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Sir Col
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QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« on: Oct 2nd, 2003, 4:18pm » |
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A fascinating new quiz show has just started on BBC television in the UK. Its target audience is the section of society whose qualifications extend beyond a school leaver's certificate – which means it is, sadly, doomed to a minority of hardcore viewers. For your information, the Guardian Newspaper has written a short review of the programme:
http://media.guardian.co.uk/bbc/story/0,7521,1009181,00.html
Basically, it is a quick-fire comedy quiz show that challenges our general ignorance by asking ridiculously difficult questions, or questions which cause the spontaenous 'obvious', yet invariably wrong, answers.
I'll post some of the more interesting, and controversial, questions as they appear. Feel free to make a fool of yourself by posting your 'answers'. 
1. How many major planets are there in our solar system?
2. How many wives did Henry VIII have?
3. What is invisible and travels at about 38 miles per hour?
4. How many moons does the earth have?
5. Give a word, in the English language, that rhymes with purple?
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Icarus
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #1 on: Oct 2nd, 2003, 8:15pm » |
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[1] I suppose this one depends on how you define "major planet". Does it refer only to gas giants, or do the terrestrials count as well? How about the snowball? There's a lot of debate over whether it ought to be included. Or maybe we are using the ancient definition of planet, in which the sun and moon count, but earth does not. Still, I like the traditional modern answer of 9 myself.
[2] Last I heard the count was still 6. I suppose there is a matter here as well as to what constitutes a "wife" as opposed to a mistress. By the Roman Catholic church's count, I believe the number is "1", with 5 hussies.
[3] Around here, air travels that fast regularly. Is that invisible enough for you?
[4] A large and constantly varying number. How small does an object in orbit have to be before it is no longer considered a moon?
[5] "gurple" n. : A made-up word used to provide an answer when none comes to mind.
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #2 on: Oct 2nd, 2003, 11:41pm » |
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When is the show aired?
It seems quite interesteing, and I can get BBC here..
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| « Last Edit: Oct 2nd, 2003, 11:42pm by towr » |
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #3 on: Oct 3rd, 2003, 3:34am » |
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It's aired on BBC2 on Thursday evenings at 10:00pm, UK time; the following week's show can be seen on BBC4 at 10:30pm on the same evening.
The show is meant to be as contentious as much as it is amusing, so many of the answers are going to cause a lot of disagreement. The idea is not to take things too seriously; already people are writing to the BBC to assert the 'correct' answers – I think they miss the point of the show. One of the regular panelists, who is clearly very intelligent, is obtaining the reputation for giving the 'obvious' answer. When this happens on the show, a klaxxon is sounded and the (expected wrong) answer is displayed on a large screen, the contestant also loses 10 points. Poor Alan Davies has finished with a negative score on more than one occasion.
So, Icarus, the klaxxon is sounding loud and clear for you...
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1. The answer is 8; Pluto is no longer considered to be a major planet.
2. The answer is 3 or 4, depending on the authority you accept. I don't remember all the details (feel free to research and post links), but Henry's first wife was married to his brother, one marriage was never consummated, and another was never considered legal by the Catholic church.
3. Light! Apparently, light is no longer considered to travel at a constant speed; it travels at 186000 miles per second in a vacuum. However, light travels at about 38 mph in Sodium at -270oC.
4. Two; there is a second moon (I think it's called Cruithne) that follows a long orbit and is only visible for a short time every few hundred years. During that time, two moons will be visible at some point during the day. The next coincidence will be, unfortunately for us, beyond our lifetime.
5. Surple and gurple. I recall that 'gurple' means to drag a lame limb: to gurple along on crutches. I don't remember what 'surple' means. Anyone know?
::
Either I can post more as I remember or more shows are shown, or someone else in who has seen the show can post some questions.
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #4 on: Oct 3rd, 2003, 8:30pm » |
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on Oct 3rd, 2003, 3:34am, Sir Col wrote:| 1. The answer is 8; Pluto is no longer considered to be a major planet. |
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The International Astronomical Union is the official body for determination of such things. They still list Pluto as a major planet.
