I.Q. Trivia Quiz

Answer: Albert Einstein

Walter Matthau plays Albert Einstein in the movie. He hangs around with his scientist friends discussing various subjects and interfering in Catherine's love life. He thinks Catherine's fiancé is a dud and he has many derogatory names for him. He and his friends manipulate circumstances so that Ed and Catherine fall in love.

Answer: She is his niece.

Catherine is Einstein's niece. Her father entrusted Catherine to Einstein before he died and Einstein feels like what he knew did not prepare him for raising a young lady. Catherine is a mathematics doctoral candidate who lacks self-confidence and spends all of her time in her own little world of numbers.

Answer: Car mechanic

Ed is a car mechanic who likes reading science magazines and science fiction books. He meets Catherine when her fiancé James' car breaks down in front of the service station he works at. For Ed it is love at first sight when he sees Catherine and he begins plotting to see her.

Answer: Experimental psychologist

James is an experimental psychologist who experiments on animals and students at the university where he is a professor. He is dispassionate when it comes to Catherine and controlling in their relationship. Einstein and his friends do not like this and want Catherine to have more fun in her life.

Answer: A pocket watch

Catherine leaves her father's pocket watch behind when she uses the phone to call for a cab. Ed keeps it and fixes it for her. He meets Einstein and his friends when he goes to Catherine's house to return the watch. From there the story takes off.

Answer: Cold fusion

The scientists set up a fake brain storming session so that when Catherine comes home they can see Ed sitting at the table discussing this brilliant new breakthrough in cold fusion he had. Unfortunately their plan backfires when she wants the idea presented at a symposium in a few days and Ed agrees so that she will be happy. Ed presents the theory and garners worldwide attention because of the ramifications of the theory for space travel.

Answer: Eisenhower

Eisenhower hears the news of Ed's theory and comes to town to meet Ed. He wants to have a press conference to announce when a prototype of Ed's cold fusion reactor will be ready. Everything has gotten way out of hand and now Ed is in real trouble. He runs off to find Catherine and tell her the truth.

Answer: Whether time truly exists

When we first meet the three scientists who are Einstein's friends, they are discussing whether or not time truly exists. This discussion continues throughout the movie and they ask Ed for his thoughts when they meet him. Two of the scientists were real people and one was a made up person probably based on a real scientist. Boris Podolsky (Gene Saks) worked closely with Einstein in real life. Kurt Gödel (Lou Jacobi) was a revolutionary logician whose real-life theories proved groundbreaking. Nathan Liebknecht (Joseph Maher) is a made up name probably based on Nathan Rosen, a colleague of Einstein's in real-life.

Answer: Yes

At first Catherine doubts herself and her abilities. Einstein reinforces these doubts because he does not want her to discover Ed's theory is a fake they concocted. But Ed encourages her to trust her own instincts and to question everything. She does this and discovers the truth while Eisenhower is in town.

Inevitably Einstein and the rest are forced to come clean about the whole hoax but the day is saved because Catherine is able to prove conclusively that cold fusion would not work - something Einstein had not been able to do.

At the press conference the results are announced that cold fusion does not work, thus disproving Soviet claims to the contrary.

Answer: A comet

Catherine's father discovered a comet and it was named after him. He told her before he died that he would return on that comet to check up on her when it came back to Earth. At the end of the movie she is headed to the observatory to watch the comet go across the sky when she 'accidentally' runs into Ed because of Einstein's plotting.

They watch the comet together and she tells her father Ed is the man she loves.