2922: Pub Trivia

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Pub Trivia

Title text: Bonus question: Where is London located? (a) The British Isles (b) Great Britain and Northern Ireland (c) The UK (d) Europe (or 'the EU') (e) Greater London

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by A BOT ASKING BAD TRIVIA QUESTIONS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Many pubs have trivia nights, where patrons form teams and compete to answer questions about a range of topics. The typical goal for trivia games is that they be challenging, yet possible, and so questions with answers that are too difficult or too easy generally make for a poor game. In addition, it's usually preferable that questions are clearly worded with a single, objective answer, so as to avoid disputes about which answers are correct.

Cueball has apparently been hired by one bar to infiltrate other bars' quiz nights and ask particularly bad questions. The implication is that this will make the games unpleasant, in the hopes that people will leave, and possibly go to the bar that hired Cueball.

Cueball uses a variety of strategies to write bad questions, including questions that are trivial (where the answer is painfully obvious), unanswerable (either because there is no answer or because the answer is unknown), ambiguously worded or arguable.

Many of his questions could be altered slightly to make them more reasonable for such a game, but that would defeat Cueball's purpose.

It is possible the intention of this pub quiz is to identify the issues with each question as is done here, accepting these as the answers. As Cueball was hired by a rival pub, they could then take these corrections back to that rival place.

