'Jeopardy' winner hits $1 million mark [Ken Jennings, 30-time champ]

Television's seemingly unbeatable answer man — or question man — has passed the $1 million mark on "Jeopardy!" Ken Jennings, the whip-smart software engineer from Salt Lake City, won his 30th straight contest on the syndicated game show, in an episode televised Tuesday. That brought his earnings to $1,004,960.

He's long since blown past the previous record for a "Jeopardy!" contestant, excluding special tournaments. Tom Walsh of Washington, D.C., set that record of $184,900 over seven days last winter.

Unless Stephen Hawkins becomes a contestant, Ken may be there awhile!

Ken is not a genius. He is a walking encyclopedia, but a genius is not someone who keeps a lot of useless information in his head. Einstein once stated that it is a waste of brain power to memorize something that you can look up in a book.

But then Einstein never earned a million dollars in 30 days.

nycgal said: "Now that the rules have changed, I think the show should invite back all of the 5 game winners to see how far they can go."

It is certainly the case that the show will sag in popularity if Ken is not given some stronger challengers. Yours is a good idea.

Another poster suggests that others have done as well as Ken. I have watched fairly regularly for years and I don't have the sense that others have done anywhere near this well. He has already matched the all time daily record twice I believe.

You're spot-on about the buzzer. I've noticed that Ken usually dominates the first couple of categories completely until the newbies figure out the timing.

Occasionally too, you'll se him go on a roll when even he is better than usual at buzzing in. He will often buzz in at these times without a clear idea of what the answer is, he just thinks up an educated guess during his 5 seconds, whic is usually correct.

It's just a case of a really smart guy who has working the buzzer down to a science - just as you'd expect a trivia-expert computer geek to do, given multiple chances.

Unless Stephen Hawkins becomes a contestant, Ken may be there awhile! And all the questions would have to revolve around physics and cosmology.

And even then Hawkins may not even win. The greatest strength Hawkins has is his ability to visualize concepts in a cognitive manner that most people simply cannot. When it comes to pure 'brain juice' Hawkins outpaces Jennings (and most humans) by far. However the greatest advantage Jennings has is the ability to store, and extract at will, memory facts and figures.

And that is the key that might allow Jennings to win Hawkins .....in physics!

If it came to describing the workings of singularities in a 12-dimensional framework, or to elaborate on the potential impacts of string theorem on collapsible gravity, then Hawkins has the edge (by far). However if it is saying what year Einstein came up with the theoryof relativity, or what the speed of light is, then Jennings has the advantage (of memory that can be brought up very quickly, and obviously a lightning fast hand at the buzzer .....and talking of hands Hawkins would have a very hard time buzzing due to his physical ailments).

In Jeopardy Jennings would win Hawkins since it is about what you have in your mind, if you can recall it, and how fast you can do it. Hawkins is a pure genius .....but he probably would not make it in Jeopardy ....even if they only asked physics questions.

I guess an analogy would be Jennings being a Corvette, and Hawkins the Space Shuttle. The Shuttle can go much much faster, than any Corvette ever made .....and moreover it can fly to space (something not even a dream 'Vette can do). It is basically BEYOND the 'Vette. However ....on a winding road .....the 'Vette will win everytime.

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