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What are neutron stars?
Neutron stars was the “right” response, but when this clue aired as a Daily Double in 1999, one of the three contestants, who had wagered $1900, offered a response— What are quark stars?—that Trebek rejected. After some quick checking by Wisse and his team, however, the host had to offer a rare mea culpa. “Although there is very little known about quark stars, they do exist, and that is a correct response, given the way we phrased that clue,” Trebek conceded. The contestant received a $3800 boost and moved into the lead (but ultimately lost). Wisse and his crew must produce nearly 20,000 carefully sourced clues to fill the 230 shows that air each season. In Jeopardy! speak, the writers rank clues as 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5; they dismiss ideas that are too easy as a 1/2 and too hard as a 14. “If there’s something people know, we will do it to death,” Wisse says. “We’ve given them Watson and gone for Crick and given them Crick and gone for Watson.” In the Battle of the Decades, they asked the name of the lab where Watson and Crick worked, which turned out to be a “triple stumper”—a veritable 14—as no one even guessed Cavendish Lab. JANE GOODALL, NOBELIST DAVID BALTIMORE, AND THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER AT CERN HAVE SHARED THIS MOST UNUSUAL TV EXPERIENCE
What is appearing in a Jeopardy! video clue?
In one of its most popular scientific gambits, Jeopardy! in 2011 pitted champions against an IBM supercomputer system, dubbed Watson, that was programmed to play the game. Along with a vast database of information, Watson had the advantage of speed, says Jeopardy! champion Russ Schumacher, a meteorologist at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. “Watson’s buzzer timing was not human,” Schumacher says. The supercomputer won that contest. But a few weeks later, Holt was one of five members of Congress who competed against Watson in an untelevised
JEOPARDY! CONTESTANTS USE THIS INTONATION PATTERN FAR MORE FREQUENTLY WHEN THEY HAVE AN INCORRECT RESPONSE, AND WOMEN USE IT MORE THAN MEN OVERALL
What is uptalk?
Researchers have published several studies of Jeopardy! over the years (see http:// scim.ag/jeopaRdy), including one by a sociologist who analyzed vocal intonations in 5473 responses from 300 contestants. As he reported 2 years ago in Gender & Society, 48% of women and 27% of men used uptalk when they had the correct response to a clue, but 76% of females and 57% of males uptalked when they were wrong. Another Jeopardy! study focused on smart wagering strategies in the final round and ran in Mathematics Magazine in 1994. But more science goes into Jeopardy! than emerges from it. Take bioinformaticist Roger Craig and his big win. Before he made it onto the show, Craig downloaded J! Archive (http://j-archive.com/), an online site made by Jeopardy! fans that to date has cataloged more than 280,000 clues and responses and analyzed the relationship between high dollar amount questions and topics. This allowed Craig to see trends—for example, questions about astronomy most often appear in Double Jeopardy!, when the clues are worth more money—and focus on increasing his knowledge in high value areas. (A video where he describes his analysis is at http://scim.ag/jeopaRdy.) “It wasn’t like I sat down one day and said I want to reverse engineer the game and crush it,” Craig says. “I just did a little experiment here and it led to another. That’s how science works.” In his first game, a category called ELEMENTAL CLUES beckoned him, because his extensive preparation had shown chemistry was his strongest subject. “I had told my friends if I ever get a Daily Double on the periodic table, I’m going to bet it all,” he says. Craig hit a Daily Double and wagered the entire $12,000 he had amassed.
