Science trivia
Name a famous doctor or medical pioneer
Everyone has a first answer to “Name a famous doctor or medical pioneer”. The game is about the second, the third and the tenth: 144 answers are accepted, ranked by how rarely people think of them.
The obvious answers
Say one of these and you stay near the surface, with 10 points.
- Hippocrates
- Florence Nightingale
- Louis Pasteur
- Alexander Fleming
- Edward Jenner
- Joseph Lister
- Jonas Salk
- Christiaan Barnard
- Sigmund Freud
- Elizabeth Blackwell
- Marie Curie
The next answers people reach for
A step further down, worth 25 points each:
- Galen
- Mary Seacole
- William Harvey
- Andreas Vesalius
- Robert Koch
- Paul Ehrlich
- Ignaz Semmelweis
- John Snow
- Frederick Banting
- Howard Florey
- Anthony Fauci
- Wilhelm Röntgen
- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
- Avicenna
- Paracelsus
- Carl Jung
- Ivan Pavlov
- René Laennec
- Karl Landsteiner
- Edith Cavell
- Benjamin Spock
- Michael DeBakey
- Harold Gillies
- Patrick Steptoe
- Robert Edwards
- Albert Schweitzer
- Charles Best
- Ernst Chain
- Sophia Jex-Blake
- James Barry
- Virginia Apgar
- Denton Cooley
- Norman Bethune
- Archibald McIndoe
- Oliver Sacks
- Atul Gawande
- William Osler
- Ambroise Paré
- Imhotep
- Dr Oz
- David Livingstone
- Joseph Bell
How deep does “Name a famous doctor or medical pioneer” go?
- The Tip11 answers · 10 ptsHippocrates · Florence Nightingale · Louis Pasteur
- Below the Surface42 answers · 25 ptsGalen · Mary Seacole · William Harvey …
- The Deep45 answers · 50 ptsHidden until you play
- The Abyss45 answers · 85 ptsHidden until you play
- Below the Iceberg1 answer · 100 ptsOne legendary answer, waiting in the game
The Deep holds 45 answers starting with A, C, E, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, P, R, S, T, V and W. The Abyss has 45 more, and one legendary answer waits below them all.
By the numbers
- 144 answers in total, 134 of them longer than one word.
- Shortest: “Dr Oz”. Longest: “Elizabeth Garrett Anderson”.
- A, J and W are the most common first letters; together they start 31% of the answers.
- 70 answers can be typed more than one way: “Salk” counts as Jonas Salk.
Tips for a rarer answer
- Start with A: 19 of the answers begin with it.
- Hippocrates, Florence Nightingale and Louis Pasteur are safe but shallow. Aim past them.
- For people, think of the scientists behind a law or a unit you already know.
Play science trivia nowSee all 144 answers A–Z
Questions about this prompt
- What do most people say for “Name a famous doctor or medical pioneer”?
- The usual first answers are Hippocrates, Florence Nightingale, Louis Pasteur, Alexander Fleming and Edward Jenner. In Icillion they are worth 10 points each, the least of any level.
- How many answers are there to “Name a famous doctor or medical pioneer”?
- 144 in all: 11 on The Tip, 42 Below the Surface, 45 in The Deep, 45 in The Abyss, and a single legendary answer Below the Iceberg.
- Which answers to “Name a famous doctor or medical pioneer” are the shortest and the longest?
- The shortest accepted answer is “Dr Oz” and the longest is “Elizabeth Garrett Anderson”.
- How hard is “Name a famous doctor or medical pioneer”?
- Hard. It rewards people who know the subject well. It comes up in Free play on Hard and Mixed.
Try another science prompt
- Name a famous equation or formula
- Name a mathematical constant
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- Name a geometric shape
- Name a star other than the Sun
Something different: Name a Street Fighter character · Name something tiny · Name a technology company
How deep does your knowledge go?
Seven prompts a day, twenty seconds each. Obvious answers float on the tip of the iceberg; rare ones sink all the way to the trench.
▼ Start today’s iceberg ▼