{"id":35884,"date":"2025-12-03T21:52:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T21:52:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=35884"},"modified":"2025-12-03T21:52:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T21:52:03","slug":"todays-atlantic-trivia-questions-and-answers-week-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=35884","title":{"rendered":"Today’s Atlantic Trivia Questions and Answers, Week 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

Updated with new questions at 4 p.m. ET on December 3, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have much extolled here the value of new knowledge. Let us now hear a counterargument: Some months after Yale gave Mark Twain an honorary degree in 1888, the writer\u2019s schedule cleared up enough for him to pull together a speech advising that the good people of the college learn less.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found the astronomer of the university gadding around after comets and other such odds and ends,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI told him it was no economy to go on piling up and piling up raw material in the way of new stars and comets and asteroids that we couldn\u2019t ever have any use for till we had worked off the old stock.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greek would have to go \u201cbecause it is so hard to spell with, and so impossible to read after you get it spelled,\u201d and research in math \u201cwas not suited to the dignity of a college, which should deal in facts, not guesses and suppositions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yale did not heed the advice, and I don\u2019t think Twain would really have wanted you to, either. So please\u2014guess and suppose away.<\/p>\n

Find last week\u2019s questions here<\/em>, and to get <\/em>Atlantic Trivia in your inbox every day,<\/em> sign up for The <\/em>Atlantic Daily<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wednesday, December 3, 2025<\/h4>\n

Today\u2019s questions all come from Caitlin Flanagan\u2019s essay reflecting on a childhood spent going to the movies with her father.<\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. In Sunset Boulevard<\/em>, the fading star Norma Desmond replies to the suggestion that she \u201cused to be big\u201d with: \u201cI am big. It\u2019s the pictures that\u201d did what<\/strong>?<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cYou\u2019ll never go in the water again\u201d was the tagline of what 1975 summer blockbuster<\/strong>?<\/li>\n
  3. In The Wizard of Oz<\/em>, Dorothy has what last name<\/strong>\u2014a word for a weather event not dissimilar to the twister that lifts her out of Kansas?<\/li>\n
  4. One of the most popular films of the 1970s disaster craze\u2014remade in 2006\u2014follows passengers climbing to the bottom (or top?) of what capsized luxury liner<\/strong>?<\/li>\n
  5. What Alfred Hitchcock movie<\/strong> opens with a scene in a pet shop, where the protagonist inquires about some odd animal behavior outside?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And by the way, did you know that the famous \u201cunderwater\u201d shot that opens Sunset Boulevard<\/em>\u2014with a camera apparently at the bottom of a swimming pool looking up at a floating drowned man\u2014was captured entirely on dry land?<\/p>\n

    The cameras of the 1950s couldn\u2019t be submerged, so the director, Billy Wilder, installed a mirror on the bottom of the pool and shot from above to keep the equipment dry. Actors, then as now, were plenty waterproof\u2014so William Holden ended the shoot soaked.<\/p>\n

    Until tomorrow!<\/p>\n

    Answers: <\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \u201cGot small.\u201d <\/strong>The movies of Caitlin\u2019s youth felt so much bigger, she writes, thanks partly to her father\u2019s enthusiasm for them, but also thanks to the apparent intellectual exhaustion of Hollywood. \u201cWe\u2019re running out of stories to tell one another,\u201d she argues\u2014but many of us would be too tired or inattentive to listen anyway. Read more.<\/li>\n
    2. Jaws<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/li>\n
    3. Gale.<\/strong><\/li>\n
    4. The Poseidon.<\/strong><\/li>\n
    5. The Birds<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      How did you do? Come back tomorrow for more questions, or click here for last week\u2019s. And if you think up a great question after reading an Atlantic<\/em> story\u2014or simply want to share a formidable fact\u2014send it my way at [email\u00a0protected]<\/span>.<\/p>\n

      Tuesday, December 2, 2025<\/h4>\n
        \n
      1. Minoxidil is the active ingredient in many products that treat what common condition<\/strong>, known scientifically as alopecia?
        \u2014 From Yasmin Tayag\u2019s <\/em>\u201cAmerica Refuses to Go [REDACTED]\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n
      2. The company Lifetouch is the largest U.S. provider of what product<\/strong> typically offered once an academic year, in early fall?
        \u2014 From Annie Midori Atherton\u2019s <\/em>\u201cWhat\u2019s the Point of [REDACTED] Anymore?\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n
      3. What hard-boiled detective<\/strong> sported a famous two-way wrist radio across America\u2019s mid-century comic strips?
        \u2014 From Ian Bogost\u2019s <\/em>\u201cGet Your Kid a Watch\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        And by the way, did you know that Garry Trudeau, the creator of Doonesbury<\/em>, won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for his work with the comic strip? Gerald Ford, who was then president, said that year that \u201cthere are only three major vehicles to keep us informed as to what is going on in Washington: the electronic media, the print media, and Doonesbury<\/em>, not necessarily in that order.\u201d<\/p>\n