Quote:| 2. The answer is 3 or 4, depending on the authority you accept. I don't remember all the details (feel free to research and post links), but Henry's first wife was married to his brother, one marriage was never consummated, and another was never considered legal by the Catholic church. |
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I am not a student of the English Monarchy, but I believe that only Catherine of Aragon's marriage to Henry VIII is recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. She was married to Henry's brother Arthur first, but he died before her marriage to Henry. I have never heard of a European religious or civil injuction against such marriages (after all, in the Old Testament there were times when a man was required to marry his brother's widow).
The official count by English law, which surely must apply here, is either the traditional 6, or 5 (I'm not sure if there are exceptions available for the unconsummated one).
Quote:| 3. Light! Apparently, light is no longer considered to travel at a constant speed; it travels at 186000 miles per second in a vacuum. However, light travels at about 38 mph in Sodium at -270oC. |
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Light was NEVER considered to travel at constant speed in that sense. Before the nature of light was pinned down enough to consider such a thing, Fermat postulated that the refraction of light was caused by its traveling through differing materials at different speeds.
Your result is also out-of-date. Light has not only been slowed, it has been stopped. It is possible to convert photons into standing waves in Bose-Einstein condensates.
Last, one could argue that light is not invisible. Certainly it isn't unless it is ultraviolet or infrared.
Air on the other hand is usually invisible around here, and the wind often reaches 38 mph. So I say my answer is better.
Quote:| 4. Two; there is a second moon (I think it's called Cruithne) that follows a long orbit and is only visible for a short time every few hundred years. During that time, two moons will be visible at some point during the day. The next coincidence will be, unfortunately for us, beyond our lifetime. |
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Interesting. I had never heard of Cruithne before. That is one weird orbit. However it is co-orbiting with Earth, not orbiting around the Earth, so it is NOT a moon!
On the other hand, the word "moon" is used to describe any natural celestrial body orbiting a planet. By this definition, as I said earlier, Earth has thousands of tiny moons.
Quote:| 5. Surple and gurple. I recall that 'gurple' means to drag a lame limb: to gurple along on crutches. I don't remember what 'surple' means. Anyone know? |
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I can't find a single dictionary that recognizes either one of them. Google turns up ~150 entries for gurple, and ~240 for surple. But all the gurple entries (I only sampled them) appear to be made-up words. Surple appears to be a word made up by songsmith Roger Miller to rythm with purple:
"They say roses are red and violets are purple.
Sugar's sweet and so is maple surple."
(From Dang Me)
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #5 on: Oct 10th, 2003, 7:28am » |
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on Oct 2nd, 2003, 4:18pm, Sir Col wrote:| A fascinating new quiz show has just started on BBC television in the UK. |
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There's a similar show in Germany, called Genial daneben ("resourcefully off target" or whatever; link in German). I don't remember when it first aired, but the producer said he'd been proposing the show to various broadcasting companies for a while, I think.
Anyway, the target audience is no particular section of society and there are no points awarded. It's basically just for the fun of wrong, but more or less well-justified, answers. Quite often the five people in the panel guess or know the correct answer, but then again, the questions aren't really from another world. From the second season on, only questions sent in by viewers are used.
So the concept is different, but it's a lot of fun, as there are usually very well-known (German, of course) comedians in the panel.
Questions often deal with German sayings, but here are some others to give you an impression (please don't blame me for the sometimes rather debatable wording):
1. How does the king penguin incubate his eggs?
2. Why is the Zugspitze (highest mountain in Germany, on the border to Austria) 27cm higher when viewed from Germany than from Austria?
3. Why were dead cows blown up with dynamite in Vorarlberg (a federal state in Austria) until recently?
4. Why can you be on time to the minute, but still be late at a certain place on Rügen (largest German island)?
5. Why does Germany not have a constitution, but a "Grundgesetz"?
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| « Last Edit: Oct 10th, 2003, 7:32am by wowbagger » |
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #6 on: Oct 10th, 2003, 8:48am » |
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It seems that is much more the line that this show has taken now. Rather than ask questions with wrong, but invariably obvious and contentious, answers, they've gone for more of the, "you can't possibly know the answer, but please entertain us with your embarrassing demonstration of ignorance" type questions.
I know number 1, and I can guess at 2 and 3:
1. They incubate their eggs on their feet, so that they can still move around.
2. The average height (above sea level) of Deutschland is 27 cm higher than the average height of Österreich?
3. Was this an extreme measure to ensure that any cattle that died of unknown causes, and which might be infected with foot and mouth disease, would not be used as meat?
