Today’s Tough Trivia question: Scales: fish wear them for protection, humans step on them to fret about their diets. We love to measure, rank, and grade things. Your question for today: what do we measure with the following scales: Fujita, Mohs, Richter, Scoville. Bonus points if you know what measures on those scales are for the least intense, and for the most.

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Yesterday’s question was: More so than most artists, Spanish artist Pablo Picasso’s (1881–1973) paintings are frequently categorized by period, during which the paintings bear striking similarities. How many of those periods can you name? Bonus point if you can name them in order.

And the answer is:

Blue Period: 1901–04
Rose Period: 1904–06
African-influenced Period: 1907–09
Analytic Cubism: 1909–12
Synthetic Cubism: 1912–19
For the next decade, most of his work is considered necoclassical and Surreal. His later work amalgamated his earlier styles.

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Ian’s Tough Trivia is a daily feature of this blog (Monday’s category is History; Tuesday is Arts; Wednesday is Science; Thursday is Entertainment; and Friday is Grab Bag). Each day, I post a tough question, as well as the answer to the previous day’s question. Simply comment on this post with your answer. I’ll approve the comments after the next question is posted. Sure, you can probably find the answers by searching the web, but what’s the fun in that?

And if you’ve got a favorite trivia question—or even just a topic for which you’d like to see a question—let me know! Reader participation is warmly encouraged.