This science trivia game is the science edition of Rarest, where the rarest right answer wins. Prompts cover chemical elements, minerals and rocks, alloys, constellations, moons, dinosaurs, bones of the body, programming languages and more. Oxygen, Gold and T. rex are what everyone says; a rare-earth element such as thulium is an Inferno answer.
Play it right here: the game above locks every round to science. You can play the daily round (seven prompts, the same for everyone that day) or switch to Unlimited for as many rounds as you like. For a mix of all eight categories, play Rarest, the rarest answer game on the home page.
How the science trivia game works
- You get seven prompts, each starting with "Name a…" or "Name the…", and 25 seconds per prompt (or no clock at all with No timer).
- Type any correct answer and press Enter. A wrong guess costs one second and you can try again.
- Each correct answer lands in one of six tiers, from Flicker (5 points) to Inferno (100 points). Once per round, Thermal ×2 doubles one prompt.
- After each prompt you see where your answer ranks, the best-known answers and a few of the rarest.
All 40 prompts in the science trivia game
These are the prompts the science edition draws from, with how many correct answers each one accepts:
- Name a chemical element (118 answers)
- Name a mineral (350 answers)
- Name a type of rock (250 answers)
- Name an alloy (250 answers)
- Name a geologic era, period or epoch (174 answers)
- Name a winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (198 answers)
- Name a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (229 answers)
- Name a subatomic particle (134 answers)
- Name a unit of length (124 answers)
- Name a unit of mass or weight (110 answers)
- Name a unit of volume (167 answers)
- Name a unit of time (99 answers)
- Name a branch of mathematics (264 answers)
- Name a 3D shape with flat faces (a polyhedron) (250 answers)
- Name a mathematical constant (76 answers)
- Name a constellation (88 answers)
- Name a moon in the Solar System (202 answers)
- Name a comet (388 answers)
- Name a galaxy (137 answers)
- Name a nebula (120 answers)
- Name a star other than the Sun (450 answers)
- Name an asteroid (250 answers)
- Name a space probe (300 answers)
- Name a meteor shower (38 answers)
- Name a space telescope (145 answers)
- Name a space rocket (250 answers)
- Name an astronaut (300 answers)
- Name a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (232 answers)
- Name a bone in the human body (88 answers)
- Name a muscle in the human body (281 answers)
- Name an artery in the human body (357 answers)
- Name a part of the brain (250 answers)
- Name a nerve in the human body (250 answers)
- Name an infectious disease (300 answers)
- Name a medical specialty (234 answers)
- Name a type of cell in living things (300 answers)
- Name a dinosaur (400 answers)
- Name a programming language (362 answers)
- Name a computer operating system (250 answers)
- Name a web browser (161 answers)
Common answers vs rare answers
Here is what separates a low score from a high one in the rarest answers for a few of the prompts. The left column is what most players type; the right column shows answers from the rarest tier for that prompt.
| Prompt | What most people say | Rare answers |
|---|---|---|
| Name a chemical element | Gold, Aluminium, Copper | Erbium, Livermorium, Terbium (Inferno) |
| Name a mineral | Diamond, Quartz, Gypsum | Tephroite, Boracite, Samarskite-(Y) (Inferno) |
| Name a type of rock | Limestone, Coal, Granite | H chondrite, Superplasticizer, Tachylite (Inferno) |
| Name an alloy | Steel, Bronze, Stainless steel | AlSiC, 7039 aluminium alloy, Beryllium-aluminium alloy (Inferno) |
| Name a geologic era, period or epoch | Cretaceous, Jurassic, Cambrian | Cambrian Stage 2, Sakmarian, Gorstian (Inferno) |
| Name a winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry | Marie Curie, Ernest Rutherford, Linus Pauling | James B. Sumner, Paul Karrer, Robert Bruce Merrifield (Inferno) |
| Name a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics | Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Richard Feynman | John L. Hall, J. Michael Kosterlitz, Nikolay Basov (Inferno) |
| Name a subatomic particle | Electron, Quark, Photon | Bottom eta meson, Odderon, Strange B meson (Inferno) |
| Name a unit of length | Light-year, Parsec, Metre | Fen, Lea, Canna (Inferno) |
| Name a unit of mass or weight | Pound, Kilogram, Tonne | Arrátel, Våg, Wiardunek (Inferno) |
For the rarest answers to every prompt in all eight categories, see the rarest answers list.
Tips to win the science trivia game
- The rare-earth elements (thulium, lutetium, promethium) score high; famous metals and gases do not.
- Triton is the Neptune moon everyone names; its small moons (Naiad, Halimede, Psamathe) score more.
- Minerals and rocks are long lists; the ones named after places and people are the rarest.
- Small typos are accepted, so a near miss on a long dinosaur name still counts.
More categories
Rarest has eight categories. Each one has its own page and its own locked game:
- Geography trivia
- Animals trivia
- Food & Drink trivia
- Sports trivia
- Movies & TV trivia
- Music trivia
- History trivia
Answer lists are built from Wikidata, and rarity comes from public Wikipedia statistics; read more on the About page.