By the way, the words that rhyme with purple are hurple (sometimes spelt, hirple), and curple.
Here are a few more:
6. What is unique about Costa Rica's army?
7. Why does the Spanish army not have any Alsatian/German Shepherd dogs?
8. What sound does the largest frog in the world make?
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| « Last Edit: Oct 10th, 2003, 8:51am by Sir Col » |
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #7 on: Oct 10th, 2003, 11:36am » |
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Sir Col, your answer for number one is correct, I also knew that before the show.
Your guess at 2. is more or less correct: Actually the height is measured with respect to the tide gauge in Amsterdam for Germany, but wrt the Triest gauge in the case of Austria.
The reason for the strange behaviour described in question three is not health-related.
For the record, I didn't know the answers to numbers two to four - but of course I knew number 5. 
6. I think I remember something like no (offical) army at all or no official funds regarding Costa Rica, but I'm not sure that would be unique.
7. I didn't know it's remarkable that an army doesn't any of those dogs.
8. Maybe a loud one, or none at all?
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| « Last Edit: Oct 10th, 2003, 11:37am by wowbagger » |
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #8 on: Oct 10th, 2003, 11:37am » |
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on Oct 10th, 2003, 8:48am, Sir Col wrote:| 6. What is unique about Costa Rica's army? |
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It's the only army stationed in Costa Rica
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #9 on: Oct 12th, 2003, 9:45am » |
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Actually, towr, what makes Costa Rica's army unique is that they are the only country in the world not to have an army; in 1949 a new constitution proscribed it.
With an answer like, "loud one, or none at all", wowbagger, you're bound to get it right! 
I found the frog question one of the most interesting...
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The (wrong) obvious answer was, "ribbit". It turns out the Goliath frog, the largest frog in the world, makes no noise at all. Of the several thousand species of frogs in the world, only one makes the 'ribbit' sound; it is called the Southern Pacific Tree frog. The reason we now associate the 'ribbit' noise with a frog is because it is native to the area of North America around Hollywood studios.
::
As we're highly unlikely to get the Alsatian dog question about the Spanish army...
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The Spanish army requires all of its recruits to have a minimum IQ of 70. I'm not sure how they measure it, but the average IQ of an Alsatian dog is 60.
::
I'd love to know if they have any other breeds of dogs in the Spanish army?!
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #10 on: Oct 12th, 2003, 2:11pm » |
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on Oct 12th, 2003, 9:45am, Sir Col wrote:| Actually, towr, what makes Costa Rica's army unique is <hidden>. |
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I doubt that actually..
::Frankly I don't know if they don't have an army, but I'll buy it for the moment. More important though is that I'm pretty sure that there are other countries without an army, so Costa Rica can't be unique in this respect. Furthermore I don't think something can be unique by virtue of not existing. Many 'things' don't exist (which is paradoxical as well, since something isn't a thing if it doesn't exist.)
On the other hand, logically speaking, 'Costa Rica's army' is an empty domain (not existing and all), and so any statement about it is true..::
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #11 on: Oct 14th, 2003, 8:51am » |
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I agree with towr regarding the Costa Rica army. If I remember correctly, Iceland doesn't have an army either. However, they have a coastguard and supposedly even fired at the English during the cod wars.
on Oct 12th, 2003, 9:45am, Sir Col wrote:
With an answer like, "loud one, or none at all", wowbagger, you're bound to get it right! |
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Quote:I found the frog question one of the most interesting...
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The (wrong) obvious answer was, "ribbit".
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Actually, the German frogs make some sound like "quack" (with a long (German) a).
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #12 on: Oct 16th, 2003, 4:04pm » |
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I must correct my statement about Costa Rica's army: they are the only country that prohibits an army from its constitution.
Here are a few more to chew over...
9. How is it that ducks have killed more people than nuclear bombs?
10. How many legs does a centipede have?
11. Who discovered Australia?
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #13 on: Oct 16th, 2003, 11:25pm » |
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on Oct 16th, 2003, 4:04pm, Sir Col wrote:| 9. How is it that ducks have killed more people than nuclear bombs? |
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probably something like choking, or traffic accidents..
Quote:| 10. How many legs does a centipede have? |
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::varying from under a hundred to over a hundred, but so far never a hundred..::
Quote:| 11. Who discovered Australia? |
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The aboriginals, Captain Cook, and plenty of other people.
