{"id":821,"date":"2008-01-23T10:12:07","date_gmt":"2008-01-23T02:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/?p=821"},"modified":"2008-01-23T10:12:07","modified_gmt":"2008-01-23T02:12:07","slug":"sixty-four-thouand-dollar-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/?p=821","title":{"rendered":"Sixty-four (thouand) dollar question"},"content":{"rendered":"

I first heard this from my supervisor but always felt confused. Sinologist Dr. Josheph Needman called it a sixty-four thousand question that why modern science and technology revolution did not first happen in then much advanced China but in Europe. For more, please read \u674e\u7ea6\u745f\u4e4b\u8c1c<\/a>. Here is the answer to this “sixty-four dollar question” from everything2.com.<\/a><\/p>\n

A sixty-four<\/a> dollar<\/a> question<\/a> (also written $64<\/a> question) is the critical<\/a> question about a problem<\/a> or a crucial<\/a> issue<\/a>, something difficult<\/a> if not impossible<\/a> to answer.<\/p>\n

This comes from a popular 1940s<\/a> U.S. radio<\/a> quiz show<\/a>, Take It Or Leave It<\/a><\/em>, which offered $64 as the largest prize. The first question had a prize of $1 and the prize total double<\/a>d with each successive<\/a> question: $2, 4, 8, 16, 32, culminating in the $64 question. (Like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire<\/a><\/em> if they actually stuck to the same ratio<\/a> between questions.) There was later a CBS<\/a> television<\/a> quiz show in the U.S., The $64,000 Question<\/a>, based on the radio show. There the first question was the $64 dollar one, and the contestants then worked their way up to the top prize, $64,000. It and its first spin-off, The 64,000 Challenge<\/em>, were hosted by Hal March<\/a>. A later, syndicated<\/a> spinoff<\/a> was “The $128,000 Question.”<\/p>\n

Because of this change between the radio and the TV versions, as well as inflation<\/a>, the expression is also heard as “sixty-four thousand<\/a> dollar question” and even “sixty-four million<\/a> dollar question,” (as well as the numeric representations of those amounts) and has led to such take-offs as “sixty-four cent<\/a> question,” “sixty-four franc<\/a> question” and “sixty-four bit<\/a> question” (the latter referring specifically to using 64-bit<\/a> technology).<\/p>\n

A vocal<\/a> version of the TV show’s instrumental<\/a> theme music<\/a>, sung by Hal March, was released as a 45 rpm<\/a> single called “Love<\/a> is the Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Question” in 1956. Its lyrics<\/a> were by Fred Ebb, and the music<\/a> by Norman F. Leyden. A songwriter<\/a> called Dave Keats has written a different song<\/a> called “Sixty-Four Dollar Question.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I first heard this from my supervisor but always felt confused. Sinologist Dr. Josheph Needman called it a sixty-four thousand question that why modern science and technology revolution did not first happen in then much advanced China but in Europe. For more, please read \u674e\u7ea6\u745f\u4e4b\u8c1c. Here is the answer to this “sixty-four dollar question” from … Continue reading “Sixty-four (thouand) dollar question”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}