Question	Problem with the Question	Explanation	More Reasonable Alternative(s)
1. Which member of BTS has a birthday this year?	Potentially confusing trick question.	All people have birthdays every year[citation needed] (other than pedantic exceptions due to calendar issues or timezone alterations, or someone dying before their birthday, or being born on a leap day, none of which apply in this case). Therefore, answering with any of the seven members of BTS would be correct making the question equivalent to "Name any member of BTS" (a perfectly valid pub trivia question). The trick nature of this question may result in participant questions or confusion if not "par for the course".	Name any member of BTS. Which member of BTS has a birthday today/this week/this month? Which member of BTS turns [a specific age] this year?
2. How many sides does a platonic solid have?	Multiple answers, ambiguous language	There are five Platonic solids, with 4, 6, 8, 12 or 20 faces (colloquially called sides) in Euclidean 3-space. The solids have, respectively, 6, 12, 12, 30 and 30 edges (also occasionally called sides colloquially). A more devious quizmaster might actually include this as a trick question with the correct answer being 'zero', since strictly speaking solids do not have 'sides'. Or 'two' inside and outside.	How many Platonic solids are there? What is the highest number of faces on a Platonic solid? How many faces does a [specific Platonic solid] have? How many faces (or edges, or vertices) do all the Platonic solids have (i.e., added together)? What is the number of vertices, minus the number of edges, plus the number of faces equal to for a platonic solid (i.e., the Euler characteristic)?
3. What is the smallest lake in the world?	Arguable, potentially unknowable	While the largest lakes are relatively straightforward to categorize, smaller bodies of water range in size down to individual puddles. There is no clear, definitional line at which a body goes from being a lake to a pond, for example. In addition, the size of small lakes will fluctuate due to variability in precipitation, and other weather effects, and some lakes only exist for brief periods (intermittent lakes). Hence, which small bodies of water are "lakes" and which is the smallest can't be clearly answered, without specifying a whole list of parameters and standards. This question is related to the Tom Scott video What counts as the world's shortest river?	What lake has the largest surface area in the world? What is the world's deepest lake? What lake is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's smallest? (Benxi Lake in China).
4. Which Steven Spielberg movie features more shark attacks, Jaws (1975) or Lincoln (2012)?	Trivial	Jaws is a famous movie about a killer shark, and features at least five fatal shark attacks. Lincoln is a movie about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, containing zero shark attacks.[citation needed] Anyone with even a passing familiarity with American popular culture should be able to get this one right, and someone with no knowledge could likely guess the answer from the titles alone. This might be mistaken for a silly trick question, as Lincoln is a much less famous movie.	How many times is a shark seen on screen in "Jaws"? Which film won more Academy Awards? How many fatal shark attacks occur in "Jaws"? Which movie in the "Jaws" franchise has the most shark attacks?
5. How many planets were there originally?	Ambiguous	The question doesn't specify a time frame or culture, which is necessary to understand both the word 'planet' and the word 'originally'. It could be referring to the original meaning of the word planet, which in antiquity referred to the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (total of 7 planets). It could be referring to the planets originally known to the quiz master, which (assuming Cueball is between 18 and 96 years old) would be after the reclassification of Ceres, Pallas, Vesta and Juno to asteroids, and after the discovery of Pluto, but prior to the reclassification of Pluto to dwarf planet (total of 9 planets). It could conceivably be referring to the first official definition of planet by the International Astronomical Union in 2006, which would be Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune (total of 8 planets). It could be referring to the process of planetary formation, in which case another layer of ambiguity is added, as it could be referring to the number of protoplanetary bodies in the protoplanetary disk (which is unknown since some of them were destroyed like Theia), or the number of planets that accreted from the disk before some were likely ejected (which is also unknown), or how many planets existed when the sun or the universe was formed (which is 0). It also doesn't specify that it's referring to planets in our solar system alone (in the galaxy there are almost certainly trillions of planets). Additionally, it asks how many "were there", as opposed to how many planets "were known" (the number which we know of being far smaller than the true number of planets in the universe).	How many planets were known to Ancient Greece? How many planets were known to science prior to the invention of the telescope? How many planets were recognized in our Solar System at the end of the 20th century?
6. What NFL player has scored the most points outside of a game?	Ambiguous, unknowable	The term "scored the most points" generally only applies within the context of a game, making it very unclear what kind of "points" the question is referring to. Does it mean points in non-NFL games? Points in games other than football? Points outside the context of any game at all (such as 'making a point' in conversation)? Even if this were clarified, points scored in official games in professional sports leagues are meticulously recorded and published, points scored in any other context are not, so the question is likely impossible to answer. Arguably, Brian Jordan would be an answer, with 121 Minor League and 755 MLB runs scored (points).	Which NFL player scored the most points in a game/season/career?
7. The Wright brothers built the first airplane. Who built the last one?	Unknowable	Orville and Wilbur Wright are widely credited with designing and building the first airplane (in the sense that they invented wingflaps, and discounting everybody flying before them without wingflaps). In modern times, design and construction of airplanes has become a huge, international industry, with many airplanes of widely varying sizings being built each year. Since airplanes are built continuously, which one was made most recently depends on when the question is asked (and would be very difficult for the average person to know -- and not trivial for even a member of the aerospace industry to know). If it's asking about the last airplane ever, that's impossible to know, since that plane hasn't been built yet[citation needed] (and likely won't for a very long time).	Who built the first airplane after the Wright brothers? When was the final Wright Model B aircraft built?
8. Is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?	Unknown, possibly unknowable	This is a famous, centuries-old open question in math known as Goldbach's conjecture. Mathematicians widely believe that it is true, and it has held true for every number checked up to 4 ⋅ 1018, but since it's impossible to check every number, we can't assume it's universally true. No mathematical proof of its veracity exists at this point. Since it is known that something can be true but impossible to prove (and, being true, impossible to disprove), this may be the situation forever.	According to which mathematical conjecture is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?
9. Not counting Canberra, what city is the capital of Australia?	No answer exists	Australia has only one capital (unlike some countries, which divide the legislative and administrative capitals, for example Bolivia with Le Paz and Sucre), and that capital is Canberra. Hence, by definition, there is no national capital "not counting Canberra". Though each constituent state also has its state capital, this would still leave us with an ambiguous choice. Before 1927, the answer could be Melbourne, as that was where the Parliament sat at that time. This may be a joke about how other cities, such as Melbourne and Sydney, are often mistaken for the capital of Australia due to Canberra's comparatively small population (roughly 500,000 in the greater metropolitan area, compared to Melbourne and Sydney's roughly 5,000,000 each). It also alludes to the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne as each claims to be the true capital.	What city is the capital of Australia? What is currently the largest city in Australia? What is the smallest state capital in Australia? What city was the most recently founded state capital of Australia? What city was the capital city before Canberra?
10. Who played the drums?	Trivial, yet unknowable without context	As worded, the question could be answered with anyone who's ever played the drums, in any context, whether professional or not, in all of history. This would include a huge number of people, most of whom would not be well-known. Most people would be able to offer a technically correct answer, and almost none of them would be interesting. Or maybe the host is wondering who it was that played drums that night, as part of the bar's live music.	Who played the drums for some specific band/album/track/concert/tour/time/place?
(Title text) Where is London located? (a) the British Isles (b) Great Britain and Northern Ireland (c) the UK (d) Europe (or 'the EU') (e) Greater London	Multiple answers	All choices are technically correct as they are various geographical areas that include the city of London, England. Also note that the City of London is different from the city named London, as the latter includes a large region around the former, hence (e) as an answer. Answer (d) is both correct and incorrect, as it conflates a geographic region, Europe, and a political body, the European Union. The United Kingdom (and therefore London) left the EU in 2020, but is still geographically included in Europe. In addition, answer (b) is not a single geographical designation, but two combined together. Meanwhile, answer (c) is short for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but as well as Northern Ireland and Great Britain (the largest of the British Isles), it includes many other (though not all) surrounding islands, despite these not being mentioned in its full official name. Nonetheless, 'Great Britain' is often used as synecdoche for all of the UK except Northern Ireland (as well as for the UK as a whole), which could make answers (b) and (c), in a loose sense, equivalent. (Answer (a) is a different thing again, including islands that are neither Great Britain, nor part of the UK.) This often confusing overlapping map of definitions and nomenclatures provides fertile ground for tricky quiz questions. This also does not get into cities named London outside of the UK, so for example "Ontario" or "Canada" could also be possible answers if the test designer were truly evil, thus making none of the answers correct.	What is the capital of the United Kingdom? (answer: London) Where is London, England not located? (a) the British Isles (b) Great Britain and Northern Ireland (c) the UK (d) Europe (e) the EU (answer: (e))