Y'know, I found yesterdays show slightly annoying, the presenter almost didn't let anyone else get a word in edgewise.. If he wanted to do a one man show he shouldn't invite the other four people..
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| « Last Edit: Oct 16th, 2003, 11:26pm by towr » |
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #14 on: Oct 17th, 2003, 3:52am » |
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I think a rethink on number 9 is needed: just over one-hundred thousand people were killed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Number 10 is interesting: as you pointed out, no centipede has ever been found with exactly one-hundred legs. What can be said for certain is that the number of legs is always even. Interestingly, in 1999, a centipede was discovered with 96 legs; this is the only ever recorded case for which the centipede had an even number of pairs (48). All other centipedes have an odd number of pairs of legs.
Number 11 is probably well known to most people now, anyway: firstly, James Cook was not a captain when he 'discovered' Australia. However, the most important fact is that the Chinese discovered Australia in the ninth century. In the fifteenth century they produced maps of the continent; the same maps that Cook and the crew used, in 1770, to navigate to Australia. If, on the other hand, we argue that he was the first European, then we must not forget, William Dampier, who visited the continent 80 years ealier.
Another interesting 'fact' is that the Aboriginal people came from what is now Italy. They are thought to have been native to Australia for around forty thousand years. They would have travelled there originally when the continental plates of Asia and Australasia were joined.
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| « Last Edit: Oct 18th, 2003, 7:09am by Sir Col » |
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #15 on: Oct 17th, 2003, 5:56am » |
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on Oct 17th, 2003, 3:52am, Sir Col wrote:| I think a rethink on number 9 is needed |
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Your objection is not necessarily ruling out towr's suggestion. Over the centuries, ducks may well have choked thousands of people. Anyway, I guess you're after the answer: It's because ducks haven't killed any nuclear bombs.
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #16 on: Oct 17th, 2003, 8:21am » |
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on Oct 17th, 2003, 3:52am, Sir Col wrote:| Another interesting 'fact' is that the Aboriginal people came from what is now Italy. |
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how factual is that? Cause I've never heard of it, and assumed they got there from africa through the middleeast through south-east asia, without a detour to italy.. Moreso since it seems europe was settled from asia (from the middle east through the caucasus and back west), and it would be going against the stream..
Also Europe has only been populated by modern man for 20 or 30 thousand years or so, not enough time to get to australia and live there 40 thousand years.. (Of course the time-frames may well come from different sources which disagree)
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #17 on: Oct 18th, 2003, 4:27am » |
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I'm not sure how 'factual' it is; how sure are any of us of 'facts' these days?
I mentioned it because I was reminded about it by something said in QI; coincidentally I read it recently too. I know that the word, aborigine, from Latin, ab+origine, means 'from (distant time) origin/birth', and was first used in Latium, Italy, to refer to the original inhabitants. The Aborigines were a mythical people from this region; you can read a little about it here:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aborigines
Here are a couple more...
12. What are the four official languages of Switzerland?
13. Which is the only language to have been used on Swiss stamps?
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #18 on: Oct 18th, 2003, 10:03am » |
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on Oct 18th, 2003, 4:27am, Sir Col wrote:If you check the link under the story, you'll see the term aborigine is also used as "the generic term for the first people who inhabit a region".
And Aboriginals (not Aborigines) is the term for the original inhabitants of australia..
Quote:| 12. What are the four official languages of Switzerland? |
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::french, german, italian, and some quaint romanic language..::
Quote:| 13. Which is the only language to have been used on Swiss stamps? |
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::I only know this because I saqw that show allready..
It's latin::
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| « Last Edit: Oct 18th, 2003, 10:03am by towr » |
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #19 on: Oct 18th, 2003, 6:53pm » |
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The reason ducks have killed more people than nuclear bombs have: New flu viruses generally form in populations of fowls. Influenza has killed many millions of people.
Concerning Australian Aborigines - having a latin name does not mean they themselves came from Italy. Also, there has been no land connection between Australia and other continents since it broke with South America (Okay - I'm not sure about Antartica). The aborigines had to arrive in boats. Not an impossible trip, particularly during an Ice Age when ocean levels were lower.
