2015 Prognostication Quiz: Questions 6, 7, and 8

6. Writing (April 15)

Fourteen of the 21 Pulitzer Prizes are awarded for journalism. Some awards are given to the news organization as a whole and some are given to individual reporters, but the news organization is always mentioned. If an award is shared, both newspapers are considered to be named. The number of times each has won in this century is listed in parentheses (ties are possible).

Which newspaper will win the most Pulitzers?
a. The Washington Post (5)
b. The New York Times (6)
c. The Wall Street Journal (3)
d. The Los Angeles Times (5)
e. another news organization will be named the most times (0)

The favorite won again. The New York Times won three Pulitzers, compared to 2 for the Lost Angeles Times and a single prize each for the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. The Times of New York won for investigative reporting, international reporting, photography. Daniel Berehulak's winning pictures of the Ebola crisis in Africa are haunting. That makes B. The New York Times the correct answer to Question 6 of the 2015 Prognostication Quiz.

A whopping 25 Quiz entrants (including the top six from last leaderboard) picked B, compared to 13 for A and 3 each for C and D. (I like how the order of Quiz prognostications matches the order of Pulitzer prizes, down to the third-place tie for the Journal and the LA Times.)

The Gray Ladies

Gloria T.

Janet C.

Stephanie A.

Zhiqi Q.

Ron D.

Missy A.

Marcus S.

Dawn K.

Michael A.

Russell V.

Nicole C.

Peter B.

Keila B.

Eric M.

Stacey C.

Matthew D.

Jeff T.

Sarah M.

Cameron M.

Grant M.

Nadir Y.

Ben S.

Larry A.

Jan M.

Sarah S.

7. Rings (July 14)

The New Horizons spacecraft (launched in 2006) will fly by distant Pluto on July 14, giving us our closest view ever of the erstwhile planet. One basic fact about Pluto that scientists do not know based on the current best images (from the Hubble Space Telescope) is whether Pluto has one or more rings like its outer solar system cousins, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Does Pluto have rings?
a. Yes
b. No
c. There's something there but it is hard to classify it as a proper ringd. New Horizons will not survive the flyby or will not collect enough data to conclude 

8. Moons (July 14)

We know of five moons orbiting Pluto: Charon (1207 km mean diameter), Hydra (~114 km), Nix (~91 km), Kerberos (~24 km), and Styx (~18 km). How many total moons (of at least 1 km mean diameter) will we have found orbiting Pluto by the end of 2015? For comparison, Uranus has 27 moons and Neptune has 13 moons. Note that the current 5 known moons will make A the correct answer if New Horizons does not survive the flyby. (Some people fret that it will be too dusty around Pluto for the satellite to survive very long.)

How many moons will we have found orbiting Pluto?
a. 10 or fewer
b. 11 - 15
c. 16 - 20
d. 21 - 25
e. 26- 30
f. 31- 35
g. 36- 40
h. 41- 45
i. 46- 50
k. More than 50

The big surprise from the stunning New Horizons flyby on July 14 was that distant Pluto is volcanically active, leading to (among other things) the large heart-shaped icecap that has captivated nerds everywhere.

Sadly, New Horizons did not discover any new moons or any rings. That caps a pretty boring summer for the Quiz, which also had precisely zero people die. Large pluralities of 18 (for no rings) and 30 (for few moons) chose the most conservative positions and scored a lot of points.

Anti-ringers

Marcus S.

Michael A.

Peter B.

Dave S.

Keila B.

Eric M.

Sarah M.

Grant M.

Nadir Y.

Rachel H.

Jeff C.

Chris C.

Adam K.

Chris M.

Matthew D.

Larry A.

Jenny A.

Jason C.

Anti-mooners

Gloria T.

Janet C.

Ron D.

Marcus S.

Michael A.

Peter B.

Missy A.

Megan T.

Dave S.

Keila B.

Eric M.

Sarah M.

Grant M.

Nadir Y.

Rachel H.

Russell V.

Nicole C.

Stacey C.

Jeff T.

Miriam S.

Ellen Y.

Adam K.

Chris M.

Ben S.

Jan M.

Sarah T.

Jason C.

Rachel F.

Pamela C.

Todd C.

Leaderboard

For the second straight post, Janet and Gloria are tied at the top of the leaderboard. They have flipped positions, based on the tiebreaking procedure: Janet's Dow Jones prediction is more bearish than Gloria's, and that has become relevant with the recent drop in the stock market.

Also just like last time, five contestants are one point behind the two leaders. Ron and Missy are still there, while Marcus, Peter, and your humble correspondent have only succeeded in climbing to that elite level with these three questions.

Next up are 9. Storms and 10. Vetoes, and it has been a surprisingly sparse year for both. We are sitting on two vetoes by Obama, which is answer A, and he would need another 19 to get to answer B. Likewise, we are sitting on an astonishing zero hurricanes so far this year, which again is answer A, with another 5 needed to get to answer B. I won't score them yet, but the upshot at the top of the leaderboard is that Marcus, Ron, and Peter will move up one point and Grant will move two points to join a six-way first-place tie with Janet and Gloria. Of those in the imaginary six-way tie, it is Janet who would be our winner if the stock market and bitcoin ended the year where they are right now. But that is probably not likely to happen, and scores will change further after people start dying this year.

Rank	Score	Name
1	6	Janet C.
2	6	Gloria T.
3	5	Marcus S.
4	5	Ron D.
5	5	Missy A.
6	5	Michael A.
7	5	Peter B.
8	4	Stephanie A.
9	4	Keila B.
10	4	Russell V.
11	4	Eric M.
12	4	Rachel H.
13	4	Dave S.
14	4	Nadir Y.
15	4	Zhiqi Q.
16	4	Sarah M.
17	4	Grant M.
18	4	Megan T.
19	4	Nicole C.
20	3	Ellen Y.
21	3	Jeff T.
22	3	Adam K.
23	3	Chris C.
24	3	Stacey C.
25	3	Jeff C.
26	3	Matthew D.
27	3	Chris M.
28	3	Larry A.
29	3	Dawn K.
30	3	Jan M.
31	3	Ben S.
32	3	Miriam S.
33	2	Cameron M.
34	2	Jason C.
35	2	Valerie M.
36	2	Pamela C.
37	2	Rachel F.
38	2	Jenny A.
39	2	Sarah T.
40	2	Sarah S.
41	1	Mary A.
42	1	Todd C.
43	1	Kevin K.
44	1	Ekrem S.

With the most popular answer being correct for three straight questions, we have eliminated all goose eggs from the leaderboard. Last time, we had the sad sibling duo of Jason and Todd both at zero points, but Todd got one point and Jason got two. Joining Todd in the new cellar of one point are Mary, Kevin, and Ekrem.

It may not be a coincidence that both of the people who sent in answers that spell something are in this bottom quartet. This is a small price to pay for art, I suppose.

Here is Todd's elegant and rather magical entry:

A B B A C A A A A A A A B R A

And here is Ekrem's explanation, perhaps, for why he is scoring so poorly this year:

A B A D B A D H E A D A C H E.

The reason Ekrem is in dead last, however, is that he always encodes part of his answer with his Dow Jones prediction. My eagle-eyed readers may be wondering why I ended Ekrem's answer with a period but not Todd's. The answer is that Ekrem very specifically scripted the period into his answer. He explains, "For the tie breaker, the ascii for '.' is 56." Although 56 is low compared to the current stratospheric levels of over 17,477, it is not without historical precedent: the Dow Jones was bounced around 56 during much of the Great Depression. Good luck to you, Ekrem.