CNN Stumps Geography Champ with Sort-Of Trick Question (Update)

video

by Meenal Vamburkar | 5:31 pm, May 27th, 2010

» 5 comments

CNN took a break from oil spill coverage today to chat with 13-year-old Aadith Moorthy – winner of 2010 National Geographic Bee. Moorthy talked a bit about wanting to become a physicist and his interest in studying space geography, and then, host Ali Velshi decided to quiz him – and stumped the winner.

Velshi asked Moorthy a question he said had even stumped him: name the American city from which you can travel in any direction (north, south, east, west) and the first state you reach is the same. While Velshi called the question “a simple one,” Moorthy thought for a few seconds and replied simply: “Oh, you stumped me.”

Update: Velshi responds to Mediaite: “I feel really bad for stumping him – it was not just a hard question but maybe a little unfair – given the ferry situation. I thought the kid was brilliant and he did handle it like a champ – I hope I didn’t embarrass him.”

Yes, there’s a ferry situation. For those who want to play along at home, the answer is below. Check out the video here. The questioning begins at 02:10:

Turns out, the answer is Stamford, CT (according to CNN). No matter which direction you travel in, the first state you hit is New York. Moorthy took it in stride and stated, “Life is a learning experience.” What a champ, indeed. (Apparently the answer is un-Google-able…so we’ll have to take CNN’s word for it.)

ali velshi, CNN, National Geographic Bee

http://www.sailrabbits.com Magister

I too, learned something today.

Of course, I’m going to guess that the question was generated by a Stamford native because I can’t think of any other reason someone might know it. Though I’m going to be in Connecticut in a couple of weeks, so now I have some useless trivia to use on my family, thanks to this post.
http://the-w.com/ CRZ

It’s pretty easy to Google “Stamford, CT” when you use maps.google.com :) It looks like that answer may apply to several places in Connecticut (tho’ maybe they’re not large enough to be “cities”)
timzank

What does Velshi do for fun on Friday afternoons? Let the air out kids bicycle tires?
JunkJunk

I actually heard that question last Saturday on NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!”

Totally stumped me when I heard it. Although I seem to remember hearing them say there were a few other cities around the country for which that situation exists (though I could be mistaken)…
Andrew Tyndall

@JunkJunk –

It is also true for Nome…travel in all four directions and you reach no other state of the union except Alaska.