Tough Trivia, 6/24/21

June 24, 2021June 23, 2021 ~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Following up yesterday’s question, I’ve got more laws to ask you about. These are from fiction (or, mostly, famous fictioneers). Can you name:
Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics
Benford’s Law of Controversy
Clarke’s Three Laws
Finagle’s Law
O’Toole’s corollary of Finagle’s Law
Hofstadter’s law
Sturgeon’s Law

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Yesterday’s question: Mensa has an annual team trivia competition called Culture Quest; a slew of questions on a variety of subjects, sometimes very interesting. However, the only question I remember is one that really ticked me off. A bunch of years ago, the question said “Define these three chemical laws: Boyle’s Law, Charles’s Law, Cole’s Law.” Well, we had Boyles and Charles right off the bat (one of us was a chemist), but Coles? You’re probably guessing, and you’re probably right: the correct answer was “shredded cabbage salad.” Funny, sure, but telling us it was a “chemical law” was what annoyed me. So I always try to make sure I don’t do things like that when I’m writing questions.

However, that question has inspired today’s (and no, no cabbage salad answers): define the following named chemical laws: Avogadro’s Law, Boyle’s Law, Charles’s Law, Dalton’s Law, Faraday’s Law, Graham’s Law, Henry’s Law, and the Ideal Gas Law.

The answers are:

Avogadro’s Law: V/n = k, or, equal volumes of gas under identical temperature and pressure will contain equal numbers of particles

Boyle’s Law: PV = P(1)V(1), or, the pressure exerted by a given mass of an ideal gas is inversely proportional to its volume.

Charles’s Law: V = kT, or, when the pressure on a sample of gas is held constant, the temperature in Kelvin is in proportion to the volume.

Dalton’s Law: p(total) = ∑p(i), or, the pressure of a mixture of gases is equal to the sum of the partial pressures of the component gases

Faraday’s Law: m ∝ Q ⇒ m/Q = Z, or, the weight of any element liberated during electrolysis is proportional to the quantity of electricity passing through the cell and equivalent to the weight of the element.

Graham’s Law: r ∝ 1 / √d, or, the rate of diffusion of a gas is inversely proportional to the square root of its molecular mass.

Henry’s Law: H^cc = RTH^cp, or, the solubility of a gas is proportional to the pressure applied to the gas.

Ideal Gas Law: PV = nRT, or, the state of an ideal gas is determined by its pressure, volume, and temperature.

***

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.

Tough Trivia, 6/23/21

June 23, 2021June 23, 2021 ~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Mensa has an annual team trivia competition called Culture Quest; a slew of questions on a variety of subjects, sometimes very interesting. However, the only question I remember is one that really ticked me off. A bunch of years ago, the question said “Define these three chemical laws: Boyle’s Law, Charles’s Law, Cole’s Law.” Well, we had Boyles and Charles right off the bat (one of us was a chemist), but Coles? You’re probably guessing, and you’re probably right: the correct answer was “shredded cabbage salad.” Funny, sure, but telling us it was a “chemical law” was what annoyed me. So I always try to make sure I don’t do things like that when I’m writing questions.

***

Yesterday’s question: I have to admit, some of us pay a lot more attention to fonts than most of you. But fonts are important: is it easier to read a font with serifs or one without? A proportionally spaced font or a monospaced font? And so on and so forth. But even knowing the names of some fonts is a fairly new skill, which came into wide knowledge with the development of the home computer and home typesetting programs. So, here’s an alphabetical list of some of the fonts I use most frequently (you can see some of them on the covers of Fantastic Books books: a font helps convey the feeling of the book). Can you place them in the order of their invention? Hyper-bonus points if you know the names of their creators: Arial, Brush Script, Calibri, Cambria, Comic Sans, Courier, Futura, Goudy, Helvetica, Palatino, Papyrus, Times New Roman.

