Can You Guess the Common Bond? #3 Quiz

Answer: 64

Gadolinium is a lanthanide element with atomic number 64. A silvery metal, it has use in the field of magnetic resonance imaging, where it is used to help produce clearer images.

Discovered in 1779, the Black Eye Galaxy has the Messier number 64 and is found in the Coma Berenices constellation, around 24 million light years away from Earth.

A chessboard typically has 64 squares, arranged in an 8x8 grid and alternately coloured black and white. Players arrange their sixteen pieces on the two rows closest to them, with the queen sitting on the square bearing her colour.

Answer: Playing cards

Klondike is one of the most popular solitaire games in the world, with an extremely simple premise. The object of the game is to use only the face-up cards on a series of seven piles, plus the cards in the rest of the deck, to build up each suit in order, from Ace to King, in the foundations.

In order to achieve this, the face-up cards can be moved around the piles and even stacked on top of each other, but only if they are immediately lower than the card they are on and they are the opposite colour (for example, a red 4 can be placed on top of a black 5, because it is both immediately lower and the opposite colour; a black Jack cannot be placed on top of a black Queen, because it is the same colour). If no moves are possible, a card (or multiple cards) can be drawn from the rest of the deck to see if that can be played. If a pile is depleted and leaves a space, only a King can be placed there.

The game is complete when all suits are built in the foundations.

Answer: Donkey

The wise-cracking, multiloquent Donkey first meets Shrek after he manages to avoid being sold to Lord Farquaad's knights. When Shrek's swamp begins to fill with uninvited visitors, the pair journey to the kingdom of Duloc to request the visitors' removal. Tasked with rescuing Princess Fiona from a dragon-guarded castle in return for clearing the swamp, Donkey and Shrek find themselves embarking on a journey with unexpected results. Alongside the vocal talents of Eddie Murphy were Mike Myers as Shrek, Cameron Diaz as Fiona and John Lithgow as Lord Farquaad.

Answer: The Switch

"The Switch" first aired in 1995 as part of the sixth season of "Seinfeld". Aside from the titular subplot of Jerry attempting to switch his girlfriend (who doesn't laugh at his jokes) for her roommate by proposing a ménage à trois, "The Switch" is perhaps best known for being the episode in which the characters and the audience discover the elusive first name of Kramer - Cosmo.

Answer: Monte Mario

Not one of the famed Seven Hills of Rome but nonetheless the highest hill in the city, Monte Mario is part of Municipio XV, north of Vatican City and to the west of the River Tiber. The hill is home to the Monte Mario Observatory, which was once used as Italy's prime meridian, from which most of the country's maps were based.

Answer: Cube

Aside from the geometric solid, a cube is a number which is the product of multiplying a smaller number by itself and then multiplying it by itself again. For example, 8 is a cube, because it is the result of 2 x 2 x 2; this would be written as 2 with a superscript 3 (or, like we have here where a superscript cannot be displayed, 2^3).

Interestingly, the number 64 is a square number (8 x 8) and a cube number (4 x 4 x 4) and a sixth power (2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2).

Answer: Toad

Tautonyms are names which consist of two (or more) of the same word. In this example, Bufo bufo is the scientific name of the common toad, where both the genus and species is Bufo. Although there are many other tautonymous animals, some of the more common ones are Vulpes vulpes (red fox), Rattus rattus (black rat) and Buteo buteo (common buzzard).

Answer: Zelda

"Save Me the Waltz" was Zelda's only novel, elements of which are based on her own life. Centred on the life of a young woman called Alabama Beggs, the novel follows her attempts to be successful in her life. Following Alabama's marriage to a young artist and subsequent (albeit brief) stint as a ballet dancer, she finds her herself unhappy in her life, despite achieving the success she so desired.

Although Zelda was keen to have a second novel published, the poor reception of "Save Me the Waltz" from critics and her husband alike dissuaded her from ever doing so.

Answer: Japan

The 1964 Summer Olympics were held in Tokyo, and marked the first time they'd been held in an Asian country. Tokyo was set to host the games in 1940 but the actions of Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War, as well as the later outbreak of World War II, led to the 1940 games being cancelled entirely.

The 1972 Winter Games at Sapporo were also a first for Asia, and Japan repeated the success at Nagano 1998 with its second Winter Games and third overall Olympics of the twentieth century.

Answer: Nintendo

All the correct answers here are connected by the video gaming company Nintendo.

1: 64 - The Nintendo 64 was their third home video console, released in 1996 in Japan and North America, and notable for being the first proper foray into 3D gaming, thanks to technical improvements over the previous console, the SNES.

2: Playing cards - A little known fact, Nintendo first started in 1889 selling Japanese playing cards called Hanafuda, which are used in games like "Koi-Koi".

3: Donkey - Donkey Kong was perhaps Mario's earliest adversary in the arcade game of the same name, and later went on to feature in his own spin-off series of platformers, including "Donkey Kong Country".

4: The Switch - The Nintendo Switch was the 2017 successor to the Wii U, introducing dual motion controllers and a portable, tablet-like system unit.

5: Monte Mario - Mario is, of course, Nintendo's enduring mascot and star of a plethora of video games across a variety of genres.

6: Cube - The Nintendo GameCube released in 2001 in Japan and North America as a follow-up to the Nintendo 64.

7: Toad - Toad is both the name of a frequently seen character in the "Mario" series as well as its own species. Different Toads are distinguished by the coloured spots on their head.

8: Zelda - "The Legend of Zelda" is one of Nintendo's most popular and famous franchises, in which players almost always take control of Link in his quest to rid the land of evil, rescuing or being aided by Princess Zelda along the way.

9: Japan - Nintendo is one of Japan's biggest companies and cultural icons, and also has headquarters in the USA under the name Nintendo of America.