Transcript

[The top half of Cueball is shown beneath the list of questions he is reading aloud. He is holding a wireless microphone in his right hand and a pencil and notebook in his left, reading from the notebook and speaking into the microphone. The list is shown on the notebook as well, but just as unreadable lines.]:

Cueball: Welcome to pub trivia! Round one is 10 questions:

1. Which member of BTS has a birthday this year?
2. How many sides does a platonic solid have?
3. What is the smallest lake in the world?
4. Which Steven Spielberg movie features more shark attacks - Jaws (1975) or Lincoln (2012)?
5. How many planets were there originally?
6. What NFL player has scored the most points outside of a game?
7. The Wright brothers built the first airplane. Who built the last one?
8. Is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?
9. Not counting Canberra, what city is the capital of Australia?
10. Who played the drums?

[Caption below the panel]:

A local pub trivia place hired me to run bad quizzes at competing bars.

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Discussion

I expect that the BTS question is a reference to the traditional Korean system of counting a person's age in units of Sal which started at 1 and incremented on the first day of the year. Since this system was abandoned on official documents in 2023, but is still in use in some contexts, the question of whether every member of BTS had a "birthday" on the first day of the year is ambiguous. Philhower (talk) 14:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

This is marked as fiction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csSYfPaBaS4, but was it?

question 5, planets exist outside the solar system, adding to the ambiguity. Philhower (talk) 14:15, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

One of the requirements in the definition of a planet is that it orbits the Sun, so no there are no planets outside the Solar system. Tharkon (talk) 17:50, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

