From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia



The procedure and scoring of these trivia questions is intended to be very similar to Mark Brader's. Please inform me if I do something wrong.

The questions may be very difficult, but I hope they are nevertheless exciting!

You may submit 1 or 2 answers to any question, receiving 4, 3 or 2 points
for a correct answer just as in Mark's contests. Minor spelling errors are ignored, but there will be a 1-point penalty for a missing first-name or
other minor error, and a 2-point penalty for an incomplete answer.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

===== Round 1: Quotations =====

"... whose martyrdom ... will make the gallows as glorious as the crossrCY.

1. Who said this?

2. Who was the (anticipated) martyr?

"Will. Monox (Hast thou never heard of him and his great dagger?)"

3. Who wrote this?

4. Will Monox is obviously cryptic. What (allegedly) is Monox's real name?

"Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too
long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been
much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk ...
If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and
indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me.
If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my
having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me."

5. Who wrote this?

6. Where did he or she write it?

"Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers,
that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde ..."

7. Who wrote this?

8. About whom was it written?

"We choose to [...] and do the other things, not because they are easy,
but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and
measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is
one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone,
and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

9. Who said this?

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face
is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs
and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without
error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great
devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows,
in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst,
if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory
nor defeat."

10. Who said this?

===== Round 2: Speed of Light =====

In the mid-17th century Galileo experimented and decided that light traveled
at least ten times as fast as sound. Arguably this is a better estimate than the then-popular claim that the speed was infinite.
A few decades later a much better estimate was achieved.

1. Name the astronomer whose numerous observations led to this early
speed of light calculation.

2. Name the specific celestial body that that astronomer observed carefully.

3. Name the mathematician that calculated light's speed from those observations.

4. The calculated speed was about 25% less than the correct number.
What knowledge deficit was the main source of this error?

5. Name the astronomer who in 1716 proposed observations to address that deficit,
observations that couldn't be made until 1761 or 1769.

6. What celestial body was observed in 1769 in accordance with the plan in (5)?

7. Why was there a multi-decade delay before the observation could be made?

8. What sea captain delivered an astronomer to a remote location in 1769 to make such an observation?

9. What was that remote location?

10. The same sea voyage made an important visit to what other location?

The astronomer named in (5) held a prestigious title. Upon his death another great astronomer was granted that title. In about 1729 this astronomer
computed the speed of light accurately but in a completely different way, bypassing the knowledge deficit mentioned in (4), and bypassing the careful observations mentioned in (2) and (6). His method did require multiple
careful observations but many distant stars could serve that observational purpose.

11. Name that great astronomer.

The asteroid Ceres was discovered in 1801 but it disappeared into the Sun's glare before its orbit could be determined. With only six weeks of noisy data, the usual techniques for orbit calculation were almost useless.
There was real fear that Ceres wouldn't be found when it re-emerged, and any hunt for this asteroid would need to start from scratch.

12. Name the mathematician who developed new techniques and successfully predicted when and where the asteroid would re-emerge.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Dearest regards, James Dow Allen (mail address: jamesdowallen at gmail)
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

James Dow Allen:

The procedure and scoring of these trivia questions is intended to be very similar to Mark Brader's. Please inform me if I do something wrong.

...

You may submit 1 or 2 answers to any question, receiving 4, 3 or 2 points
for a correct answer just as in Mark's contests. Minor spelling errors are ignored, but there will be a 1-point penalty for a missing first-name or other minor error,..

Of course, you can run your quiz as you see fit, but for what ti's worth.
in Questions from the Canadian Inquisition, normally (i.e. unless otherwise incidate) only a surname is required, while a wrong first name makes your answer wrong.

"Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too
long to take your precious time....

5. Who wrote this?

Socrates?

6. Where did he or she write it?

In prison?

"We choose to [...] and do the other things, not because they are easy,
but because they are hard...

9. Who said this?

John F. Kennedy.

===== Round 2: Speed of Light =====

In the mid-17th century Galileo experimented and decided that light traveled at least ten times as fast as sound. Arguably this is a better estimate than the then-popular claim that the speed was infinite.
A few decades later a much better estimate was achieved.

1. Name the astronomer whose numerous observations led to this early
speed of light calculation.

Roemer.

2. Name the specific celestial body that that astronomer observed carefully.

Jupiter and its satellites.

