International Electronics Quiz
July 1967 Popular Electronics

July 1967 Popular Electronics Table of Contents Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Popular Electronics, published October 1954 - April 1985. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.

Test your knowledge of the country of origin of the inventors responsible for these ten inventions by taking this "International Electronics Quiz." It appeared in the July 1967 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. In some cases the inventor was born in another country but then emigrated to the U.S. or another country before his/her invention or discovery. This is a pretty tough quiz even for someone who has done a lot of reading on the history of technology. Guessing the country of origin for the inventor of the voltaic pile might be easier if you recall the guy's name (hint: his name is in the caption), and for the TV antenna take note of the configuration of the elements (hint: there was nobody named Log Periodic). I'm too embarrassed to divulge my score, but if you do better 50% or better, you've beaten me.

International Electronics Quiz

By Robert P. Balin

Recent technological advances in the field of electronics tend to overshadow contributions by earlier scientists from many parts of the world. For example, few students remember that the first known magnetic device - the compass - is a contribution from China, or that the theoretical groundwork in the field of atomic physics which eventually led to the splitting of the atom by the United States, was actually laid by Albert Einstein, the German-born physicist, while doing research work in Switzerland. To test your biographical knowledge of some earlier scientists and their inventions, see how many of the common electrical devices (A-J) illustrated below you can associate with the country of origin (1-10) of their inventors.

1   Belgium ___

2   Denmark ___

3   England ___

4   France ___

5   Germany ___

6   Holland ___

7   Italy ___

8   Japan ___

9   Russia ___

10 U.S.A. ___

See answers below.

Quizzes from vintage electronics magazines such as Popular Electronics, Electronics-World, QST, and Radio News were published over the years - some really simple and others not so simple. Robert P. Balin created most of the quizzes for Popular Electronics. This is a listing of all I have posted thus far.

Quiz Answers

1 - F      The first practical industrial dynamo was built by Zenobe Theophile Gramme of Belgium in 1876.

2 - J       The wire recorder was invented by Valdemar Poulsen of Denmark in 1898.

3 - B      The principle of the transformer was discovered by Michael Faraday of England in 1831.

4 - I       The piezoelectric effect in crystals was discovered by Pierre and Jacques Curie of France in 1880.

5 - D       The X-ray tube was invented by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen of Germany in 1895.

6 - G      The Leyden jar, forerunner of the modern capacitor, was discovered by Pieter Van Musschenbroek of Holland in 1746.

7 - A      The so-called voltaic pile, the earliest battery known, was invented by Count Allesandro Volta of Italy in 1800.

8 - H      The "Yagi" antenna was invented by Hidetsu Yagi of Japan in the early 1900's.

9 - C      The first electronic television device was actually developed by Boris Lvovitch of Russia in 1907.

10 - E    The radio telescope was invented by Karl Janski of the United States in 1933.

Posted July 10. 2023
(updated from original post on 7/27/2018)