The answers:

Goudy — created by Frederic W. Goudy in 1915.
Futura — designed by Paul Renner in 1927.
Times New Roman — commissioned by the Times of London in 1931.
Brush Script — designed by Robert E. Smith in 1942.
Palatino — designed by Hermann Zapf in 1949.
Courier — designed by Howard “Bud” Kettler in 1955 or 1956.
Helvetica — designed by Swiss designer Max Miedinger in 1957.
Arial — designed by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders in 1982.
Papyrus — designed by Chris Costello in 1982.
Comic Sans — designed by Vincent Connare in 1994.
Calibri — designed by Lucas “Luc” de Groot in 2002–2004.
Cambria — designed by Jelle Bosma in 2004.

***

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.

Ranked Choice Voting gives us more votes, but not better candidates

June 22, 2021 ~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

vote1 In New York City today, the big news is that we’re using Ranked Choice Voting for Primary Election Day (of which, more anon). Ranked Choice Voting: every media outlet, every government official, and 90% of the television and radio commercials, have been harping on it for the last two months, reminding voters that we can rank our top five choices. The problem with Ranked Choice Voting is that we still have the same mediocre candidates. It doesn’t improve the candidate pool, and doesn’t give our votes any more power: it just means that, if the first mediocre candidate I choose has no other support, my second mediocre choice might have a shot, and so on down to my fifth choice. Meh.

As a test of the new Ranked Choice Voting system, perhaps today makes sense. But as a primary election day, it is becoming increasingly absurd to waste taxpayer money on this “election.” A primary, as we all know, is simply a means for a club (in this case, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party) to determine which of its members it is going to support in the election (which comes in November). In voting as it used to be—one person, one vote; a plurality takes the election—I could (sort of) justify the parties’ need to have a primary, because multiple candidates from one party might cannibalize each others’ votes, and possibly give the election to a different party with only one candidate on the ballot. But with Ranked Choice Voting, that’s not an issue. There is no reason I, as a voter who doesn’t belong to those political clubs, shouldn’t have my choice of all the candidates on today’s ballot in the November election. But the parties want to be able to spend all their money and effort supporting only one candidate, so they have once again conspired with each other to make all of us—whether we’re part of the club or not—pay for their internal decision process, and that I do not like. There would be nothing wrong with forcing the Democratic Party to pay for its own primary election (or however else it chooses to select one candidate from its members). They’re going to be pumping millions of dollars into advertising later this year for their chosen candidate, so obviously they have the financial wherewithal to fund this primary. But instead, I’m forced to help pay for this opportunity to limit my choices in November.

And then there was my personal experience just now, going to the polling place (with my parents, who are registered members of one of those parties). I walked in with my bar-coded voter ID card (bar-coded, so it’s touch-less; nevertheless, the clueless poll worker insisted on taking the card from each voter to scan it and hand it back. So much for the antiseptic nature of “touch-less”). My parents each checked in and received their ballots. Then she scanned my card, and was confused. The screen quite clearly said “No election” or some words to that effect, which meant “don’t give this one a ballot.” But apparently my district is so heavily Democratic that she was ready to hand me a provisional ballot simply because I was there. She couldn’t conceive of the possibility that I might not be a member of her Democratic Party. I was pleased that the system was properly programmed: it recognized me as a registered voter, and also recognized I was not part of a political party. But that’s my problem: it shouldn’t be our public voting system running and paying for this private, club-members-only primary.

My parents completed their ballots and scanned them, and it was fairly efficient. And there were only four or five poll-workers (of the 25 in the room) who were wearing their chin straps (really?! After fifteen months of pandemic, these morons still don’t know how to wear a face mask?). Now we have to wait a month or two to learn the results of today’s exercise. The computer system really ought to be able to process all the ballots in less than a day, but apparently we have to wait for all the mail-in ballots to arrive up to a week from now, and there has to be time to “cure” the ballots that are questionable, so the Board of Elections doesn’t anticipate having all of the ballots before the middle of July. Well, at least that may mean a respite from the relentless spate of campaign ads (silver lining).

