I have much extolled here the value of new knowledge. Let us now hear a counterargument: Some months after Yale gave Mark Twain an honorary degree in 1888, the writer’s schedule cleared up enough for him to pull together a speech advising that the good people of the college learn less.
“I found the astronomer of the university gadding around after comets and other such odds and ends,” he wrote. “I told him it was no economy to go on piling up and piling up raw material in the way of new stars and comets and asteroids that we couldn’t ever have any use for till we had worked off the old stock.”
Greek would have to go “because it is so hard to spell with, and so impossible to read after you get it spelled,” and research in math “was not suited to the dignity of a college, which should deal in facts, not guesses and suppositions.”
Yale did not heed the advice, and I don’t think Twain would really have wanted you to, either. So please—guess and suppose away.
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Monday, December 1, 2025
- William Shakespeare’s only son, who died at age 11, had what name—just a letter off from one of the bard’s most famous tragic heroes? — From James Shapiro’s “The Long History of the [REDACTED] Myth”
- In AI-safety discussions, the likelihood that artificial intelligence causes global cataclysm is popularly expressed as what statistical term? — From Charlie Warzel’s “The World Still Hasn’t Made Sense of ChatGPT”
- Germans sometimes call their country “Das Land der Dichter und Denker,” or the land of what two vocations—the former of which would apply to, say, Rilke, Schiller, and Goethe, and the latter to Hegel, Heidegger, and Arendt (or you right now)? — From Isaac Stanley-Becker’s “The New German War Machine”
And by the way, did you know that Shakespeare’s grave doesn’t bear his name? What it does bear is a curse. The engraving warns would-be tamperers, “Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare, / To dig the dust enclosed here. / Blessed be the man that spares these stones, / And cursed be he that moves my bones.”
Evidence suggests that the curse didn’t ward off everyone; ground-penetrating radar revealed in 2016 that Shakespeare’s skull is almost certainly missing. Of course, researchers could have opened the grave to make sure—but would you take that risk?
Answers:
- Hamnet. The myth that Hamnet’s death begot the tragedy of Hamlet has persisted for centuries, Shapiro writes, but the fact that it is compelling—see Chloé Zhao’s new movie, Hamnet—does not mean that it is true. Read more.
- p(doom). Whether or not you use the term, you’ve probably considered the probability of AI-occasioned doom, Charlie writes as ChatGPT turns three. In fact, that mental precarity is already a big chunk of AI’s legacy, he argues, and the tech’s ever-evolving nature heightens the anxiety. Read more.
- Poets and thinkers. To varying degrees over the decades, this self-conception has been about both taking pride in Germany’s intellectual tradition and renouncing the country’s militarism. As Isaac reports, this makes for a fraught transition as Germany gradually abandons pacifism and rearms against a destabilized world. Read more.
How did you do? Come back tomorrow for more questions, or click here for last week’s. And if you think up a great question after reading an Atlantic story—or simply want to share a formidable fact—send it my way at [email protected].
The post Today’s Atlantic Trivia: Shakespeare and Company appeared first on The Atlantic.