One other tidbit: Genetic information indicates that there is a genetic spectrum with Africans at one end and Australian aborigines at the other. Everyone else falls somewhere in the middle, pretty much according to theories about what lands along the arc connecting this two locations their ancestors came from.
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #20 on: Oct 19th, 2003, 7:27am » |
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on Oct 18th, 2003, 6:53pm, Icarus wrote:| The reason ducks have killed more people than nuclear bombs have: <hidden> |
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Good call, I hadn't thought about that..
It helps that ducks have been around millions of years longer than nuclear weapons as well..
And of course there's their nefarious plot to overthrow humanity and all that
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #21 on: Oct 19th, 2003, 12:17pm » |
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on Oct 18th, 2003, 10:03am, towr wrote:| And Aboriginals (not Aborigines) is the term for the original inhabitants of australia. |
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Actually, as a noun, the word aborigine is now synonymous with aboriginal. However, the word aboriginal was originally the adjective form of aborigine. Through constant misuse, it has now become accepted as a noun; the word aborigine still remains exclusively a noun.
As I mentioned in my second post, the show is a deliberate attempt to laugh in the face of common notions. It's more of an exercise in twisting the truth to see how far they can get away with it.
Some people may object to this intellectual mockery, but to an intelligent viewer (and I'm sure that this is the exclusive audience anyway), they know more now than they did before. This is because we've had our database of learned 'facts' challenged, and we've been forced to research the credability of it for ourselves; en route we pick up other things we never knew before.
The Australian aborigine question is a prime example. If you didn't know before, you now know: (i) the term aborigine applies to indigenous people in general, (ii) the word is taken from Latin and was first used in the Lazio region of Italy to refer to a mythical people, (iii) the shift of continental plates, tens of thousands of years ago, makes it very near impossible to talk about original inhabitants with any authority, and, (iv) Africans and Australian aborigines are as far apart genetically as the human race allows; thanks for that last bit, Icarus, that's QI.
By the way, good answers on the others. And I know what you mean about ducks, towr – I've never trusted those feathery fiends!
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| « Last Edit: Oct 19th, 2003, 12:20pm by Sir Col » |
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #22 on: Oct 19th, 2003, 9:13pm » |
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on Oct 19th, 2003, 12:17pm, Sir Col wrote:| (iii) the shift of continental plates, tens of thousands of years ago, makes it very near impossible to talk about original inhabitants with any authority... |
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No - the continental shifts were long before the beginning of human history. When the Aborigines arrived, Australia was roughly the same as it is now. There is still shifting going on, but it is measured in inches per year, so the process is extremely slow.
My point was that the Aborigines arrived by boat from Indonesia. There was never a land bridge connecting Australia to the Asian mainland. We know this because of the relatively few non-marsupial mammals on the continent before the arrival of Europeans. Those that were there are assumed to have come with the Aborigines. Had there ever been a land bridge, the continent would have many relatives of the fauna of Indonesia, but it doesn't. The closest relatives to the native mammals of Australia are to be found in the Americas. I'm not sure if Asia/Europe/Africa still have any native marsupials at all. In the Americas, there are a few.
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"Pi goes on and on and on ...
And e is just as cursed.
I wonder: Which is larger
When their digits are reversed? " - Anonymous
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Sir Col
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impudens simia et macrologus profundus fabulae
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #23 on: Oct 20th, 2003, 12:45am » |
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I wasn't suggesting that the planet was a continuous surface. Rather, the lands would have been sufficiently close for small sea journeys.
on Oct 19th, 2003, 9:13pm, Icarus wrote:| I'm not sure if Asia/Europe/Africa still have any native marsupials at all. In the Americas, there are a few. |
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Only those born in zoos.
The term native is interesting: it comes from the Latin, natus, meaning, to be born. However, the common notion is something that originates from there, but in what form?; common notions deceive us.
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Sir Col
Uberpuzzler
impudens simia et macrologus profundus fabulae
Gender:
Posts: 1825
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Re: QI (now that's Quite Interesting)
« Reply #24 on: Oct 23rd, 2003, 3:28pm » |
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I'm back with more questions and, no doubt, highly controversial answers...
1. What is the biological definition of a bug?
2. Which word takes up most room in the Oxford English Dictionary?
3. On average, how much do finger nails grow after you die?
4. What do bananas grow on?
5. What is titi and a lili?
6. Who coined the phrase, "Survival of the fittest?"
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