3. Name the mathematician that calculated light's speed from those observations.

Newton?

4. The calculated speed was about 25% less than the correct number.
What knowledge deficit was the main source of this error?

Incorrect distances in the Solar System.

5. Name the astronomer who in 1716 proposed observations to address that deficit, observations that couldn't be made until 1761 or 1769.

Halley?

6. What celestial body was observed in 1769 in accordance with the plan in (5)?

Venus and the Sun.

7. Why was there a multi-decade delay before the observation could be made?

Transits of Venus (where it goes in front of the Sun) are rare.

8. What sea captain delivered an astronomer to a remote location in 1769 to make such an observation?

Cook.

9. What was that remote location?

India?

10. The same sea voyage made an important visit to what other location?

New Zealand.

The astronomer named in (5) held a prestigious title. Upon his death another great astronomer was granted that title...

11. Name that great astronomer.

Adams?

The asteroid Ceres was discovered in 1801 but it disappeared into the Sun's glare before its orbit could be determined....

12. Name the mathematician who developed new techniques and successfully predicted when and where the asteroid would re-emerge.

Gauss.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Ah, determinism (likewise, forgetfulness) reigns." msb@vex.net | --Steve Summit

My text in this article is in the public domain.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

Mark Brader:

Newton?

Oh, right, you want first names. Isaac Newton.

Halley?

Edmond Halley.

Cook.

James Cook.

Gauss.

Karl Gauss.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "Not looking like Pascal is not
msb@vex.net a language deficiency!" -- Doug Gwyn

My text in this article is in the public domain.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

On 8/5/2026 3:21 PM, James Dow Allen wrote:

===== Round 1: Quotations =====

"Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers,
that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde ..."

7. Who wrote this?

Robert Greene

8. About whom was it written?

William Shakespeare

"We choose to [...] and do the other things, not because they are easy,
but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is
one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone,
and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

9. Who said this?

John Kennedy

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face
is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs
and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without
error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows,
in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst,
if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory
nor defeat."

10. Who said this?

Theodore Roosevelt

===== Round 2: Speed of Light =====

I'm going to pass on this round.

--
Joshua Kreitzer
gromit82@hotmail.com
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

James Dow Allen (user4353@newsgrouper.org.invalid) writes:

===== Round 1: Quotations =====

"Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too
long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk ...
If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me.
If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my
having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me."

5. Who wrote this?

Oscar Wilde

And I am afraid that is much I have an idea about. (And this answer is probably wrong, but I know that Wilde excused for writing something
long, and which would have been shorter if he had had more time.)
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

On 8/5/26 13:21, James Dow Allen wrote:

===== Round 1: Quotations =====

"... whose martyrdom ... will make the gallows as glorious as the crossrCY.

1. Who said this?

2. Who was the (anticipated) martyr?

"Will. Monox (Hast thou never heard of him and his great dagger?)"

3. Who wrote this?

Shakespeare

4. Will Monox is obviously cryptic. What (allegedly) is Monox's real name?

"Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too
long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk ...
If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me.
If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my
having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood,
I beg God to forgive me."

5. Who wrote this?

6. Where did he or she write it?

"Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers,
that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde ..."

7. Who wrote this?

8. About whom was it written?

"We choose to [...] and do the other things, not because they are easy,
but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is
one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone,
and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

9. Who said this?

John F Kennedy

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face
is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs
and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without
error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows,
in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst,
if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory
nor defeat."

10. Who said this?

Theodore Roosevelt

===== Round 2: Speed of Light =====

In the mid-17th century Galileo experimented and decided that light traveled at least ten times as fast as sound. Arguably this is a better estimate than the then-popular claim that the speed was infinite.
A few decades later a much better estimate was achieved.

1. Name the astronomer whose numerous observations led to this early
speed of light calculation.

2. Name the specific celestial body that that astronomer observed carefully.

Io

3. Name the mathematician that calculated light's speed from those observations.

4. The calculated speed was about 25% less than the correct number.
What knowledge deficit was the main source of this error?

unknown distance from Earth to Jupiter

5. Name the astronomer who in 1716 proposed observations to address that deficit,
observations that couldn't be made until 1761 or 1769.