NASA disagrees. Exoplanet Archive shows 5612 confirmed planets. -- Hkmaly (talk) 20:55, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The IAU is the body that defines such things - and they do say that planets have to orbit the Sun...things that orbit other stars are properly called "exo-planets". But still - do we include dwarf planets? Rogue planets? It's definitely a crazy-vague question. 172.70.211.219 21:05, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

the IAU is one body that claims the authority to define such things, but their authority is not recognized by any of the things they are claiming the right to name. (Except for a very small part of earth, mostly made of humans) 172.69.58.203 00:10, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

That seems ridiculous, "If it isn't one of ours it don't count"? That'd be like saying "They're only 'cars' if they use North American roads, in other countries using THEIR roads you have to call them exo-cars!". LOL! And every future/space-based fiction calls them planets, just makes more sense not to be so arbitrarily exclusionary. Ours isn't the only sun, we shouldn't pretend it has some aspect that makes it count more than others - outside of that it's the one with us. NiceGuy1 (talk) 06:09, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Correction, the IAU definition explicitly states that it is only about planets within the solar system and has no comment about exoplanets one way or the other. Presumably, to leave some flexibility on all the weird edge cases that are bound to come up with exoplanets. https://www.iau.org/static/resolutions/Resolution_GA26-5-6.pdf 172.68.195.213 07:55, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Gas giants should be excluded too - they're not planets - just wannabe stars.172.70.163.31 08:34, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the correct answer is 0: before the solar system formed there were no planets. So, originally, there would have been none. If exo-planets count, going back to the beginning of time gives the same answer: when the universe came into existence during the big bang there were no stars, let alone planets orbiting them. Even religion agrees: in the beginning God created the earth and the heavens, but the sun came later, so technically earth was not a planet since it didn't orbit anything.--162.158.62.49 22:23, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

As for question 9, please see the note about the history of Austrailia's capitals at: [[1]]. and the page regarding countries with multiple capitals [[2]] Philhower (talk) 14:24, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

See Also List of Australian capital cities - As an Australian, I believe many would also consider the major city in their state/territory to be a capital city, although not the capital of Australia.

The explanation misses the possibility that this is a Dad joke: where the capital city of Australia is 'Canberra,' as long as the respondent doesn't actually count either the letters in Canberra (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) or the population of Canberra (unknowable/ambiguous). Bilkie (talk) 14:12, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

About the alt text, London is certainly in Europe. The question itself is malformed because "Europe (or 'the EU')" is not self-consistent: there is a lot of European countries that are not part of the EU. RedGolpe (talk) 14:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The "Greater London" answer is also tricksy, as the "ceremonial county" of GL may not include the additional area of the City Of London (though it does include the City Of Westminster, which is sometimes the trick answer to certain trick questions that a quizmaster might attempt to pull). The administrative Greater London is the ceremonial one plus CoL, however... 172.70.162.19 15:04, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I would argue London is not in Europe because there is no clear definition for Europe as a geographic area, it really doesn't have an eastern border that is not arbitrary, so the only clearly defined thing Europe can refer to is the EU. Tharkon (talk) 17:50, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

London, France is both in Europe and the EU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London,_France 172.70.163.49 18:00, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

While the eastern border of Europe is not clearly defined I am not aware that there is any definition of (geographic) Europe that excludes the islands (and subsequently London) --162.158.202.135 21:24, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

There's "mainland Europe", excluding islands. Or at least any of several possibly island archipeligos and/or island nationstates. e.g. Mont-Saint-Michel might not be (exluded, that is, due to being French and having a (tide-dependant) ground access), Jersey would be (British Crown Territory island), Malta probably (island state), Sicily would depend on your thinking (it being Italian, and much larger than the strait that makes it an island offshoot). Most of Scandinavia might be interestingly included (with Denmark) or excluded (with Iceland), according to context. Even Gibraltar might or might not be, depending upon upon the thinking (or lack of it) behind the use of the term. (But, fiddling around the edges aside, (the English) London is not in "mainland Europe" and hasn't been for maybe a full 10kY before it became "London" in any useful sense.) 172.70.163.49 23:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The phrase "continental Europe" is also used, and might be implied by a British person saying "I travelled around Europe last year". 172.69.195.54 15:01, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

