Why do balloons make a loud noise when they pop? Try our kids’ quiz

Illustration: Hennie Haworth/The Guardian

1. Max, 4, asks: why do balloons (like the one pictured above) make a loud noise when they pop?

   1. Because the air molecules inside the balloon explode

   2. It’s the sound made by the rubber popping

   3. The pop is a pressure wave of air rushing out

   4. To let you know they’ve popped so you can tidy up

2. Poppy, 7, asks: why do we grow hair in our armpits?

   1. To keep us warm

   2. To stop our skin rubbing and getting sore

   3. It helps to attract a mate

   4. So we have something extra to brush each morning

3. Monty, 6, asks: when did Gigantopithecus live?

   1. The Cretaceous period, which was 145m years ago and ended 66m years ago

   2. The Pleistocene epoch, 2.6m to 11,700 years ago

   3. The Jurassic period, 201.3m to 145m years ago

   4. The Tertiary period, 66m to 2.6m years ago

4. Wolfie, 9, asks: why are ginger cats normally male?

   1. Male cats eat orange food that turns their fur ginger

   2. Because the ginger gene is on the X chromosome

   3. Ginger cats are more attractive to females

   4. There are more male cats in the world overall, including more ginger cats

5. Ivo, 9, asks: why does the world spin?

   1. Because the Earth was hit by an asteroid

   2. Because it’s heavier on one side than the other

   3. Because the sun pulls it along and the sun spins

   4. It has spun since it formed out of a cloud of dust and gas

Solutions

1:C - Air is full of little things called molecules. Inside a balloon they’re all packed together and the skin is pulled tight. If you pop it, all the air whooshes out, making a pressure wave of fast-moving air our ears hear as a bang., 2:B - Armpit hair stops the skin there rubbing when you run and walk. But the answer is also C: when you sweat your body makes chemicals called pheromones that can attract other humans, and sweat attaches to armpit hair., 3:B - Gigantopithecus was a huge ape. It lived in the tropical forests of China in the Pleistocene epoch until going extinct 100,000 years ago., 4:B - Cats, like humans, have things called chromosomes, which can be X or Y; if you have two X chromosomes, you will be female. The “ginger gene” that makes the orange colour in a ginger cat is on the X, so females need both their Xs to have it to be ginger whereas males need only one., 5:C - Earth is in a solar system that formed 4.6bn years ago out of a huge cloud of gas and dust, which collapsed and started to spin. As it did, some of the things in it formed into the sun in the middle and the planets around it, including Earth, which kept spinning.

Scores

1. 5 and above.

2. 4 and above.

3. 3 and above.

4. 2 and above.

5. 0 and above.

6. 1 and above.

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a weekly podcast answering children’s questions, out now as a book.

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