Warning: This page contains spoilers for the May 23, 2025, game of Jeopardy! — please do not scroll down if you wish to avoid being spoiled. Please note that the game airs as early as noon Eastern in some U.S. television markets.
Here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category Time) for Friday, May 23, 2025 (Season 41, Game 185):
Eponymously named & in use for more than 1,600 years, it was based in part on concepts from the Greek mathematician Sosigenes
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
David Crockett, a Congressional liaison from Washington, D.C.
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Jim Carpenter, a retired music professor & conductor from Charlotte, Vermont
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Brendan Liaw, a recent graduate & stay-at-home son from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (3-day total: $59,398)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
Vancouver’s Brendan Liaw is now a 3-day Jeopardy! champion; today, he goes for win #4 against Vermont’s Jim Carpenter and D.C.’s David Crockett.
Looking at Brendan’s postseason chances, at this point Brendan is extremely likely to qualify for Champions Wildcard—but would be very much on the bubble for the Tournament of Champions if he lost today. This makes today’s game extremely interesting for those with an eye to the 2026 postseason.
(Content continues below)
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Correct response: What is the Julian calendar?
More information about Final Jeopardy:
(The following write-up is original content and is copyright 2025 The Jeopardy! Fan. It may not be copied without linked attribution back to this page.)
After realizing that the Roman calendar was prone to political abuse and thus became gradually disconnected from the seasons, Julius Caesar introduced what is now known as the Julian calendar: in a four-year cycle, there would be 3 years of 365 days followed by one year of 366. According to Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, it was Sosigenes who brought this suggestion to Julius Caesar. Interestingly, this also resulted in the year 46 B.C. lasting 445 days in order to bring the new calendar in line with told.
There was one major problem with the Julian calendar: one year wasn’t exactly 365.25 days—over the 1,600 years of its usage, it fell 11 days behind, with the current Gregorian calendar introduced in the 16th century in order to fix this issue.
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Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Friday, May 23, 2025 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Surgery; Sports Mascots; Eponymous Capital City Airports; Definitions Of Legal Terms; “Green” Day; Wanna Be An American Idiom)
Brendan got off to a bit of a slow start, but he picked things up by the break. After 15 clues, the scores were Brendan $3,200 David $2,600 Jim $200.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Brendan 5 correct 1 incorrect
David 6 correct 1 incorrect
Jim 1 correct 1 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
David is a black belt in both judo & Brazilian jiu jitsu.
Jim got to watch a concert at the Met with Placido Domingo in the row behind.
Brendan would like to become a comedy writer for Conan O’Brien.
Jim pulled closer with the Daily Double as Brendan continued to lead after 30 clues.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Brendan 10 correct 1 incorrect
David 9 correct 2 incorrect
Jim 7 correct 1 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Brendan $5,200
David $4,000
Jim $3,800
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Remembrance Of Things Past; Magicians; “S” Is For Small; Country, Music; A Literary Category; Pop Culture Gems)
Brendan found both Daily Doubles; unfortunately, he got them both incorrect—the second on a very close ruling, but within the show’s rules. (I would also remind others—especially those who post recaps to YouTube—that copying this section in your own write-ups risks your own write-up being DMCA’d.) Brendan wasn’t around for Final, as Jim led David by $600 going into Final Jeopardy.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Jim 16 correct 1 incorrect
David 16 correct 2 incorrect
Brendan 20 correct 7 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 30 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Jim $13,400
David $12,800
Brendan -$1,600
Jim was the only player correct in Final, and that makes him the new champion! He’ll be back Monday to defend.