Edmund Halley

6. What celestial body was observed in 1769 in accordance with the plan in (5)?

Venus

7. Why was there a multi-decade delay before the observation could be made?

needed to wait for a transit of the Sun by Venus

8. What sea captain delivered an astronomer to a remote location in 1769 to make such an observation?

James Cook

9. What was that remote location?

Tahiti

10. The same sea voyage made an important visit to what other location?

Hawaii

The astronomer named in (5) held a prestigious title. Upon his death another great astronomer was granted that title. In about 1729 this astronomer computed the speed of light accurately but in a completely different way, bypassing the knowledge deficit mentioned in (4), and bypassing the careful observations mentioned in (2) and (6). His method did require multiple careful observations but many distant stars could serve that observational purpose.

11. Name that great astronomer.

The asteroid Ceres was discovered in 1801 but it disappeared into the Sun's glare before its orbit could be determined. With only six weeks of noisy data,
the usual techniques for orbit calculation were almost useless.
There was real fear that Ceres wouldn't be found when it re-emerged, and any hunt for this asteroid would need to start from scratch.

12. Name the mathematician who developed new techniques and successfully predicted when and where the asteroid would re-emerge.

Gauss
--
Dan Tilque
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia



Joshua wins Round 1 by a large margin.
Mark noses out Dan_T for the Round 2 victory.

Point totals are at the very end of this post.

The procedure and scoring of these trivia questions is intended to be very similar to
Mark Brader's. Please inform me if I do something wrong.

The questions may be very difficult, but I hope they are nevertheless exciting!

For compatibility I'll rescind the missing first-name penalty.
But I think it's fair for the future. A first name may seem to have TRIVIAL importance,
but 'Trivia' is the name of the game!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A. Quotations

"... whose martyrdom ... will make the gallows as glorious as the crossrCY.

1. Who said this?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. Who was the (anticipated) martyr?

John Brown (of Osawatomie and Harpers Ferry)

"Will. Monox (Hast thou never heard of him and his great dagger?)"

3. Who wrote this?

Thomas Nashe (in Strange Newes, 1593)

4. Will Monox is obviously cryptic. What (allegedly) is Monox's real name?

Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford

"Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk ... If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me."

5. Who wrote this?

Martin Luther King, Jr.

[The idea that it takes time and patience to produce brevity has been echoed by many famous writers,
e.g. Mark Twain, Blaise Pascal, Carl Gauss and, as Erland points out, Oscar Wilde.]

6. Where did he or she write it?

In the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (Alabama)
[Dictionaries treat jails and prisons as distinct; and neither is a complete answer to "Where"]

1 point for Mark

"Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers,
that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde ..."

7. Who wrote this?

Robert Greene

4 points for Joshua

8. About whom was it written?

Wililiam Shakespeare

4 points for Joshua

"We choose to [...] and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

9. Who said this?

John F. Kennedy (1962 at Rice Univ., Texas)

4 points for Mark
4 points for Joshua
4 points for Dan_T

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

10. Who said this?

Teddy Roosevelt (in 1910 at Paris)

4 points for Joshua
4 points for Dan_T

B. Speed of Light

In the mid-17th century Galileo experimented and decided that light traveled at least ten times as
fast as sound. Arguably this is a better estimate than the then-popular claim that the speed was infinite.
A few decades later a much better estimate was achieved.

1. Name the astronomer whose numerous observations led to this early speed of light calculation.

Ole Roemer ('oe' denotes a certain Danish vowel requiring Unicode)

4 points for Mark

2. Name the specific celestial body that that astronomer observed carefully.

Io, a SPECIFIC satellite of Jupiter (its eclipses were recorded)

2 points for Mark
4 points for Dan_T

3. Name the mathematician that calculated light's speed from those observations.

Christiaan Huygens

4. The calculated speed was about 25% less than the correct number. What knowledge deficit was the
main source of this error?

The scale of the solar system (specif. AU, the Earth-Sun distance) was not known precisely.
The Roemer-Huygens number was much more accurate when measured as AUs per hour, rather than miles per second.

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan_T

5. Name the astronomer who in 1716 proposed observations to address that deficit, observations
that couldn't be made until 1761 or 1769.

Edmond Halley, 2nd Astronomer Royal of the U.K.

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan_T

6. What celestial body was observed in 1769 in accordance with the plan in (5)?

Venus (specif. its transits of the Sun)

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan_T

7. Why was there a multi-decade delay before the observation could be made?

Such transits are rare.

