Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A Nobel laureate who writes about his own city

Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, becoming the first Turkish writer to receive it. His novel Snow, published in 2002, follows a poet who returns to Turkey after years of exile in Germany and becomes entangled in the tensions of a small Anatolian town. Pamuk's work often explores the divide between East and West, a theme that runs through much of his fiction.

The Andes: the world's longest continental mountain range

The Andes stretch along the western edge of South America, running through seven countries from Venezuela down to Chile and Argentina. They form part of the Ring of Fire, a belt around the Pacific where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common. The range's highest peak, Aconcagua, rises to nearly 7,000 metres in Argentina.

Kubrick's 2001: a film that changed science fiction

Stanley Kubrick directed 2001: A Space Odyssey, released in 1968 and co-written with Arthur C. Clarke. The film was groundbreaking for its realistic depiction of space travel and its use of classical music, particularly Strauss's "Also sprach Zarathustra." It is widely regarded as one of the most influential films ever made.

The Simpsons: a cartoon that outlasted its own predictions

The Simpsons debuted in 1989 and has since become the longest-running American animated series. Set in the fictional town of Springfield, the show follows the Simpson family and has aired more than 700 episodes. Its cultural impact is so broad that fans often joke about its eerily accurate predictions of future events.

Prime numbers: simple to define, hard to pin down

A prime number is a whole number greater than 1 that can only be divided by 1 and itself. Both 11 and 13 fit this definition, but 12 can be divided by 2, 3, 4 and 6, so it is not prime. Primes become rarer as numbers grow larger, yet there are infinitely many of them, a fact proven by Euclid over two thousand years ago.