The (semi-)apocryphal headline "Fog In Channel, Continent Cut Off" is perhaps indicative of the Continental Europe#Great Britain and Ireland British collective mindset (of which I must therefore be a component, albeit not at that end of the spectrum). 172.71.242.71 15:39, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd say The European Council has at least as good (or bad, depending which way you look at it) a claim to be 'Europe' as the EU does, and London (through the UK) is in that (for now, anyway).172.71.242.55 09:07, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The Benxi Lake is actually considered to be the smallest lake in the world. 172.70.135.205

^{[citation needed]}172.70.86.176 14:40, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Many websites says Benxi lake is recognized by Guinness records, but guinnessworldrecords.com does not have such a record. Either they recognized smallest lakes previously but not anymore, or they never had such a record and we are witnessing citogenesis ([3]) 172.71.154.210 17:33, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I've been getting the Guinness World Records book for 20 years. I just checked my 2004 edition, and there is no record for "smallest lake". Doesn't mean it wasn't left out due to space concerns, but I'm not checking all the books. NealCruco (talk) 04:34, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Kari Lake is considerably smaller than Benxi Lake, although she has children so may not be the smallest Lake172.70.162.17 15:58, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I never realized how challenging it is to edit pages when they've just been posted. Makes me long for something like Google docs.172.68.3.43 14:39, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

People, who are born on 29th February don't have a birthday in years which are not leap years. However, 2024, when this comic was published is a leap year. --162.158.95.9 14:40, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

"5. How many planets were there originally?" This could also refer even back to the start of the universe, when there were (likely) just 0 planets. --162.158.86.101 14:43, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I anticiated a lot of Edit Conflicts, but not actually quite so many as to not to be able to resolve my edits with everyone else's. This is the bare-bones that I was putting in (until finding multiple attempts tried to be added consecutively...

...make use of it however you wish, anybody who has the time not to keep chasing all the simultaneous edits. (The above is a bit behind 'perfection', and lacks many of the integrations, wikilinks and adjustments I had made. I backspaced out of the edit I had finally reached, before remembering to take a full copy into my paste-buffer!) 172.70.90.115 14:53, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I thought the answer to #2 could be 1, because as 3D solids they only have one surface. I would guess the player with the most points outside of a game is the one who's played idlers (like Cookie Clicker) the longest — though I suppose those could be considered "inside of a game" as well. Also, I played the drums. 172.70.254.143 15:33, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The answer to #2 is '2 - the in-side and the out-side'.172.69.43.242 15:46, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Considering the platonic solids explanation lists all the correct answers, could someone include a list of all the members of BTS and their respective birthdays? Bing copilot suggests the following:

1. **Jin (Kim Seok-jin)**:

- Birthday: **December 4, 1992**

2. **Suga (Min Yoon-gi)**:

- Birthday: **March 9, 1993**

3. **J-Hope (Jung Hoseok)**:

- Birthday: **February 18, 1994**

4. **RM (Kim Nam-joon)**:

- Birthday: **September 12, 1994**

5. **Jimin (Park Ji-min)**:

- Birthday: **October 13, 1995**

6. **V (Kim Tae-Hyung)**:

- V's birthday is **December 30**, but the year is not mentioned in the provided information.

7. **Jungkook (Jeon Jungkook)**:

- Jungkook's birthday is **September 1**, but the year is not mentioned in the provided information.