Tough Trivia, 6/22/21

June 22, 2021June 22, 2021 ~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

I have to admit, some of us pay a lot more attention to fonts than most of you. But fonts are important: is it easier to read a font with serifs or one without? A proportionally spaced font or a monospaced font? And so on and so forth. But even knowing the names of some fonts is a fairly new skill, which came into wide knowledge with the development of the home computer and home typesetting programs. So, here’s an alphabetical list of some of the fonts I use most frequently (you can see some of them on the covers of Fantastic Books books: a font helps convey the feeling of the book). Can you place them in the order of their invention? Hyper-bonus points if you know the names of their creators: Arial, Brush Script, Calibri, Cambria, Comic Sans, Courier, Futura, Goudy, Helvetica, Palatino, Papyrus, Times New Roman.

***

Alfred_the_Great_silver_coin — Alfred the Great depicted on a silver coin.

Yesterday’s question was: We all like to be unique (although when I was younger, I thought it would be cool to have a number after my name, like Ian Randal Strock XII). Rulers, however, frequently come with numbers, like Queen Elizabeth II, or her father King George VI. How many British monarchs can you name who had unique names (not simply the first, like Elizabeth I or George I, but actual only-one-person-used-this-name)? (For the purposes of this question, we’re tracking back from the current Queen of the United Kingdom, through the earlier Acts of Union in 1707, and before that the Kings (and Queens) of England, tracking all the way back to the first King of the Anglo-Saxons (starting in about the year 886). Or, the easier version of the question: how many of them had unique names, and when did the most recent rule?

The answers:

425px-Queen_Victoria_by_Bassano — Queen Victoria

Alfred the Great (King of Wessex from 871), ruled from the year 886 to October 26, 899
Aethelstan, 924–October 27, 939
Eadred, May 26, 946–November 23, 955
Eadwig, November 23, 955–October 1, 959
Edgar the Peaceful, October 1, 959–July 8, 975
Aethelred the Unready, March 18, 978–1013, and then again February 3, 1014–April 23, 1016
Sweyn Forkbeard, December 25, 1013–February 3, 1014
Canute the Great, October 18, 1016–November 12, 1035
Harthacnut, March 17, 1040–June 8, 1042
Stephen of Blois, December 22, 1135–October 25, 1154
John Lackland, May 27, 1199–October 19, 1216
Lady Jane Grey, July 10–19, 1553
Anne, March 8, 1702–August 1, 1714
Victoria, June 20, 1837–January 22, 1901

***

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.

Tough Trivia, 6/21/21

June 21, 2021June 20, 2021 ~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

2001_A_Space_Odyssey_(1968) Tough Trivia: We all like to be unique (although when I was younger, I thought it would be cool to have a number after my name, like Ian Randal Strock XII). Rulers, however, frequently come with numbers, like Queen Elizabeth II, or her father King George VI. How many British monarchs can you name who had unique names (not simply the first, like Elizabeth I or George I, but actual only-one-person-used-this-name)? (For the purposes of this question, we’re tracking back from the current Queen of the United Kingdom, through the earlier Acts of Union in 1707, and before that the Kings (and Queens) of England, tracking all the way back to the first King of the Anglo-Saxons (starting in about the year 886). Or, the easier version of the question: how many of them had unique names, and when did the most recent rule?

***

Friday’s question was: Science fiction writers often like to attach dates to stories (and especially titles), to make the stories seem more futuristic, or more imminent. Sometimes, it’s just a date in the future; other times, it’s a date that may have some specific meaning. And sometimes, we laugh when the “far future date” passes without the rest of the story coming true. (George Lucas avoided this potential difficulty by setting Star Wars “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.”) How many of these dates can you name?

DuckDodgers The answers are:

2001: A Space Odyssey. And then 2010: Odyssey Two.

George Orwell’s Big Brother is in the novel 1984 (named by reversing the digits in the year the book was written, 1948).

In Star Trek: First Contact, the Borg travel in time in an attempt to assimilate Earth before first contact with the Vulcans, which takes place on April 5, 2063.

The Moon is blasted out of Earth’s orbit in Space: 1999.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (in the original novella, it was the year 2419; in the 1979 television series, it was 2491).

Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th Century

Planet of the Apes, as Taylor is evacuating the crashed spaceship, the chronometer says it is November 25, 3978.

Escape from New York: the island of Manhattan has been turned into a maximum-security prison in the year 1997.

Paris in the 20th Century (written in 1863, first published in 1994, the novel was set in the year 1960).

The Time Machine stopped in the year A.D. 802,701, and then returned to the undated present.

The lunar inhabitants declared their independence from Earth on July 4, 2076, consciously echoing the American Revolution, in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Back to the Future: Marty traveled from 1985 to 1955, and then back to a modified 1985.

Back to the Future 2: Doc took Marty from 1985 to 2015. Then they traveled back to an alternate 1985, and then to 1955.

Back to the Future 3: Marty traveled from 1955 to rescue Doc in 1885, and then returned to 1985, where the time machine was destroyed.

***

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.

Tough Trivia, 6/18/21

June 18, 2021June 18, 2021 ~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Back_to_the_Future Science fiction writers often like to attach dates to stories (and especially titles), to make the stories seem more futuristic, or more imminent. Sometimes, it’s just a date in the future; other times, it’s a date that may have some specific meaning. And sometimes, we laugh when the “far future date” passes without the rest of the story coming true. (George Lucas avoided this potential difficulty by setting Star Wars “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.”) How many of these dates can you name?

Arthur C. Clarke’s A Space Odyssey (book) and Stanley Kubrick’s movie. Also, the sequel to that book/movie.

The year during which George Orwell’s Big Brother was watching.

The date when the Vulcans first made contact with humans in Montana (the actual date was named in Star Trek: First Contact).

Nuclear waste stored on the Moon explodes, knocking the Moon out of Earth’s orbit in the tv series Space: ___.

Buck Rogers in the ___ Century (the 1928 novella, the 1930s radio series, the 1950s television series, or the 1980s television series).

“Duck Dodgers in the ___ Century” (the classic Daffy Duck cartoon).

Planet of the Apes (the 1968 movie).

Escape from New York (the 1981 movie).

Jules Verne’s novel Paris in the ___ Century.

H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine traveled to what year in the far future?

The lunar revolution in Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress takes place in what year?

And the big one: can you name the years to which Marty McFly traveled in the time machine Doc Brown invented in the Back to the Future film trilogy?

***

Yesterday’s question was: As of this February’s induction ceremony, there are 338 inductees in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The first group, inducted in 1986, included Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, and Little Richard. Being inducted into the Hall of Fame is not a once-in-a-lifetime event. Several members have been inducted more than once. How many of them can you name (and can you name the acts or as a soloist in which they were so honored)?

The answers: Twenty-six artists have been inducted twice (or more): 15 as a soloist and with a band, and eight with two separate bands. Eric Clapton is the only one to be inducted three times. Stephen Stills is the only one to be inducted twice in the same year.

Jeff Beck (The Yardbirds, 1992; solo career, 2009)

Johnny Carter (The Flamingos, 2001; The Dells, 2004)

Eric Clapton (The Yardbirds, 1992; Cream, 1993; solo career, 2000)

David Crosby (The Byrds, 1991; Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1997)

Peter Gabriel (Genesis, 2010; solo career, 2014)

Dave Grohl (Nirvana, 2014; Foo Fighters, 2021)

George Harrison (The Beatles, 1988; solo career, 2004)

Michael Jackson (The Jackson Five, 1997; solo career, 2001)

Carole King (non-performer, 1990; solo career, 2021)

John Lennon (The Beatles, 1988; solo career, 1994)

Curtis Mayfield (The Impressions, 1991; solo career, 1999)

Paul McCartney (The Beatles, 1988; solo career, 1999)

Clyde McPhatter (solo career, 1987; The Drifters, 1988)

Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1997; The Hollies, 2010)

Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac, 1998; solo career, 2019)

Jimmy Page (The Yardbirds, 1992; Led Zeppelin, 1995)

