Final Jeopardy: American Authors (12-22-14)
The Final Jeopardy question (12/22/2014), in the category “American Authors” was:
Celebrated in April, National Robotics Week honors this man who coined the word “robotics” in a 1941 story.
New champ Allison Fraser won $20,500 in Friday’s game. Today she is up against these two players: Carly Shevinsky, from Ramona, CA; and Bert Ifill, from Silver Spring, MD.
Round 1: Carly found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “The Old West” under the $800 clue. She was in third place with $2,000, $3,400 less than Bert’ lead. She made it a true Daily Double and said “Bean” as in Texas’ Judge Roy Bean. That was WRONG.
He was appointed Sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico in 1880 & spent the next 20 years in & out of law enforcement. show
Bert finished in the lead with $7,000. Allison was second with $3,600 and Carly was last with $1,000.
Round 2: Allison found the first Daily Double in “Mythology” under the $800 clue. She was in second place with $4,000, $8,600 less than Bert’s lead. She made it a true Daily Double and she was RIGHT.
During Odysseus’ absence, she wove a never-finished shroud. show
Bert found the last Daily Double in “Santa” under the $2,000 clue. In the lead with $13,800, he had $2,200 more than Allison in second place. He bet $2,000 and guessed Guatemala. That was WRONG.
In the early 1980s an offensive by the FMLN severely damaged Santa Ana in this Central American country. show
Allison finished in the lead with $11,600. Bert was next with $10,200 and Carly was in third place with $200.
ALL of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
From Geek Trivia: “The etymological father of robotics is none other than Isaac Asimov, who first coined the term in 1941 in the short story “Liar!,” which was first published in the May 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.
This story is well known by many science fiction collectors and historians, as it’s the first publication of Asimov’s eponymous Three Laws of Robotics. You remember those:
1. A robot must not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where those orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence, except where such protection would conflict with the First or Second Law.”
Carly didn’t bet anything so she remained at $200.
Bert bet $5,500 and finished with $15,700
Allison bet $8,801 and won her second game with $20,401. Her 2-day total is $40,901.
2 years ago:: NEITHER player left in FJ got this one in “1960s Rock Music”
This 1967 No. 1 hit contains snippets of “In The Mood”, “Greensleeves” & “She Loves You”. show
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Getting back to our resident intellectual genius, Collin — actually, Collin dear, it seems that it was Karel Capek’s brother Josef who “coined” the word “robot.” Karel used it and brought it to the attention of the world in his play R.U.R., which Asimov hated, by the way, which is neither here nor there, but I’m just saying.
Also by the way, not that anyone cares, but the longest non-encyclopedic book I ever read in my life is Asimov’s two-volume autobiography, which I think took up about 1,600 pages, if I remember correctly.
If you ask me why I spent so much time on such a thing, I have no good answer.
Why Tom, what a lovely post.
To paraphrase Collin, w/o his permission, he believes a word is not “coined” merely by the addition of a suffix, and to represent that position was negligent on the part of the J! writers. I shall let him tell you if either he partially blames Alex or wishes Lewinskian *adores shiny new coin* (non) sex from Alex.
On a personal note, I would prefer for you to refrain from the middle-school rhetoric and instead showcase your intellect with more information on the monolithic biography. You have a fantastic accumulation of knowledge, which I believe could easily help make you the best of those who post her, if only posted in a way less snarkic *adores second coin, feels easy wealth accumulating*.
Welcome back, Eric! Sure, it’s my fault that our brilliant Tom has a short fuse, lol.
The sad fact is that I’m in extremely bad health — in the home stretch of life, I’m fairly certain — and considering that in my six and a half decades on this strange planet I’ve seen almost everything deteriorate socially and economically, instead of improve, I’m a little bit down on things.
Look what’s going on now — after millenia of alleged civilization, we’re still plagued by religious fanatics, bigots, deadly viruses, the rich exploiting the poor — it might as well be 2014 B.C.!
Anyway, I’m in a REALLY bad mood.
You call it “middle school rhetoric.” I call it DISGUST with EVERYTHING.
H.G. Wells wrote his whole life about the stupidity of war and he lived through WWI and then, right at the end of his life, along came WW2. He entitled his last book “Mind at the End of Its Tether.” This is where my mind is now.
As a species, we leave a lot to be desired, to put it mildly. If we’re all the Universe has managed to come up with, then the Universe is a failure. There’s GOT to be something better than this out there somewhere!
Maybe I’ll find out soon. I don’t expect to — life after death is just too good to be true — but part of me is still hoping.
Not surprising that Bert was so smart. Per the internet he has a PhD in Economics from Yale and is the brother of Gwen Ifill the PBS news journalist.
I love it when contestants appear on Jeopardy and don’t tout their profession.
I love Allison’s bubbly personality and smarts. She played a good strategic game. She may be around for some time on Jeopardy. We shall see.
I think the answer they accepted for the final jeopardy question was incorrect. Asimov did not coin the term robot. Karl Capek did! In fact, Capek coined the term the year Asimov was born! Suck it, Tribec!
I had thought the same thing, Collin, but it was apparently who coined the term “robotics” which is correctly attributed to Asimov. Capek only coined the term robot.
I’m getting so tired of stupid and crazy people I can’t take it any more.
THE QUESTION WAS ABOUT THE WORD “ROBOTICS,” NOT “ROBOT”!!!!!!!!!!
See, you forced me to yell.
see? when i saw the clue i did not think it would be a triple solve and here we go!
i don’t quite make sense of bert’s fj bet, but allisons was 100% correct and she has a very nice 2 day total.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
John, if Bert had wagered it all he still would not have won. I think he was being cautious because the 1st half he was on fire. In the 2nd half he got reckless and had several missteps which cost him big time. After you watch the game let me know what you think.
Btw, I called the NYT also. The lady I spoke to put the blame on Jeopardy website and told me to contact Jeopardy. We shall see what tomorrow brings on CotD.
yeah,bert did not seem too confident with fj, after all “american authors” is a very wide area.(yet he got it right…)and he DID kind of lose momentum, seemed kind of shell shocked.had he gotten the dd with el salvador (he surely was around at that time, even i remembered it and i was living on barbados at the time but with all the american newspapers), different story. but tyhe miss put allison in first before fj, she had the perfect bet and we finally have the triple crown…:):)
Bert still had a $200 lead after the El Salvador miss. He then rang in on the deadliest type of trucking accident and said “jackknife” and they wanted “rollover”.
I would have said “head-on collision” myself, if I had to answer it but in Bert’s position right then, I would not even have risked my lead.
It did not appear as though either of the ladies were trying to answer that one and it was the last clue they had time for, so yeah, that’s why I felt like he threw it away.
I’m with you, Jacob. It felt like Bert threw that one away to me.