This Means Nothing to Me Trivia Quiz

Answer: India

According to Wikipedia, the Babylonians were the first to have the concept that a mark could be used as a place holder when counting; they at first simply used a blank space but then used two slanted wedges. We have borrowed this concept in contemporary mathematics and use the zero as a place holder.

For example, we use a zero behind the number one after we count nine to make ten and behind the number ten to make 100 and so on; otherwise, we would have to invent a separate new symbol for 10, 11, 12, etc., and we would have an infinite number of symbols, one for each possible number.

However, the Babylonians were not counting their place holder symbol as a number with any value. The people of India used a blank to represent zero all the way back in the fourth century BC.

By the ninth century AD, the people of India were using zero as a number with actual value that could be used in mathematical calculations.

Answer: nip

Other words for "zero" are aught, cipher, null, void, nada, oh, and zip, among many others. The origin of "naught" lies in Old English while "nil" is a derivative from Latin. "Zilch" is a slang term probably derived from a combination of "zero" and "nil".

Answer: Seinfeld

"Seinfeld," created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, is, as Wikipedia notes, the most post-modern of television programming since "Monty Python's Flying Circus". David and Seinfeld deliberately pushed for the show to be about the "minutiae" of life; in fact they both insisted stubbornly that there was to be "no hugging, no learning." None of the main or secondary characters were ever deliberately likeable, and certainly no one ever had a reason to feel sorry for any of them.

In fact, there is not even any grief when a main character's longtime girlfriend and fiance dies. Because of this approach, the show ended up reinforcing the philosophy of nihilism--nothing matters at all, and life is about an assortment of meaningless minor events.

The strategy obviously worked, for TV Guide considers "Seinfeld" to be "the greatest television series ever made," the show was in the top two spots in the Nielson ratings from 1994-1998, and it won countless Emmys and Golden Globes.

Answer: Elton John

"Too Low for Zero" comes from Elton John's 1983 album of the same name. It was also found on the 1987 "Elton John's Greatest Hits--Vol. 3"; however, that collection was deleted and replaced in 1992 with "Greatest Hits 1976-1986," and the song "Too Low for Zero" was not chosen to be on the new collection. Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics, which included: "I'm too low for zero / I'm on a losing streak / I got myself in a bad patch lately / I can't seem to get much sleep".

Answer: Less than Zero

"Less than Zero" was directed by Marek Kanievska and starred Robert Downey, Jr., Andrew McCarthy, James Spader, and Jami Gertz. It was based on the novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis. This film is the first in which Downey was billed as Robert Downey, Jr.

Interestingly, according to IMDB, Brad Pitt also appears in the film as an uncredited performer and received a mere $38 for his work.

Answer: Zero Hour

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, "The Zero Hour" was also the name of "the first of over a dozen live radio programs broadcast by Japan in World War II featuring Allied prisoners of war (POW) "who [read] current news and play[ed] prerecorded music and messages from POWs to their families back home and former fellow soldiers and sailors still serving in the Pacific theater".

These messages were "interlaced with demoralizing commentary and appeals to surrender or sabotage the Allied war effort".

Answer: Beetle Bailey

Mort Walker created the comic strip "Beetle Bailey," named after its main character, and it ran for the first time on September 4, 1950. Its setting is Camp Swampy, which is based on Walker's own experiences at Camp Crowder, where Walker had once been stationed during his military service. Private Zero is a stereotypically dumb and backwards country bumpkin who is presented with large bucked teeth so that his face might be said to resemble a rake of some kind.

He is continuously making mistakes and misunderstanding what anyone says to him. One classic strip shows him at a typewriter while he is writing a letter to his sergeant. Panel by panel, his facial expression grows angrier as he types a complaint that is riddled with grossly misspelled words and improper capitalization, punctuation, and grammar.

At the end of the letter he looks apprehensive, but rather than throw the letter away, he signs it "Yours, Beetle".

Answer: Macbeth

Specifically, these words are found in Act Five, Scene Five of Shakespeare's "The Tragedy of Macbeth." They are some of Shakespeare's most famous, and they are spoken by the title character toward the end of the play after he and his wife have risen to power through acts of murder and deceit.

He has seen his life and the life of his wife fall apart as they find themselves unable to live with the stress and guilt of what they have done, and he has concluded that life is meaningless. An interesting note is that William Faulkner, the 20th-century American writer, borrowed words from these lines to create the title to one of his most critically acclaimed novels--"The Sound and the Fury." The 20th-century American poet Robert Frost also borrowed words from an earlier part of this passage (not quoted in the question) for the title of one of his poems--"Out! Out!--"

Answer: Absolute Zero

Theoretically, Absolute Zero is the coldest possible temperature, considering the laws of thermodynamics and entropy. If there is absolutely no motion at a molecular level (or even a smaller level), then there is no energy being released and thus no heat. Such a state of existence, however, is purely theoretical. On the Kelvin scale, Zero degrees Kelvin is Absolute Zero and thus the source of this name. On the Fahrenheit scale, Absolute Zero would be the equivalent of -459.67 degrees.

Answer: Parmenides

The Eleatics were a group of philosophers from different generations who resided in Elea of the southern Italian coast founded around 535 BC by Greeks who had been driven out of Corsica by the Carthaginians. Parmenides was one of this group, and he argued that there is no such thing as the existence of "nothing" and that we cannot even really talk of "nothing." To mention "nothing" is to suggest that "nothing" is something when of course "nothing" is not anything at all. Furthermore, and more importantly, if "nothing" exists, then it must be something instead of "nothing".