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan_T

8. What sea captain delivered an astronomer to a remote location in 1769 to make such an observation?

James Cook. [see Note 1 below]

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan_T

9. What was that remote location?

Tahiti

4 points for Dan_T

10. The same sea voyage made an important visit to what other location?

Australia, (famously the 1st known visit by a European, there being only rumors of the South Continent's existence)

He encountered New Zealand en route and spent several months charting its coastline.
Full credit for New Zealand since this might have been the first landing and charting by a European
(though Abel Tasman had sighted the South Island in 1642). [see Note 3 below]

I phrased the question poorly because Cook's secret orders made clear that Australia was the single important target
("... without Suffering yourself however to be thereby diverted from the Object which you are always to
have in View, the Discovery of the Southern Continent so often Mentioned")
But I wrote only 'an important visit' so must award the full 4 points to New Zealand.

Hawaii is an incorrect answer. James Cook WAS the first European to discover any of those islands but that was on his
3rd Pacific voyage; we're speaking of his 1st. Nevertheless Hawaii can be judged "almost approximately correct."

4 points for Mark
1 point for Dan_T

The astronomer named in (5) held a prestigious title. Upon his death another great astronomer was
granted that title. In about 1729 this astronomer computed the speed of light accurately but in a
completely different way, bypassing the knowledge deficit mentioned in (4), and bypassing the careful
observations mentioned in (2) and (6). His method did require multiple careful observations but
many distant stars could serve that observational purpose.

11. Name that great astronomer.

James Bradley, 3rd Astronomer Royal of the U.K. [see Note 2 below]

The asteroid Ceres was discovered in 1801 but it disappeared into the Sun's glare before its
orbit could be determined. With only six weeks of noisy data, the usual techniques for orbit calculation were
almost useless. There was real fear that Ceres wouldn't be found when it re-emerged, and any hunt for this
asteroid would need to start from scratch.

12. Name the mathematician who developed new techniques and successfully predicted when
and where the asteroid would re-emerge.

Carl F. Gauss

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan_T

More trivia about the calculation of the speed of light.

Note 1: This was NOT the voyage on which Capt. Cook's ship had a replica of John Harrison's
famous clock. Although accurate timings were essential when comparing the observations from
locations around the world, Harrison's time-pieces were not necessary when determining longitude
(assisted by a lunar ephemeris) and then Greenwich time on solid LAND where telescopes and
pendulum clocks did not need to contend with the storming, rocking and listing of ship-borne clocks.

Note 2: Bradley observed Gamma Draconis in hopes of using parallax to measure its distance,
expecting to find tiny variations with a 12-month cycle duration.
(This was futile: Distance to 61 Cygni was determined to be about 11 light-years via parallax only in 1838
and Gamma Draconis -- chosen because its sky position was perfect for viewing in the London sky --
is 14 times further away.)

Bradley DID observe tiny variations in Gamma Draconis' position, and it was a 12-month cycle,
but the direction and timing of the variations in the star's apparent position were NOT as parallax would predict.
Bradley spent long months trying to understand. Finally (and fictionally??), while sailing
in a small boat on the River Thames he asked the boatman why the wind-vane displayed a different
wind direction when the boat turned about. The boat's motion vector had to be subtracted from
the wind's vector! "Eureka" Bradley didn't shout, while not jumping into the River naked.
By analogy with the boat's wind-vane he could now calculate light's speed, as 8 minutes and 12 seconds per AU.
(An accurate AU-to-mile ratio still awaited the Venus observations of 1769.)

Note 3: Watch 'Whalerider', an excellent movie which shows the fierce-looking ritual which
Maori adopt when greeting foreigners. Tasman had refrained from landing in New Zealand because natives
seemed unfriendly. Cook landed but his men ended up killing five natives. Fortunately Cook had a
Tahitian priest/navigator of high status aboard. The Tahitian and Maori languages are in the same Tahitic
subfamily of Eastern Polynesian so Tupaia was able to communicate well enough to calm New Zealand's natives.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Scores, Round 1: Quotations
16 Joshua
8 Dan_T
5 Mark

Scores, Round 2: Speed of Light
30 Mark
29 Dan_T

Dearest regards, James Dow Allen (mail address: jamesdowallen at gmail) --- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

James Dow Allen:

For compatibility I'll rescind the missing first-name penalty.
But I think it's fair for the future.