172.70.162.19 15:48, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to adding BTS birthdays, but I think it should be done by someone more knowledgeable about the band than me. Birthdays can be a surprisingly nuanced subject.Comatoran (talk) 15:59, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia says '95 and '97 respectively172.70.162.37 16:04, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

London is both a City (London) and a City within a City (The City of London) and an Area (Greater London) There are also many more places named London than the one that is the Capital of the UK .. Serbia, France, Canada (Which is larger and the one in the UK), 10 in the USA, and one on Kiribati 17:56, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Are you saying London, Ontario, Canada is BIGGER than the more famous London, England??? That's a country capital! Is that seriously true? I'm Canadian, I don't know London, ON as being THAT big... NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:52, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

It's very unlikely to be larger in population terms than the (common!) wider definition of the main UK London, as that would make it larger than any other city in Canada by a large margin. In terms of area, London ON is very likely to be larger than the City of London (which is surprisingly small). More widely, the definition of what actually is a "city" is more complex than it appears to be at first glance; administrative areas (what official statistics are collected for) are often quite different from where the bulk of people are. --162.158.74.25 07:20, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Some wikipedia figures, for reference:

• London, Ontario = 168.76 sq mi, Population 422,324
• City of London, subset of Capital of UK = 1.12 sq mi, Population 8,618
• London, administrative/etc capital of UK = 606.96 sq mi, Population 8,799,800
• London, Belgrade = a 'neighbourhood' (<1 sq mi?), Population unknown
• London, France = 'a small agricultural village'
• ...
• 8837 London = 1.5 mi diameter (~28s q mi, ~14 cu mi?), Population... some of the Clangers?

I skipped a few of the others (e.g. the various US ones: cities, townships, communities)... 162.158.230.46 18:10, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm surprised there were no phishing-type questions (i.e. "what are the last four digits of your social security number", "what are the three numbers on the back of your debit card", etc).22:33, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The only correct answer(s) to "who played the drums" would be "the drummer", or "twelve drummers", but I would accept Phil Collins, Alex Van Halen, or Ringo Starr for half a point each 108.162.241.100 02:40, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

"Who played the drums" is Keith Moon; in this cryptic clue, "Who" is the name of the band, and "played the drums" indicates the drummer; hence the answer is Keith Moon, the drummer of The Who. Sabik (talk) 04:29, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Clearly the correct answer is 'Animal'.172.71.178.176 08:45, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I asked my Mom these questions & she said the answer to #7 so flatly: Boeing ProphetZarquon (talk) 02:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

On the Capital of Australia: Melbourne hosted parliament before Canberra was built, and Jervis Bay was part of the ACT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jervis_Bay_Territory

Are there people outside of the USA that are surprised to learn that Washington D.C. is the capital of the USA, rather than New York, Los Angeles, Chicago etc. due to its relatively small population? ("only" ~670000 in 2024) These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 06:50, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I came here all prepared to say that the Title Text should have Ontario, Canada as a (likewise correct) answer, but I see somebody already put that into the table, LOL! I feel like the "More Reasonable" version of the planet question should NOT mention Pluto, it should be the question IMPLIED in the comic whose answer is 9 (such as "How many planets were originally in our Solar System", but without the ambiguity of "originally". Basically a question whose answer is 9, pushing people to include Pluto, while allowing people the mistake of saying the current answer of 8, but mentioning Pluto would ruin that/the question). NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:52, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

There could also be a person Named "London" who is located somewhere, perhaps in the same bar (or not) -- 172.70.46.71 12:13, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_%28name%29 172.70.42.31 16:27, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I thought I knew the minimum size of a lake by definition, at least in the US, but I just found different authorities asserting 1, 10, and 20 acres as the distinction between a lake and a pond. Two non-metric distinctions are that a lake has an aphotic (dark) zone, or a lake is fed and drained by a river, but they don't help here. 172.70.43.53 16:22, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