        Only one other comic strip\u2014called Bloom County<\/em>\u2014has won the Pulitzer Prize; Garfield is going to have to bring some real nuance to his thoughts about Mondays if he\u2019s ever going to compete.<\/p>\n

        Answers: <\/strong><\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Hair loss. <\/strong>Yasmin reports on how the hair-loss-prevention industry, which has long focused on thinning in men, is ready to welcome the many Millennial women who are warming up to the idea of Rogaine. But there\u2019s still a big stigma around seeking treatment. Read more.<\/li>\n
        2. School photos. <\/strong>The Photo Day tradition seems silly considering that every parent has a camera in their pocket now, but families still shell out for the (often ludicrously expensive) school shots, Atherton writes. They\u2019re kitschy and awkward\u2014but that might be the point. Read more.<\/li>\n
        3. Dick Tracy.<\/strong> Ian, who recently purchased a smartwatch for his youngest daughter, writes that the low end of the kid-watch market is full of useless \u201cDick Tracy novelties.\u201d So he went full Apple, and he has found that the watch is the perfect training \u201cphone\u201d for his kid. Read more. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Monday, December 1, 2025<\/h4>\n

          From the edition of The Atlantic<\/em> Daily by David A. Graham:<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. William Shakespeare\u2019s only son, who died at age 11, had what name<\/strong>\u2014just a letter off from one of the bard\u2019s most famous tragic heroes?
            \u2014 From James Shapiro\u2019s <\/em>\u201cThe Long History of the [REDACTED] Myth\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n
          2. In AI-safety discussions, the likelihood that artificial intelligence causes global cataclysm is popularly expressed as what statistical term<\/strong>?
            \u2014 From Charlie Warzel\u2019s <\/em>\u201cThe World Still Hasn\u2019t Made Sense of ChatGPT\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n
          3. Germans sometimes call their country \u201cDas Land der Dichter und Denker<\/em>,\u201d or the land of what two vocations<\/strong>\u2014the former of which would apply to, say, Rilke, Schiller, and Goethe, and the latter to Hegel, Heidegger, and Arendt (or you right now)?
            \u2014 From Isaac Stanley-Becker\u2019s <\/em>\u201cThe New German War Machine\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            And by the way, did you know that Shakespeare\u2019s grave doesn\u2019t bear his name? What it does bear is a curse. The engraving warns would-be tamperers, \u201cGood friend for Jesus sake forbeare, \/ To dig the dust enclosed here. \/ Blessed be the man that spares these stones, \/ And cursed be he that moves my bones.\u201d<\/p>\n

            Evidence suggests that the curse didn\u2019t ward off everyone; ground-penetrating radar revealed in 2016 that Shakespeare\u2019s skull is almost certainly missing. Of course, researchers could have opened the grave to make sure\u2014but would you take that risk?<\/p>\n

            Answers: <\/strong><\/p>\n

              \n
            1. Hamnet. <\/strong>The myth that Hamnet\u2019s death begot the tragedy of Hamlet <\/em>has persisted for centuries, Shapiro writes, but the fact that it is compelling\u2014see Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s new movie, Hamnet<\/em>\u2014does not mean that it is true. Read more.<\/li>\n
            2. p(doom).<\/strong> Whether or not you use the term, you\u2019ve probably considered the probability of AI-occasioned doom, Charlie writes as ChatGPT turns three. In fact, that mental precarity is already a big chunk of AI\u2019s legacy, he argues, and the tech\u2019s ever-evolving nature heightens the anxiety. Read more.<\/li>\n
            3. Poets and thinkers. <\/strong>To varying degrees over the decades, this self-conception has been about both taking pride in Germany\u2019s intellectual tradition and renouncing the country\u2019s militarism. As Isaac reports, this makes for a fraught transition as Germany gradually abandons pacifism and rearms against a destabilized world. Read more.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              Updated with new questions at 4 p.m. ET on December 3, 2025. I have much extolled here the value of new knowledge. Let us now hear a counterargument: Some months after Yale gave Mark Twain an honorary degree in 1888, the writer\u2019s schedule cleared up enough for him to pull together a speech advising that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[994,1671,1226,831,14616,365],"class_list":{"0":"post-35884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-answers","9":"tag-atlantic","10":"tag-questions","11":"tag-todays","12":"tag-trivia","13":"tag-week"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}