Answers To: The Mother Of Invention

By Terri Morrison and Wayne A. Conaway
© Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved

  1. A, 4; B, 3; C, 1; D, 2

  2. False. The airplane's invention is generally credited to the Wright brothers, who first flew an engine-powered craft near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903. In 1783, the first successful parachute descent was made by Louis S. Lenormand, and the hot-air balloon invented by Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier in France.

  3. False. Baekeland's revolutionary thermosetting resin was named Bakelite. He moved from Belgium to the USA in 1889, where he founded the Bakelite Corporation. He is also credited with major innovations in photography, which were purchased by Eastman Kodak Company in 1899.

  4. B. Nobel named his new explosive dynamite and patented it in 1867.

  5. False. Constantly tinkering with his instruments, van Leeuwenhoek built as many as 550 different microscopes. Only nine of these are known to have survived.

  6. A

  7. B

  8. D

  9. D. It should come as no surprise that scientists study Hawaii's rare fauna and volcanoes, but there is also an astronomical observatory atop Mauna Kea on Hawaii, and NASA has a tracking station at Kokee on Kauai.

  10. True