Who doesn't need a "Mentally Stimulating Diversion" from time to time? One of my officemates introduced me to a website called Sporcle. This sticky site hosts thousands of trivia quizzes of the form, "How many X can you name in Y minutes?" Varied and random topics range from history to geography, movies to sports, and world scrambles to crytograms. Even math trivia topics such as Digits of Pi and A in Math!
I recently took the Mathematician Names trivia quiz (along with hundreds of others!). This trivia quiz lists 50 well known mathematicians by last name and gives you eight minutes to enter their first names. While most of the mathematicians' last names looked familiar, I can't claim I was on first name basis with any of them. This trivia quiz was a struggle for me despite my background. I managed to cough out a measly 20/50 first names which surprisingly placed me into the 95th percentile! But more importantly, I learned something. Thank you Lejeune Dirichlet, Pafnuty Chebyshev and Gottfried Leibniz!
Sporcle.com is a great site if you are training to be on Jeopardy or for a Spelling Bee, need a short break or just looking for a friendly competition between friends. New trivia quizzes are added to the lot on a daily basis. You can also upload your own user-generated trivia quizzes. Have fun, but keep an eye on the timer... and the clock!
I recently took the Mathematician Names trivia quiz (along with hundreds of others!). This trivia quiz lists 50 well known mathematicians by last name and gives you eight minutes to enter their first names. While most of the mathematicians' last names looked familiar, I can't claim I was on first name basis with any of them. This trivia quiz was a struggle for me despite my background. I managed to cough out a measly 20/50 first names which surprisingly placed me into the 95th percentile! But more importantly, I learned something. Thank you Lejeune Dirichlet, Pafnuty Chebyshev and Gottfried Leibniz!
Sporcle.com is a great site if you are training to be on Jeopardy or for a Spelling Bee, need a short break or just looking for a friendly competition between friends. New trivia quizzes are added to the lot on a daily basis. You can also upload your own user-generated trivia quizzes. Have fun, but keep an eye on the timer... and the clock!
