SSC GK Questions 2026

Most alpha particles passed straight through the foil, a few were deflected through small angles and about one in twenty thousand bounced back.

James Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932 by bombarding beryllium with alpha particles and showing that the radiation produced consisted of neutral particles of nearly the same mass as the proton.

The Greek philosopher Democritus, working in the fifth century before the common era, argued that matter could be divided only up to a limit, and he called that smallest indivisible particle atomos, from which the word atom comes.

A lichen is a partnership of an alga and a fungus and takes its water and nutrients straight from the air, with no protective cuticle and no roots.

A catalytic converter holds platinum, palladium and rhodium on a honeycomb support, which oxidise carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons to carbon dioxide and water and reduce the oxides of nitrogen to nitrogen.

An electrostatic precipitator gives the dust and ash particles in the flue gas an electric charge as they pass an electrode, and then collects them on plates carrying the opposite charge; the plates are shaken so that the collected ash falls into a hopper.

This Act is the specific law on air pollution. It empowers the Central and State Pollution Control Boards to lay down emission standards for industry and for vehicles, to declare air pollution control areas and to require consent before a polluting plant is set up or operated.

The National Air Quality Index has six bands: 0 to 50 is Good, 51 to 100 Satisfactory, 101 to 200 Moderate, 201 to 300 Poor, 301 to 400 Very Poor and 401 to 500 Severe.

The Montreal Protocol, adopted in 1987 under the Vienna Convention, commits its parties to phasing out chlorofluorocarbons, halons and other chemicals that destroy stratospheric ozone, and it is regarded as the most successful environmental treaty for that reason.

Particulate matter is graded by the diameter of the particles measured in micrometres, so PM10 means particles of ten micrometres or less and PM2.5 means particles of 2.5 micrometres or less, which is about thirty times finer than a human hair.

Sulphur dioxide from industry and traffic around Agra is oxidised in the air and comes down as sulphuric acid, which attacks the calcium carbonate of marble.

Sulphur dioxide, released when coal and oil containing sulphur are burnt, is oxidised in the atmosphere to sulphur trioxide, which dissolves in water droplets to give sulphuric acid.

Carbon monoxide binds to the haemoglobin of the blood roughly two hundred times more readily than oxygen does, and the carboxyhaemoglobin so formed cannot carry oxygen.

Photochemical smog, also called Los Angeles smog, forms in warm, dry, sunny weather when oxides of nitrogen from vehicle exhaust and unburnt hydrocarbons react under ultraviolet light.

A secondary pollutant is never emitted from a source; it is manufactured in the atmosphere itself when primary pollutants react with one another or with sunlight.

He was the founder of Rashtrakuta power and overthrew the last important Chalukya of Badami, Kirtivarman II, about 753 CE.

The Nayanars were the Shaiva saints of the Tamil bhakti movement, traditionally counted as sixty-three, and they included Appar, Sambandar, Sundarar and Manikkavachakar.

The Pandyas ruled the extreme south of the peninsula from Madurai on the Vaigai, with the pearl-fishing port of Korkai on the coast.

He reached India in 630 CE, stayed for about fifteen years, and studied Yogachara philosophy at the Nalanda mahavihara under its head, the aged monk Shilabhadra.

He ruled in the early eighth century and marks the structural phase of Pallava architecture, when temples were built up of dressed stone instead of being cut from living rock.