Game Show to Focus on STEM Constants with “Number, Please” Week

This article is part of the 2022 April 1st series in the Humor topic within our Series Library.

Top-rated TV game show Jeopardy will host a special week of shows focusing on key numbers in science, math, and engineering as a unique challenge to the contestants. Details are still being worked out, but the plan is to group the numbers into logical categories such as “physical constants” and “geometry.” These numbers will range from relatively easy ones such as 3.1415 (π) and 2.718 (Euler's number e) to somewhat harder (3 × 10⁸—speed of light) to fairly hard (1.38 × 10^-23—Boltzmann’s constant).

A spokesperson for the show said, “there’s no shortage of good numbers; hey, we’ve all had to deal with Avogadro’s number, 6 × 10²³, in high-school chemistry.” The show’s producers haven’t yet decided if the displayed numbers also will have their units shown (where applicable) to make the challenge somewhat easier, or if the numbers will be shown dimensionless. However, they’re leaning toward the former to give the clues more “personality.”

If the ratings are good enough, the show may add a special week called “Effect and Cause,” whereby contestants will be given a scientific effect and answer with its name. They provided two examples: For “the tendency of a fluid jet to stay attached to a convex surface,” the response would be “what is the Coanda effect?” and for “the tendency of alternating high-frequency currents to crowd toward the surface of a conducting material,” it would be “what is the skin effect?”

Read more articles in the 2022 April 1st series in the Humor topic within our Series Library.