And the winner is…

By Margaret Harris

Congratulations to Andrew Palfreyman of San Jose, California, for winning the Physics World Quiz of the year 2011. This annual feature tests your knowledge of great and small events that occurred in the physics community over the past 12 months, from the shutdown of Fermilab’s Tevatron to the discovery that building a nuclear reactor in your kitchen is a great way to get arrested (who knew?).

We received quite a few entries this year, and about a dozen of them came from alert readers like Palfreyman who got every question right. If you didn’t win this year, better luck next time; in the meantime, though, here are the answers.

A. Fermilab’s Tevatron accelerator
B. Wrinklon
C. The Allen Telescope Array
D. Jane Fonda
1. Studying how the Sun and aerosols affect the Earth’s climate
2. Mercury
3. Lake Baikal, Russia
4. Subaru 8 m telescope
5. “Heavenly Palace”
6. B (Mobile phones)
7. C (A degree and a PhD)
8. A (Writing research papers)
9. B (String theory)
10. A (They are part of a microgravity experiment)
11. B (David Cameron)
12. A (Jocelyn Bell Burnell)
13. E (Michael Gove)
14. D (John Ellis)
15. C (Athene Donald)
16. B (25)
17. C (The bars contained elevated levels of lead)
18. A (Building a nuclear reactor in his kitchen)
19. C (Jupiter)
20. D (Galileo Galilei)