Is this the toughest University Challenge question ever? And can you solve it when Oxford and Cambridge students couldn't?
University Challenge is generally accepted as one of the toughest quiz shows on TV - but is the hardest question ever to appear on the show? Have a go at solving it and judge for yourself...
For decades, quiz show fans have lauded University Challenge as the toughest test for TV boffins. The show pits the finest young minds from UK universities against each other in a battle of the brains.
Questions on the BBC stalwart show are notoriously tough, as are the hosts, who have included Bamber Gascoigne, Jeremy Paxman and, latterly, Amol Rajan. The current title holders are Imperial College London, who won a record fifth title in the final of the 2023-24 series on 8 April 2024.
Now, The Mirror has reported what it believes is the most difficult question ever posed on the show. It comes from the finale of series 46, when those two bastions of brains - Wolfson College, Cambridge and Balliol College, Oxford - went head-to-head.
Read on to find out if you have the brains to figure out what the correct answer to this intellectual poser is - but don’t forget, contestants on the show were doing this against the clock so you’d also need to be quick on the buzzer to have made it on the gameshow.
The question, posed by 73-year-old Paxman who was famed for tough style, was: With sulfur's atomic number being 16, can you calculate the combined atomic numbers of the four elements whose symbols form the word 'snob'?
On the show, no one answered correctly. Team members from both colleges had a go, but were incorrect.
Stop scrolling if you are planning on having a stab at the question yourself as the answer is revealed below...
The number Paxman was after, was of course, 36. It is derived from the individual atomic numbers 16 (sulphur), seven (nitrogen), eight (oxygen) and five (boron).
How did you get on? Let us know in the comments below...