Do you mean that first names are requires for the future, then?
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "You can write a small letter to Grandma
msb@vex.net | in the filename." -- Forbes Burkowski

My text in this article is in the public domain.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia


James Dow Allen <user4353@newsgrouper.org.invalid> posted:

(I posted a few hours ago, but Newsgrouper seemed to ignore it.
Just as well as I've corrected a minor score miscount.)

Joshua wins Round 1 by a wide margin.
Mark noses out Dan Tilque for the Round 2 victory.

Point totals are at the very end of this post.

The procedure and scoring of these trivia questions is intended to be very similar to
Mark Brader's. Please inform me if I do something wrong.

The "Speed of Light" section may have been misguided, since particpants were likely
to get either MOST of the answers or NONE at all. I think the discovery of the Speed of Light
provides fascinating anecdotes, but may have been a mistaken choice for a trivia category.

The questions may be very difficult, but I hope they are nevertheless exciting!

You may submit 1 or 2 answers to any question, receiving 4, 3 or 2 points for a correct
answer just as in Mark's contests. Minor spelling errors are ignored, but there will be
a 1-point penalty for a missing first-name or other minor error, and a 2-point
penalty for an incomplete answer.

For compatibility I'll rescind the missing first-name penalty.
But I think it's fair for the future. A first name may seem to have TRIVIAL importance,
but 'Trivia' is the name of the game!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A. Quotations

"... whose martyrdom ... will make the gallows as glorious as the crossrCY.

1. Who said this?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. Who was the (anticipated) martyr?

John Brown (of Osawatomie and Harpers Ferry)

"Will. Monox (Hast thou never heard of him and his great dagger?)"

3. Who wrote this?

Thomas Nashe (in Strange Newes, 1593)

4. Will Monox is obviously cryptic. What (allegedly) is Monox's real name?

Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford

"Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk ... If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me."

5. Who wrote this?

Martin Luther King, Jr.

[The idea that it takes time and patience to produce brevity has been echoed by many famous writers,
e.g. Mark Twain, Blaise Pascal, Carl Gauss and, as Erland points out, Oscar Wilde.]

6. Where did he or she write it?

In the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (Alabama)
[Dictionaries treat jails and prisons as distinct; and anyway neither is a complete answer to "Where"]

1 point for Mark

"Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers,
that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde ..."

7. Who wrote this?

Robert Greene

4 points for Joshua

8. About whom was it written?

Wililiam Shakespeare

4 points for Joshua

"We choose to [...] and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

9. Who said this?

John F. Kennedy (1962 at Rice Univ., Texas)

4 points for Mark
4 points for Joshua
4 points for Dan Tilque

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

10. Who said this?

Teddy Roosevelt (in 1910 at Paris)

4 points for Joshua
4 points for Dan Tilque

B. Speed of Light

In the mid-17th century Galileo experimented and decided that light traveled at least ten times as
fast as sound. Arguably this is a better estimate than the then-popular claim that the speed was infinite.
A few decades later a much better estimate was achieved.

1. Name the astronomer whose numerous observations led to this early speed of light calculation.

Ole Roemer ('oe' denotes a certain Danish vowel requiring Unicode)

4 points for Mark

2. Name the specific celestial body that that astronomer observed carefully.

Io, a SPECIFIC satellite of Jupiter (its eclipses were recorded)

2 points for Mark
4 points for Dan Tilque

3. Name the mathematician that calculated light's speed from those observations.

Christiaan Huygens

4. The calculated speed was about 25% less than the correct number. What knowledge deficit was the
main source of this error?

The scale of the solar system (specif. AU, the Earth-Sun distance) was not known precisely.
The Roemer-Huygens number was much more accurate when measured as AUs per hour, rather than miles per second.

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan Tilque

5. Name the astronomer who in 1716 proposed observations to address that deficit, observations
that couldn't be made until 1761 or 1769.

Edmond Halley, 2nd Astronomer Royal of the U.K.

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan Tilque

6. What celestial body was observed in 1769 in accordance with the plan in (5)?

Venus (specif. its transits of the Sun)

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan Tilque

7. Why was there a multi-decade delay before the observation could be made?

Such transits are rare.