Tonight’s results:
Brendan -$1,600 (By rule, did not participate in Final Jeopardy)
David $12,800 – $3,999 = $8,801 (What is a chronometer Sun)
Jim $13,400 + $12,201 = $25,601 (What is the Julian Calendar?) (1-day total: $25,601)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) WANNA BE AN AMERICAN IDIOM $1000 (clue #18)
Jim 800 +1000 (Brendan 3200 David 3000)
2) “S” IS FOR SMALL $1600 (clue #12)
Brendan 12000 -5000 (Jim 9800 David 5200)
3) POP CULTURE GEMS $800 (clue #24, $5200 left on board)
Brendan 8200 -8200 (Jim 12200 David 12400)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: -42
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Brendan 5 4 3 5 5 4 5 4
Jim 1 5*
David 3 1 3 4 3 2 2 3
DJ! Round:
Brendan 3 3 4 3 5 4* 4 5† 4 5 2*
Jim 2 3 4 5 1 5 2
David 2 3 2 1 2† 3
† – selection in same category as Daily Double
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Jim 3.11
David 2.43
Brendan 4.05
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 30 (0.16 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Jim $13,400 Coryat, 16 correct, 1 incorrect, 26.32% in first on buzzer (15/57), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 7 rebound opportunities)
David $12,800 Coryat, 16 correct, 2 incorrect, 24.56% in first on buzzer (14/57), 4/4 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
Brendan $11,600 Coryat, 20 correct, 7 incorrect, 43.86% in first on buzzer (25/57), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $37,800
Lach Trash: $6,400 (on 6 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $9,800
Lead Changes: 10
Times Tied: 0
Player Statistics:
Brendan Liaw, career statistics:
95 correct, 19 incorrect
3/5 on rebound attempts (on 15 rebound opportunities)
44.74% in first on buzzer (102/228)
2/4 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: -$6,400)
1/3 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $17,750
Jim Carpenter, career statistics:
17 correct, 1 incorrect
1/1 on rebound attempts (on 7 rebound opportunities)
26.32% in first on buzzer (15/57)
1/1 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $1,000)
1/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $13,400
David Crockett, career statistics:
16 correct, 3 incorrect
4/4 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
24.56% in first on buzzer (14/57)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $12,800
Jim Carpenter, to win:
2 games: 48.177%
3: 23.210%
4: 11.182%
5: 5.387%
6: 2.595%
Avg. streak: 1.930 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- As per the show’s rules, while leading articles may be changed or omitted without rendering a response incorrect, internal articles must be correct. The judges’ ruling on the last Daily Double was consistent with that rule and within the show’s rules.
- Today’s box score will be linked to when posted by the show.
Final Jeopardy! wagering suggestions:
(Scores: Jim $13,400 David $12,800 Brendan -$1,600)
Brendan: (By rule, did not participate in Final Jeopardy)
Jim: Standard cover bet is $12,201. (Actual bet: $12,201)
David: Any bet between $1,201 and $11,600 works best here. (Actual bet: $3,999)
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I stumbled on this one – I assumed (incorrectly) that this was something still in use.
Same here. And that it was something more concrete. I was thinking “did Archimedes invent a clock?”
Point of order: some churches still use the Julian calendar in regards to their holidays, like the Orthodox churches.
We used the Julian calendar in the Navy, also.
Surely not.
If the Navy actually did use “the Julian calendar” they’d be nearly 2 weeks off from everyone using the Gregorian calendar. However, there is a “dating technique” that ignores months and just uses the year and the day of the year (but aligning with the Gregorian calendar) — for example, the most recent leap day was 2024060 — and that version of dates is ordinarily called a “Julian Date”. I imagine that version was used in the Navy because of some countries using MM/DD/YYYY and others DD/MM/YYYY.
[BTW, if one wants to know the Julian version of a certain date, be careful in using an AI-powered search engine because sometimes it will give you the “in use” version’s value (like my example) and sometimes it will give the date that it would be IF actually using the Julian calendar.]
I couldn’t get gnomon out of my head, even knowing that there was nothing eponymous about it. Oh well.
Same with me and klepsydra.