Lou Reed (The Velvet Underground, 1996; solo career, 2015)

Gregg Rolie (Santana, 1998; Journey, 2017)

Paul Simon (Simon & Garfunkel, 1990; solo career, 2001)

Ringo Starr (The Beatles, 1988; solo career, 2015)

Rod Stewart (solo career, 1994; Faces, 2012)

Stephen Stills (Buffalo Springfield, 1997; Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1997)

Sammy Strain (The O’Jays, 2005; Little Anthony & The Imperials, 2009)

Tina Turner (Ike & Tina Turner, 1991; solo career, 2021)

Ronnie Wood (The Rolling Stones, 1989; Faces, 2012)

Neil Young (solo career, 1995; Buffalo Springfield, 1997)

***

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.

Tough Trivia, 6/17/21

June 17, 2021June 17, 2021 ~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Today’s Tough Trivia question is about music: As of this February’s induction ceremony, there are 338 inductees in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The first group, inducted in 1986, included Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, and Little Richard. Being inducted into the Hall of Fame is not a once-in-a-lifetime event. Several members have been inducted more than once. How many of them can you name (and can you name the acts or as a soloist in which they were so honored)?

***

Yesterday’s question was: At last count, there seems to be 118 known elements (some natural, some human-created; some extremely common, some so rare that they’ve never been seen, but only theorized). Of those elements, how many are liquids at room temperature (generally defined as 20 degrees C or 68 degrees F)? And how many of them are gases? The rest, of course, should be solids.

A: Eleven gases (in order of ascending boiling points): Helium (boils at 4.22 Kelvin, which is -269 C or -452 F), Hydrogen, Neon, Nitrogen, Fluorine, Argon, Oxygen, Krypton, Xenon, Radon, and Chlorine.

Three liquids (in order of ascending melting points): Mercury, Bromine, and Copernicium (which is highly reactive, with an assumed melting point of 283 plus or minus 11 K, which is somewhere between 0 and 20 degrees C, or 30 to 70 degrees F).

Four almosts: Cesium melts at 301.7 K (28.5 degrees C, or 83.3 degrees F). Gallium melts at 302.91 K (29.76 degrees C, or 85.58 degrees F). Rubidium melts at 312.45 K (39.30 degrees C, or 102.74 degrees F). Phosphorus melts at 317.3 K (44.15 degrees C, or 111.5 degrees F). There are seven elements about which we don’t yet know their melting or boiling points: Dubnium (number 105, symbol Db), Seaborgium (106, Sg), Bohrium (107, Bh), Hassium (108, Hs), Meitnerium (109, Mt), Darmstadtium (110, Ds), and Roentgenium (111, Rg).

***

More Comma Love

June 17, 2021 ~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

A couple years ago, I commented on an article reporting that Oakhurst Dairy owed several of its drivers a lot of money because there was no serial comma where it’s presence would have changed the meaning. This article talks about that case, and then gives several other examples of the necessity of proper punctuation in legal documents, and I love it.

Tough Trivia, 6/16/21

June 16, 2021June 17, 2021 ~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Marking my return from five intense family-filled days in California, how about a simple Science question? At last count, there seems to be 118 known elements (some natural, some human-created; some extremely common, some so rare that they’ve never been seen, but only theorized). Of those elements, how many are liquids at room temperature (generally defined as 20 degrees C or 68 degrees F)? And how many of them are gases? The rest, of course, should be solids.

***

Yesterday’s question was:

In the history of western classical music, there have been several styles or periods – and within them trends or schools – which build on and transform those that came before. If I list them for you in alphabetical order, can you arrange them in chronological order?

The periods: Baroque, Classical, Contemporary, Galant, Medieval, Modernism, Renaissance, and Romantic.

The trends or schools within those periods: Ars antiqua, Ars nova, Ars subtilior, Empfindsamkeit. Expressionism, Impressionism, Mannheim school, Minimalism, Neoclassicism, Postminimalism, Postmodernism, Serialism, and Sturm und Drang.