For the love of god can we stop saying that Pluto was "demoted" to a dwarf planet? It didn't have its category changed, it had its category defined (for the first time!). It was a founding member of a newly named category. And it's not like planets are better than dwarf planets, they're just different. (I'm going to die on this hill, ain't I?) 172.68.34.16 01:35, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, you probably are. When it happened, many people, including astronomers, considered it a downgrade. There's some prestige in being a planet -- the Sun and the planets are considered the most significant objects in the Solar System. The qualifier suggests that it's less important than the "real" planets, and was kicked out of the planet club for being deficient in some way. Maybe we need a campaign from dwarf humans to remind everyone that they're just smaller, but they have no less dignity. Barmar (talk) 23:41, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll cheerfully die there with you. But I'll also point out while I'm doing so that if it's a 'dwarf planet', then clearly it is still a planet. I mean, people would look at you funny if you tried to claim that a dwarf elephant wasn't an elephant. And perhaps more pertinently, a dwarf star is still a star. So the answer to 'how many planets are in our solar system?' is 'at least 16 that we know of - depends how far down you count. Unless you discount the gas giants, in which case you need to subtract four. Or maybe two. Wait - how many are we on now again?'172.71.178.157 11:14, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll happily agree with you, and I've often said the same as Mr./Ms 178.157 above me that "dwarf planet" still sounds like a type of planet to me. However, it WAS demoted. Officially, the Solar System is now 8 planets. Pluto is no longer an official member of the Solar System, despite not leaving or being destroyed. THAT'S the part that's bothersome, a statistic from our childhood - "The Solar System has 9 planets" - was changed, seemingly unnecessarily, since nothing ACTUALLY happened to Pluto. Why can't a Dwarf Planet count as a member? Why kick Pluto out? Colloquially, though not politically correct, Little People have been called dwarves, should they therefore not count as people? Are they too small to be "people"? They have a qualifier added to "people", just as Pluto has a qualifier added to "planet", after all. :) It doesn't seem difficult to bring this to somewhere where it's more clearly wrong. NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:50, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

For the planet question there's also Theia, which is theorized to have been a planet prior to smashing into proto Earth and forming the moon and modern larger Earth. So there used to be at least nine planets by the current definition in our solar system. 162.158.155.20 03:50, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

For question #8, it's not that mathematicians were idling around. A lot of partial results were made, see Wiki. 172.71.160.33 08:22, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I was confused by this question at first. The answer is "no." It is disproved by example. 21+3=24 21 is not a prime. 24 is even. 162.158.154.65 (talk) 19:38, 21 April 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

24 is the sum of many pairs of numbers. Amongst those pairs (as with any even number >2) may be one ore more pairs of primes (even 2, if you count 1 as a prime - though generally one doesn't). 24 is (just looking at the odd numbers >1) 21+3, 19+5 (both primes!), 17+7 (both primes), 15+9 (no), 13+11 (both primes) and then of course the reverses of these (if you count those). So 24 is the sum of two primes (three, or six, times). 4 is just the sum of 2+2, 6 is only 3+3, 8 is only 5+3... And every even number checked from there on up can be expressed as the sum of two primes (at least once). But is there ever a point at which there is an even number that is not?

With 3, 5 and 7 being primes, then you can definitely say that if N is an even number that has (or even relies upon) a solution with 3, then N+2 and N+4 are, which would be answerable by the same sum but with 5 or 7 instead. Plus N+8 (3->11), N+10 (3>13). And maybe you can fill in the N+6 and N+8 by the other prime used being also a suitable twin prime that you can swap out for the P±2 partner. But only if it's the right prime of any given pair, and not all primes are twins, so there's a lot more to consider about whether any given advancement up the even-numnber ladder can be answered by a suitable pair of primes.

e.g. 15440=7717+7723 (one possible solution). 15442 therefore needs +2 to that. But 7717 and 7723 ar adjacent primes that areen't two apart (so you can't just add two to 7717 and have 7723 + 7723) and the next adjacent primes are 7703 and 7727 (not two apart, and not obviously useful to go 7717->7703, either). So there must be another solution (theoretically, but also proven by having been checked). By doing quite a bit of to-and-fro (if that's how we're doing it), we can finally announce that 15442=7649+7793 (but I also found 7523+7919, 7541+7901, 7559+7883 and 7589+7853, before I stopped the search). So It works up to 15442.

