I Knew Everything

In high school I participated in a team-based competitive quiz game called “scholar’s bowl.” Our school’s scholar’s bowl team regularly traveled to tournaments hosted in towns scattered around the state. I was particularly valued on our team for my knowledge of science history.

Once while driving home from a competition, one of our team was quizzing us from a big science reference book he had brought from home. One whole section was devoted to the scientists responsible for various discoveries. I was on a roll during that part, getting nearly all of them right. But as the names and discoveries became more obscure I was reaching the limits of my knowledge.

Fortunately I was positioned in the back of the car so that I could peer down on the open book and read the text without the others noticing. Wow, were they impressed! I was being pretty cagey at first, pretending to fumble around, searching my memory, and then seeming to almost guess the answer. Occasionally I would get a few details wrong for believability.

But I got bored after a short time. I started being more blatant about saying things close to how they were written in the book. Amazingly, my teammates were not catching on even though I was throwing out clues left and right. Finally I just read an answer verbatim from the book. They still didn’t figure it out!

So I’m finally coming clean. Henry, Jill, Daniel, Kevin – I want you to know that I was cheating. I really did know people like Oersted, Davies, and Arrhenius. But I would never have guessed Heaviside, Preece, or Leyden – not without your help.