipher' in English.
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Elisha Gray's lawyer filed papers for a talking telegraph on the same day in 1876 as which inventor, who got the telephone patent?
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Alexander Graham Bell
Bell is usually credited with inventing the telephone, but who was really first is still argued about.
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Which famous physicist co-invented a fridge in 1926 after reading about a family killed by toxic gas leaking from theirs?
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Albert Einstein
He and his ex-student Leó Szilárd designed a fridge with no moving parts. Einstein had worked in a patent office.
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Engineer Hubert Cecil Booth tested his big idea by laying a handkerchief on a restaurant chair and sucking through it with his mouth. What did he invent?
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Vacuum cleaner
His first machine, the 'Puffing Billy', was so big it was pulled through London streets by horses.
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Before plastic bricks, the LEGO company's founder made toys from what material?
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Wood
Ole Kirk Christiansen was a carpenter from Billund, Denmark. Plastic bricks came in 1949.
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In 1826 English chemist John Walker scraped a chemical-tipped stick on his fireplace and it burst into flame. What had he invented?
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Match
He refused to patent it, saying it would benefit the public, so others copied it and got rich.
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LEGO's name comes from the Danish words 'leg godt'. What do they mean?
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Play well
Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen first made wooden toys; plastic bricks came in 1949.
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Which Hollywood film star co-invented a frequency-hopping system in World War II to stop enemies jamming guided torpedoes?
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Hedy Lamarr
The Navy ignored it and she was never paid, but the idea later fed into wireless tech like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
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In the 1930s Swiss physicist Walter Jaeger was building a poison gas sensor when it went off from his cigarette smoke. What did that lead to?
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Smoke detector
Working smoke detectors more than halve the risk of dying in a house fire.
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Silly Putty came from a WWII rubber hunt after which country cut the Allies off from rubber plantations?
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Japan
Japan took rubber-growing parts of South East Asia in 1942. The putty bounced but was useless as rubber.
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Wilhelm Röntgen called his new rays 'X-rays' in 1895. Why the letter X?
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They were unknown
He found them when a screen glowed across his dark lab. His first famous X-ray showed his wife's hand.
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Alexander Fleming found penicillin in 1928 after coming back to his lab from what?
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Holiday
A dish of germs left out had grown mould, and the germs around it were dead.
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Among the very first CDs ever pressed was 'The Visitors' by which Swedish pop group?
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ABBA
A CD holds 74 minutes so it could fit all of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
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Momofuku Ando's first instant noodles, launched in Japan in 1958, had which flavour in their name?
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Chicken
Chicken Ramen was made in a shed behind his home. He said eating it almost every day helped him live to 96.
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Joseph Woodland first sketched the barcode by stretching which famous code into lines drawn in sand on a beach?
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Morse code
He pulled the dots and dashes down into thick and thin lines. Barcodes started beeping at tills in 1974.
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Key technology behind Wi-Fi came from scientists at CSIRO, the national science agency of which country?
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Australia
John O'Sullivan's team was made up of radio astronomers. Their patent earned CSIRO hundreds of millions of dollars.
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A French chemist dropped a glass flask coated inside with a plastic film. It cracked but didn't fall apart. Which part of a car uses this idea today?
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Windscreen
Édouard Bénédictus patented laminated glass in 1909. It keeps sharp pieces from flying in a crash.
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In 1965 chemist Stephanie Kwolek made a thin, cloudy liquid that turned into a fibre five times stronger than steel. What is it?
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Kevlar
She was trying to make lighter tyres. Kevlar went into bulletproof vests and has saved thousands of lives.
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Velcro's name joins two French words: 'velours' and 'crochet'. What does 'velours' mean in English?
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Velvet
'Crochet' means hook. The soft side is like velvet, the rough side copies the hooks on a burr.
How to play with friends
- Start a room. Open this quiz in Braggit, already picked for you. It plays in any browser or the app.
- Invite your friends. Share the room code or link. Friends join from their own phones, in the same room or over a video call.
- Type, wager, brag. Everyone types an answer before the timer runs out. Wager points when you are sure, then share your brag card.
Questions about this quiz
How many questions are in the Inventions Trivia Quiz?
112. Each game plays a round of them, so you can come back for more.
Can I play the Inventions Trivia Quiz with friends online?
Yes. Start a room with this quiz, share the room code or link, and 2 to 12 players join from the Braggit app or any browser. You can also play it solo.
Is the Inventions Trivia Quiz free?
Yes. Play it free in your browser or in the Braggit app.
Do I have to spell the answers exactly?
No. You type your answers, and Braggit accepts close spellings, so a small typo still scores.
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