15444? Well, neither 7649 or 7793 have a +2 prime-partner. But 7589 is followed by 7591 (as a new partner to 7853). And 7559 is followed by 7561, so 7561+7883 would also be an answer. There will (probably) be many others.

But will there always be many others? Or even just the one? I'm sure someone has been counting how many unique (bidirectional) solutions each number has, and probably there are some that only just get the requisite single pair of primes that sum to it. Could it ever not even manage that? Those actually familiar with the efforts to prove the conjecture would know, rather than a fool like me coming fresh to the problem. (Relatively, that is... I already knew about it, but I've never tried to wade into the actual theory until right now, and this random example I set up to 'explain' this, just now.) 172.71.242.175 21:01, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

It looks like it was a mistake on my part to infer that the question meant "exclusively the sum of two primes." Allen 162.158.62.237 15:12, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Well, no number is "just the sum of two primes" (4=3+1, and 1 isn't prime; or 4+0, and neither of those are; all before considering negative, fractional or even complex/quaternian 'summations' (e.g. (2+3i)+(2-3i)=4), which primes definitely are not part of, regardless of how they together become '4'...), so "Is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?" sort of has to imply only that there "are two primes which sum", rather than ever "the only numbers which sum will all be primes". Hyper-pedanticity (or deliberate linguistic trickery) aside, that's really not in question.

But nice to understand where you were coming from, at least. 172.70.163.49 20:15, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

• About Q2: the "number of sides" may be "the average number of sides" of a Platonic solid, which is 10, despite having no Platonic decahedron
• About Q10: with a correct list of answers, it may be kept as-is with having to select the drummer(s).

162.158.78.38 10:47, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

That assumes that the Platonic solids occur in equal numbers in the universe. In actuality, there are probably more of some than others, which would throw your average off. Alternatively, you could argue that none of any of them actually exist (by virtue of them being Platonic, and any example being an imperfect approximation), in which case the answer is either 'none' or 'unanswerable', since you can't average nothing.172.70.85.156 12:39, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The smallest lake in the world is Snowf Lake. 172.70.34.58 (talk) 02:22, 23 April 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The title text reminds me of some old viral social media post where an alleged smart-a** teacher made a test question that was like "What is the opposite of 'old'? (a) new (b) young". (I don't remember if it was specifically mentioned, but the implication was that the question would then be graded completely arbitrarily.) Zowayix (talk) 21:01, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Smallest lake

IMHO there is a reasonable interpretation of the smallest lake question: what is the smallest officially named naturally occurring body of freshwater. Stevage (talk) 06:31, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Does this go so far as to include "...that has the word 'lake' in it"? (Or ’lac’, or other acceptably exact linguistic equivalent, perhaps?)

There is the "How many lakes are there in the Lake District?" classic British quiz question. Possible answer: there are perhaps 21(ish) 'lake-like' water bodies, but only Bassenthwaite Lake is called a lake, the rest are 'water's, 'mere's, 'tarn's (maybe then "not-a-lake", like "lochens are not lochs") and a handful of reservoirs (maybe not a lake, for being not natural?). Thus to avoid trouble, and especially how far to go to down the "pond, pool and puddle" route, the only truly unambiguous answer, once you know the 'trick', is "one". (Noting that "Lake Windermere" is a common misnomer for the body of water that is really just "Windermere", the actual largest "English lake". It having perhaps been tautologically enhanced to distinguish from "Windermere, the town", the main settlement in the area that was actually called Birthwaite prior to the arrival of the railway station that took the 'lake' name and then just rolled with it for the benefit of the unwashed/washed visiting masses.)

...this being sort of summarised in the Explanation at one point, actually, but got considered surplus. But a "smallest lake in the Lake District" question of this kind now explicitly excludes all the arguments about whether that means Easedale Tarn (by most linear dimensions) or Hayeswater (volumetric), whether or not you subscribe to other physical classification exclusions or the "Lake Windermere" name. 172.70.163.48 08:54, 24 April 2024 (UTC)