Put yourself in Jeopardy! Time to cue the Jeopardy! theme. We’ve compiled 10 clues from past episodes of the game show for your entertainment. You can also take the quiz online and see more detailed answers at http://scim.ag/jeopaRdy and you will find Roger Craig explaining his winning secrets and a list of research papers about Jeopardy!. 1. WEIRD SCIENCE: Researchers at NC State are equipping these household insect pests with mini-transmitters for eventual use in disaster zones 2. GENERAL SCIENCE: George Beadle & E.L. Tatum’s studies of the Neurospora crassa mold on this food helped launch molecular genetics in 1941 3. SCIENTISTS: His “The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically” received so much “resistance,” he resigned his post at Cologne 4. ALL SCIENCE: Adrenaline is another name for this hormone secreted in response to stress or fear 5. “C” IN SCIENCE: The earliest period of the Paleozoic Era, it extends from about 542 to 488 million years ago 6. LIFE SCIENCES: Organic chemistry focuses specifically on this element’s compounds & their reactions 7. YOU DO THE MATH: It’s the square root of a gross 8. LIFE SCIENCES: Alimentary, my dear! Waves of contractions moving swallowed food through the esophagus are called this 9. MEDICINE: The word for this disease comes from the same Latin root as “rage”
PD: A GREAT PLACE FOR LIVE MUSIC
What is palladium?
Craig would go on to win the game—and four others taped that same day. But he says this four-letter, nonscientific factor also helped him, as it has all big winners.
10. SCIENTIFIC FIRSTS: The first object in our solar system discovered by telescope was not a planet but one of these
What is luck? ■
SCIENCE sciencemag.org
1 MAY 2015 • VOL 348 ISSUE 6234
Published by AAAS
495
Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 9, 2015
UNIMAGINABLY DENSE MATERIAL IS FOUND IN THESE “STARS” NAMED FOR SUBATOMIC PARTICLES
Capitol Hill showdown. Holt beat the computer. “I think Watson was having a low voltage night,” he said at the time.
ANSWERS: 1. cockroaches 2. bread 3. Georg Ohm 4. epinephrine 5. Cambrian 6. carbon 7. 12 8. peristalsis 9. rabies 10. moon
easier to write science categories than something I’m more familiar with.” But the flip side is that when the writers do not intimately know a subject, what they deem the “natural” response may have an equally valid alternative that slips under their pregame radar.
What are neutron stars?
Neutron stars was the “right” response, but when this clue aired as a Daily Double in 1999, one of the three contestants, who had wagered $1900, offered a response— What are quark stars?—that Trebek rejected. After some quick checking by Wisse and his team, however, the host had to offer a rare mea culpa. “Although there is very little known about quark stars, they do exist, and that is a correct response, given the way we phrased that clue,” Trebek conceded. The contestant received a $3800 boost and moved into the lead (but ultimately lost). Wisse and his crew must produce nearly 20,000 carefully sourced clues to fill the 230 shows that air each season. In Jeopardy! speak, the writers rank clues as 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5; they dismiss ideas that are too easy as a 1/2 and too hard as a 14. “If there’s something people know, we will do it to death,” Wisse says. “We’ve given them Watson and gone for Crick and given them Crick and gone for Watson.” In the Battle of the Decades, they asked the name of the lab where Watson and Crick worked, which turned out to be a “triple stumper”—a veritable 14—as no one even guessed Cavendish Lab. JANE GOODALL, NOBELIST DAVID BALTIMORE, AND THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER AT CERN HAVE SHARED THIS MOST UNUSUAL TV EXPERIENCE
What is appearing in a Jeopardy! video clue?
In one of its most popular scientific gambits, Jeopardy! in 2011 pitted champions against an IBM supercomputer system, dubbed Watson, that was programmed to play the game. Along with a vast database of information, Watson had the advantage of speed, says Jeopardy! champion Russ Schumacher, a meteorologist at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. “Watson’s buzzer timing was not human,” Schumacher says. The supercomputer won that contest. But a few weeks later, Holt was one of five members of Congress who competed against Watson in an untelevised
JEOPARDY! CONTESTANTS USE THIS INTONATION PATTERN FAR MORE FREQUENTLY WHEN THEY HAVE AN INCORRECT RESPONSE, AND WOMEN USE IT MORE THAN MEN OVERALL
What is uptalk?