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan Tilque

8. What sea captain delivered an astronomer to a remote location in 1769 to make such an observation?

James Cook. [see Note 1 below]

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan Tilque

9. What was that remote location?

Tahiti

4 points for Dan Tilque

10. The same sea voyage made an important visit to what other location?

Australia, (famously the 1st known visit by a European, there being only rumors of the South Continent's existence)

He encountered New Zealand en route and spent several months charting its coastline.
Full credit for New Zealand since this might have been the first landing and charting by a European
(though Abel Tasman had sighted the South Island in 1642). [see Note 3 below]

I phrased the question poorly because Cook's secret orders made clear that Australia was the single important target
("... without Suffering yourself however to be thereby diverted from the Object which you are always to
have in View, the Discovery of the Southern Continent so often Mentioned")
But I wrote only 'an important visit' so must award the full 4 points to New Zealand.

Hawaii is an incorrect answer. James Cook WAS the first European to discover any of those islands but that was on his
3rd Pacific voyage; we're speaking of his 1st. Nevertheless Hawaii can be judged "almost approximately correct."

4 points for Mark
1 point for Dan Tilque

The astronomer named in (5) held a prestigious title. Upon his death another great astronomer was
granted that title. In about 1729 this astronomer computed the speed of light accurately but in a
completely different way, bypassing the knowledge deficit mentioned in (4), and bypassing the careful
observations mentioned in (2) and (6). His method did require multiple careful observations but
many distant stars could serve that observational purpose.

11. Name that great astronomer.

James Bradley, 3rd Astronomer Royal of the U.K. [see Note 2 below]

The asteroid Ceres was discovered in 1801 but it disappeared into the Sun's glare before its
orbit could be determined. With only six weeks of noisy data, the usual techniques for orbit calculation were
almost useless. There was real fear that Ceres wouldn't be found when it re-emerged, and any hunt for this
asteroid would need to start from scratch.

12. Name the mathematician who developed new techniques and successfully predicted when
and where the asteroid would re-emerge.

Carl F. Gauss

4 points for Mark
4 points for Dan Tilque

More trivia about the calculation of the speed of light.

Note 1: This was NOT the voyage on which Capt. Cook's ship had a replica of John Harrison's
famous clock. Although accurate timings were essential when comparing the observations from
locations around the world, Harrison's time-pieces were not necessary when determining longitude
(assisted by a lunar ephemeris) and then Greenwich time on solid LAND where telescopes and
pendulum clocks did not need to contend with the storming, rocking and listing of ship-borne clocks.

Note 2: Bradley observed Gamma Draconis in hopes of using parallax to measure its distance,
expecting to find tiny variations with a 12-month cycle duration.
(This was futile: Distance to 61 Cygni was determined to be about 11 light-years via parallax only in 1838
and Gamma Draconis -- chosen because its sky position was perfect for viewing in the London sky --
is 14 times further away.)

Bradley DID observe tiny variations in Gamma Draconis' position, and it was a 12-month cycle,
but the direction and timing of the variations in the star's apparent position were NOT as parallax would predict.
Bradley spent long months trying to understand. Finally (and fictionally??), while sailing
in a small boat on the River Thames he asked the boatman why the wind-vane displayed a different
wind direction when the boat turned about. The boat's motion vector had to be subtracted from
the wind's vector! "Eureka" Bradley didn't shout, while not jumping into the River naked.
By analogy with the boat's wind-vane he could now calculate light's speed, as 8 minutes and 12 seconds per AU.
(An accurate AU-to-mile ratio still awaited the Venus observations of 1769.)

Note 3: Watch 'Whalerider', an excellent movie which shows the fierce-looking ritual which
Maori adopt when greeting foreigners. Tasman had refrained from landing in New Zealand because natives
seemed unfriendly. Cook landed but his men ended up killing five natives. Fortunately Cook had a
Tahitian priest/navigator of high status aboard. The Tahitian and Maori languages are in the same Tahitic
subfamily of Eastern Polynesian so Tupaia was able to communicate well enough to calm New Zealand's natives.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Scores, Round 1: Quotations
16 Joshua
8 Dan Tilque
5 Mark

Scores, Round 2: Speed of Light
34 Mark
33 Dan Tilque

Dearest regards, James Dow Allen (mail address: jamesdowallen at gmail) --- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia


msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) posted:

James Dow Allen:

For compatibility I'll rescind the missing first-name penalty.
But I think it's fair for the future.

Do you mean that first names are requires for the future, then?

Assuming there even is a future Jamie's Trivia Questions,
I'm happy to leave the rule up to majority rule.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2