Trivia Newsletter CCXCIV: Proof by Induction
Trivia for July 11, 2025
Below are six trivia questions. If you would like to participate, you can either reply to this e-mail or submit your answers via Google Forms by using the button below. You can find our rules and guidelines by following this link.
1) “Theres no need for red-hot pokers,” says Garcin in the Jean-Paul Sartre play No Exit, because WHAT “is other people”?
2) “O beautiful for spacious skies” is the first line of the Katharine Lee Bates poem “America the Beautiful.” WHAT is the first verb that appears in the lyrics of the poem (and hymn based on the poem)?
3) Of the three theoretical constructs that Sigmund Freud used to describe the human psyche, WHICH ONE, according to Freud, “knows no judgements of value: no good and evil, no morality”?
4) The research & development wing of a particular company, today composed of “Imagineers,” once included in its name a particular three-letter initialism; specifically, the initials of the person who holds the record for the most Academy Awards won by an individual. NAME those initials.
5) Fritz Pollard became the first black head coach in the National Football League in 1925 with the Hammond Pros. NAME the second black head coach in the NFL, who first coached the Los Angeles Raiders in 1989, the same year he was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame for his legendary career as an offensive tackle.
6) Of the thirty-one unique words that were used to write this sixth question, only one is an example of the theme of this newsletter. Each of the answers to the first five questions above also is (or contains) an example of the theme of this newsletter. NAME that word.
Trivia Newsletter CCXCIII Recap
1) The Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication, commissioned by Henry Graves as part of a competition, took eight years to design and create. WHAT is the Supercomplication? (One word will suffice.)
The Supercomplication is our Question #6 about rivers last week. Just kidding—the Supercomplication is a WATCH (more specifically, a pocket watch).
I suspect that many of our readers who got this question correct knew that Patek Philippe is a luxury watchmaker—really, the luxury watchmaker. Nine of the top ten most expensive watches ever sold at auction have been Patek Phillipe watches (#3 on the list is a Rolex).
Let’s touch on Henry Graves for a paragraph:
Graves was the most prominent collector of the 20th century, and the man who commissioned the incredible Supercomplication that would eventually shatter all records for a timepiece sale in 1999 at over $11,000,000. His extensive list of complicated commissions is said to have kept Patek Philippe afloat during its most trying years, and it was his ambitious concepts that caused Patek to continue to push forward in the realm of high-end complications.
I am not a wristwatch person, but I really enjoyed this “piece” about the Supercomplication. A preview:
But what makes this watch so special, and why was I so thrilled to spend an afternoon with it at the Sotheby's New York office in August? Well, Patek Philippe No. 198.385 was a very special commission from Mr. Graves, had already had a storied history of very special commissions. This enormous example of human ingenuity contains 24 different horological complications. Twenty four. And the watch was constructed over a period of seven years, beginning in 1925. Twenty four complications, with the work taking place in the 1920s, means that that timepiece was built entirely by hand, and all calculations for the two dozen complications were done without the aid of a single computer. That is absolutely mind-boggling. So what does it do, exactly?
There isn't much it doesn't do. The Supercomplication, as per Sotheby's directly is:
"A gold, double-dialed and double open-faced, minute repeating clockwatch with Westminster chimes, grande and petite sonnerie, split seconds chronograph, registers for 60-minute and 12-hours, perpetual calendar, moon-phases, equation of time, dual power reserve for striking and going trains, mean and sidereal time, central alarm, indications for times of sunrise/sunset and a celestial chart for the night time sky of New York City."
2) Jac Caglianone, Lucas Erceg, John Schreiber, and, as of 2023, Salvador Perez are all currently members of the Kansas City Royals who have WHAT letter stitched onto their home-field jerseys (in addition to advertising patches and insignias denoting their team affiliation)?1
The letter is “C.” The trick here is that Caglianone, Erceg, and Schreiber all have a “C” on their jerseys because that letter is part of their last names, whereas Perez has a “C” on his jersey because he is the only active MLB player to wear a captain’s patch, which is a large C:
Most MLB teams don’t designate captains; in fact, Perez is one of just three current MLB captains (and the only one of the three who has the “C” patch on his jersey). Can you name both of the other current MLB captains? Here are some clues, though I note that the first answer will be much easier than the second answer for most players:
One captain has been mentioned on Jeopardy! at least four times; in clues about him, the show has used the phrases “swung a mighty gavel,” “all rise!”, “honorable,” and “our verdict.”