Researchers have published several studies of Jeopardy! over the years (see http:// scim.ag/jeopaRdy), including one by a sociologist who analyzed vocal intonations in 5473 responses from 300 contestants. As he reported 2 years ago in Gender & Society, 48% of women and 27% of men used uptalk when they had the correct response to a clue, but 76% of females and 57% of males uptalked when they were wrong. Another Jeopardy! study focused on smart wagering strategies in the final round and ran in Mathematics Magazine in 1994. But more science goes into Jeopardy! than emerges from it. Take bioinformaticist Roger Craig and his big win. Before he made it onto the show, Craig downloaded J! Archive (http://j-archive.com/), an online site made by Jeopardy! fans that to date has cataloged more than 280,000 clues and responses and analyzed the relationship between high dollar amount questions and topics. This allowed Craig to see trends—for example, questions about astronomy most often appear in Double Jeopardy!, when the clues are worth more money—and focus on increasing his knowledge in high value areas. (A video where he describes his analysis is at http://scim.ag/jeopaRdy.) “It wasn’t like I sat down one day and said I want to reverse engineer the game and crush it,” Craig says. “I just did a little experiment here and it led to another. That’s how science works.” In his first game, a category called ELEMENTAL CLUES beckoned him, because his extensive preparation had shown chemistry was his strongest subject. “I had told my friends if I ever get a Daily Double on the periodic table, I’m going to bet it all,” he says. Craig hit a Daily Double and wagered the entire $12,000 he had amassed.
Put yourself in Jeopardy! Time to cue the Jeopardy! theme. We’ve compiled 10 clues from past episodes of the game show for your entertainment. You can also take the quiz online and see more detailed answers at http://scim.ag/jeopaRdy and you will find Roger Craig explaining his winning secrets and a list of research papers about Jeopardy!. 1. WEIRD SCIENCE: Researchers at NC State are equipping these household insect pests with mini-transmitters for eventual use in disaster zones 2. GENERAL SCIENCE: George Beadle & E.L. Tatum’s studies of the Neurospora crassa mold on this food helped launch molecular genetics in 1941 3. SCIENTISTS: His “The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically” received so much “resistance,” he resigned his post at Cologne 4. ALL SCIENCE: Adrenaline is another name for this hormone secreted in response to stress or fear 5. “C” IN SCIENCE: The earliest period of the Paleozoic Era, it extends from about 542 to 488 million years ago 6. LIFE SCIENCES: Organic chemistry focuses specifically on this element’s compounds & their reactions 7. YOU DO THE MATH: It’s the square root of a gross 8. LIFE SCIENCES: Alimentary, my dear! Waves of contractions moving swallowed food through the esophagus are called this 9. MEDICINE: The word for this disease comes from the same Latin root as “rage”
PD: A GREAT PLACE FOR LIVE MUSIC
What is palladium?
Craig would go on to win the game—and four others taped that same day. But he says this four-letter, nonscientific factor also helped him, as it has all big winners.
10. SCIENTIFIC FIRSTS: The first object in our solar system discovered by telescope was not a planet but one of these
What is luck? ■
SCIENCE sciencemag.org
1 MAY 2015 • VOL 348 ISSUE 6234
Published by AAAS
495
Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 9, 2015
UNIMAGINABLY DENSE MATERIAL IS FOUND IN THESE “STARS” NAMED FOR SUBATOMIC PARTICLES
Capitol Hill showdown. Holt beat the computer. “I think Watson was having a low voltage night,” he said at the time.
ANSWERS: 1. cockroaches 2. bread 3. Georg Ohm 4. epinephrine 5. Cambrian 6. carbon 7. 12 8. peristalsis 9. rabies 10. moon
easier to write science categories than something I’m more familiar with.” But the flip side is that when the writers do not intimately know a subject, what they deem the “natural” response may have an equally valid alternative that slips under their pregame radar.