And the answer is:

Medieval (from c. 500 to 1400)

Ars antiqua (c. 1170 to 1310)
Ars nova (c. 1310 to 1377)
Ars subtilior (c. 1360 to 1420)

Renaissance (c. 1400 to 1600)

Baroque (c. 1580 to 1750)

Galant music (c. 1720 to 1770)

Empfindsamkeit (c. 1740s to 1780)

Classical (c. 1750 to 1820)

Mannheim school (c. 1740s to 1780)
Sturm und Drang (c. 1770s)

Romantic (c. 1800 to 1910)

Modernism (c. 1890 to 1975)

Impressionism (c. 1890 to 1930)
Expressionism (c. 1900 to 1930)
Neoclassicism (c. 1920 to 1950)
Serialism (c. 1920 to 1975)

Contemporary (starting c. 1950)

Minimalism (starting c. 1960)
Postmodernism (starting c. 1960)
Postminimalism (starting c. 1980)

***

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.

Tough Trivia, 6/15/21

June 15, 2021June 8, 2021 ~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Today’s Tough Trivia question about the Arts:

The periods: Baroque, Classical, Contemporary, Galant, Medieval, Modernism, Renaissance, and Romantic.

***

Yesterday’s question:

When we measure human life spans, we talk about decades. When we measure the lives of countries, we talk about centuries. But when we talk about the history of the planet, we’re talking about geologic time. We divide geologic time into Eons, which are subdivided into eras, which are themselves subdivided into Periods. The cruel questioner in me wants to say “name the Periods,” but I have some mercy. I’m going to give you the Eons, Eras, and Periods. Your job is to put the Periods in the correct Eras (with bonus points for listing them in order).

The Phanerozoic Eon is broken into the Cenozoic (current), Mesozoic, and Paleozoic Eras. The Proterozoic Eon was broken into the Neoproterozoic, Mesoproterozoic, and Paleoproterozoic Eras). Before the Proterozoic was the Archean Eon, broken into the Neoarchean, Mesoarchean, Paleoarchean,and Eoarchean Eras, but we don’t divide that Eon into Periods, so you can ignore it.

Here are the Periods in alphabetical order (some of which we subdivide into Epochs): Calymmian, Cambrian, Carboniferous (Mississippian and Pennsylvanian), Cretaceous, Cryogenian, Ectasian, Ediacaran, Jurassic, Neogene (Miocene and Pliocene), Devonian, Ordovician, Orosirian, Paleogene (Paleocene, Eocene, and Oligocene), Permian, Quaternary (Pleistocene and Holocene), Rhyacian, Siderian, Silurian, Statherian, Stenian, Tonian, and Triassic.

The answer, from most recent to earliest:

Phanerozoic Eon, Cenozoic Era: Quaternary (from the present to 2.588 million years ago [MYA])

Neogene (2.588 to 23.03 MYA)

Paleogene (23.03 to 66.0 MYA)

Mesozoic Era: Cretaceous (66.0 to 145.5 MYA)

Jurassic (145.0 to 201.3 MYA)

Triassic (201.3 to 252.17 MYA)

Paleozoic Era: Permian (252.17 to 298.9 MYA)

Carboniferous (298.9 to 358.9 MYA)

Devonian (358.9 to 419.2 MYA)

Silurian (419.2 to 443.4 MYA)

Ordovician (443.4 to 485.4 MYA)

Cambrian (485.4 to 541.0 MYA)

Proterozoic Eon, Neoproterozoic Era: Edicaran (from 541 to 635 MYA)

Cryogenian (635 to 850 MYA)

Tonian (850 to 1,000 MYA)

Mesoproterozoic: Stenian (1,000 to 1,200 MYA)

Ectasian (1,200 to 1,400 MYA)

Calymmian (1,400 to 1,600 MYA)Paleoproterozoic: Statherian (1,600 to 1,800 MYA)

Orosirian (1,800 to 2,050 MYA)

Rhyacian (2,050 to 2,300 MYA)

Siderian (2,300 to 2,500 MYA)

***

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.