The last of our three captains has a last name that has never been mentioned in a Jeopardy! clue. He began his career with the Chicago White Sox in 2013, and since 2019 has been one of the league’s best players, finishing third in MVP voting three times. He was part of the team that won the 2023 World Series.
The answers are at the end of this newsletter.2
3) Following his success as the frontman of Genesis, Peter Gabriel has released ten solo studio albums. His first four solo albums are all titled Peter Gabriel. To avoid confusion, Gabriel’s first solo album is often called WHAT word, referring to the Lancia 2000 depicted on its cover?
This is “CAR.” It’s a sensible title:
“Solsbury Hill,” one of Gabriel’s most popular songs, is the lead single off of that album. Gabriel’s second through fourth albums (remember, they’re named Peter Gabriel as well) are usually called Scratch, Melt, and Security, respectively.
4) The Vienna Convention on Road Traffic states that cross-border vehicles must display a “distinguishing code” for the country of registration on the vehicle’s rear. Currently, Austria’s code is “A,” Switzerland’s code is “CH,” and Gabon’s code is “G.” WHAT is Germany’s distinguishing code?
Germany’s code is “D.” We helped you avoid the trap answer of “G” by spotting you Gabon’s code, and gave you a hint with Switzerland that the letters in question may not appear in the country’s English name at all. “D” stands for Deutschland, what Germans would call Germany. If you want to use some ten-cent words, you might say that Deutschland is the endonym for Germany (what insiders would call it), and Germany is the exonym (what outsiders would call it).
The Swiss code “CH” comes from Confoederatio Helvetica, which is Latin for “Helvetic Confederation,” the Latin name of Switzerland.
5) Fitch, Inc. and Standard & Poor’s are two of the major agencies that provide credit ratings for corporate and government bonds. BB+ is the highest rating given to non-investment-grade bonds, also known as “junk bonds,” by both agencies. WHAT is the highest rating that the two agencies give to investment-grade bonds?
The rating here is “AAA.”
Speaking of places people are from: Sometimes my home city, Chicago, has its credit rating downgraded by one of the major rating agencies. A City That Works, a newsletter about Chicago politics, did a great job a few months ago exploring the basics of what it means for a city’s bond rating to be lowered:
WHAT’S the third major bond credit rating agency that was not named in this question? The answer’s at the end of this newsletter.3
6) Imagine a light bulb that has a resistance of 6 ohms and a maximum current of 1.5 amperes. WHAT is the maximum amount of electrical potential difference that can be applied before the bulb will break? (Please express your answer in the unit of measurement that will cause your answer to be an example of this newsletter’s theme.)
This answer is NINE VOLTS.
This newsletter’s answers are all also types of common household batteries: watch, C, car, D, and AAA are all types of batteries. The goal here was for you to realize this fact, and instead of reaching for Ohm’s law and memories of AP or college physics classes, to think about other common types of batteries. From there, you may have realized that a 9-volt battery fits the answer. “Electrical potential difference” in the question is a very convoluted way of saying “voltage,” but I didn’t want to spot you that word.
Our newsletter title (“Charged, with a Crime”) referred to both “charged” as what a battery is, and a “crime” for another definition of the word “battery.”
Question #6 Leaderboard
The Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.
“E” is how you denote errors in baseball, but it also marks an error in the prior newsletter.
I thought I was being clever with the Royals/”C” question, but I see now that, after a few rewrites (including switching in and out other player names), I mangled the question. The question was intended to have only “C” as the correct answer. However, “E” is also a completely acceptable answer that doesn’t necessarily lead you to the theme. I suppose that “e-batteries” are a thing, but if I had written this question the way I had intended to, one of the four players would not have had an “E” in his last name.
I regret the error, but am hopeful the error didn’t lead anyone too astray.
AARON JUDGE (of the New York Yankees) and MARCUS SEMIEN (of the Texas Rangers) are the other current MLB captains.
Our thrilling question about bond credit ratings asked you about Fitch and S&P, but not about MOODY’S. We didn’t ask about Moody’s because their ratings are a bit different: The highest rating Moody’s gives investment-grade bonds is Aaa, and its highest junk-bond rating is Ba1.