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I was watching an episode of an old television show earlier today, and it 
included a visual "quiz" on navigation. Here are two quiz questions and the 
answers from the "contestant":
1) Question (as loud music plays and a star chart is diplayed on the screen): 
"We'll start with celestial navigation. The celestial triangle is formed on 
the celestial sphere by the great circles connecting the elevated pole, the 
zenith of the assumed position of the observer, and the celestial body. Mark 
your assumed position in the triangle by pressing the correct key."
He answers: "I can't even hear myself think!" and presses the wrong key.
2) Question (after a star chart flashes on screen for a fraction of a second): 
"Name ten of the navigation stars you just saw on the screen. You have ten 
seconds."
He answers: "Canopus... Polaris... Vegas [sic]... It's too fast! I can't remember."

I think it's just possible that this was the first and only time that the 
navigational triangle was correctly defined in American television history. 
It was a "fake" quiz and this question was probably read from a textbook just 
to sound like complex science jargon, so it doesn't really count. But it was 
still remarkable to hear those words in such an incongruous setting. 

I am attaching a screen capture of the star chart as displayed for the second 
question. How would you rate our contestant's answer? 

-FER
PS: Nice frame around the video screen in that screen capture, isn't it? It 
looks like the "brushed metal" interface that was popular in Apple's Mac OSX 
five to ten years ago. In fact, the screen capture is from quite a bit 
earlier. You get ten NavList points if you can name the television program 
and the year.


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