The clue meant there were only two possibilities, both well-known. To be eponymous, it would have to be either the Julian calendar or the Gregorian calendar. Since we know our current calendar has only been in use for about 1000 years, that left only the Julian calendar. Pretty easy. I’m surprised that not everyone got it, although, I’m sure Brendan would have, had it not been for an unfortunate Daily Double or two.
Well, there were only two possibilities if you first realized the clue was referring to a calendar.
Like MarkO, I also incorrectly assumed that this was something still in use (because the clue said “in use for” rather than “used for”). [I know the former is acceptable usage for this meaning, but I believe it was chosen in order to be misleading.]
I tried to think of some eponymous alternate (but “in use”) word for second, minute, hour, day, week, month, or year, but in failing to do so, “month” and “year” did not make “calendar” occur to me. That’s pretty dumb not to make that transition but if I had, I think I would have thought of the Julian Calendar since I already knew all the stuff Andy told about it except what century the Gregorian Calendar was created. [I even knew that Turkey was the last adopter (in the 1920s), though there are a few countries that still officially use their religion-related calendars. Does everyone know that century years (years ending in 00) are only leap years if they are also divisible by 400 or do I just know that because I worked on Y2K computer programming changes in 1998-1999?]
Well, I did immediately go to thinking it was a calendar, but couldn’t get my brain to work in the 30 seconds of “Think” to remember that the calendar before the Gregorian was the Julian! Ugh! If on Jeopardy, my written answer would probably have been……the calendar before the Gregorian! 😉
As for those leaps years Lisa, yes I do know that! I think I learned that about 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 years ago from looking at something on timeanddate.com I immediately asked the attorney I was working with if she knew that and she didn’t! I’ve mentioned that to others since learning of that! I think I’m going to miss making it to 2100 to not see the missed February 29th!
I said that I’d tried to think of other words for second, minute, hour, day, week, month, or year w/o getting to calendar from month and year. However, ACTUALLY, I had thought about year (specifically and literally), THEN month, week, day, hour, minute, and (lastly) second, so that likely added to my not proceeding on to the word calendar.
TBH, my FIRST thought was light-year because I thought it could ALSO have an eponymous name for it, but I quickly realized that’s distance, not time [the category] and was a concept highly unlikely to go back 1,600 years even if ancient mathematicians were often also astronomers.
Since you mentioned an attorney, my Poli Sci degree husband also worked with attorneys (as a paralegal instead of getting his masters and/or going on to full law school as Liaw did/will). He was never a stay-at-home son, but was a stay-at-home dad while becoming a paralegal.
[If you make it to 2100 maybe you can meet Walt Disney.]
A recent college graduate in this instance, who’s figuring out what he wants to do before leaving the nest I presume. 🙂 Unlike some stay-at-home sons, I think this one has a bright future in front of him.
What an excellent game tonight. All players excelled for sure. A few unfortunate circumstances for our champion of 3 games. However, remember that Yogesh Raut was a 3 game champion and look at where he’s at now.
I could also see David brought back for 2nd Chance.
Have a great weekend everyone! 🙂
It could be a transcription error (and it didn’t affect the outcome of the game), but according to J! Archive, in show #7084 “Girl with the Pearl Earring” was accepted as correct in reference to the film.
I only bring this up because “Girl with the Pearl Earring” has been accepted when referring to the painting, but I assume that’s because the English title is a translation.
From Vancouver Sun:
“… When asked what he is going to do with his winnings Liaw said:
“Get a black 1972/1973 Nissan 240z … just kidding,” said Liaw. “It’ll probably go towards some travelling and law school tuition if I end up attending in the fall. I plan on donating some of my winnings to charity and my old high school’s (R.A. McMath) trivia club as well.”
“Liaw, 27, has a master’s degree in political science, but that wasn’t the description he used when it came time to talk to host Ken Jennings during Tuesday’s episode.”
Nice! Thanks Mike! 🙂
I’m a Senior Legal Typist and also work with Paralegals! 🙂 If I make it to 2100, I’ll be 131. Meeting Walt Disney would be super cool though!