Science trivia
Name a famous scientist
Everyone has a first answer to “Name a famous scientist”. The game is about the second, the third and the tenth: 129 answers are accepted, ranked by how rarely people think of them.
The obvious answers
These are the answers most people give first. They count, but they barely move you: 10 points each.
- Albert Einstein
- Isaac Newton
- Charles Darwin
- Marie Curie
- Nikola Tesla
The next answers people reach for
These 20 are known, but not the first thing people say. 25 points each:
- Galileo Galilei
- Stephen Hawking
- Thomas Edison
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Louis Pasteur
- Nicolaus Copernicus
- Alexander Fleming
- Richard Feynman
- Niels Bohr
- Gregor Mendel
- Johannes Kepler
- Carl Sagan
- Alan Turing
- Archimedes
- Pythagoras
- Aristotle
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Robert Oppenheimer
- Dmitri Mendeleev
- Michael Faraday
How deep does “Name a famous scientist” go?
| Level | Accepted answers | Points |
|---|---|---|
| The Tip | 5 | 10 |
| Below the Surface | 20 | 25 |
| The Deep | 50 | 50 |
| The Abyss | 53 | 85 |
| Below the Iceberg | 1 | 100 |
The Deep holds 50 answers starting with A, B, C, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, P, R, S, T and W. The Abyss has 53 more, and one legendary answer waits below them all.
Inside the answer list
- 129 answers in total, 112 of them longer than one word.
- Shortest: “Galen”. Longest: “Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar”.
- A, E and J are the most common first letters; together they start 29% of the answers.
- 101 answers can be typed more than one way: “McClintock” counts as Barbara McClintock.
Getting below the surface
- Start with A: 18 of the answers begin with it.
- Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin 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 129 answers A–Z
Quick answers
- What do most people say for “Name a famous scientist”?
- The usual first answers are Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie and Nikola Tesla. In Icillion they are worth 10 points each, the least of any level.
- How many answers are there to “Name a famous scientist”?
- 129 in all: 5 on The Tip, 20 Below the Surface, 50 in The Deep, 53 in The Abyss, and a single legendary answer Below the Iceberg.
- Which answers to “Name a famous scientist” are the shortest and the longest?
- The shortest accepted answer is “Galen” and the longest is “Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar”.
Try another science prompt
- Name a comet
- Name a bone in the human body
- Name a nebula
- Name a unit of measurement
- Name a space mission or spacecraft
- Name an astronomer
From other topics: Name a character from The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit · Name a CPU scheduling algorithm · Name a country in Europe
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 ▼