Warning: This page contains spoilers for the November 18, 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 17th Century Names) for Tuesday, November 18, 2025 (Season 42, Game 52):
He turned 30 in the first year of the 17th century & had notions that planets don’t move with constant speed along their orbits
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Tony Antoniades, a teacher from Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Lydia Boshart, an aspiring linguist from Raleigh, North Carolina
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Harrison Whitaker, a researcher originally from Terre Haute, Indiana (5-day total: $160,999)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
In terms of performance in one’s first five games, in metrics ranging from correct responses to money won, Harrison Whitaker is among the top 25 champions in the show’s history. He’s the first player qualified for the 2027 Tournament of Champions having won his fifth game yesterday, but the question currently on everyone’s mind now is how long his run will last. Certainly, today’s challengers in Lydia Boshart and Tony Antoniades are going to hope the answer is “5 wins” for Harrison. (In case you missed it, yesterday I released a pair of articles: the first one reporting on the entire postseason field for the 2025–26 postseason starting on December 15, the second being a pre-taping preview of the Tournament of Champions itself; the tournament being taping today for airing beginning January 19, 2026.)
In going through today’s J!6 clues, I noticed that one of today’s Double Jeopardy categories is “At The Jim Henson Creature Shop”. I assume this is going to be a “guest-presented” category, or what an acquaintance of mine recently referred to as a “crossover category”, because it is essentially a crossover between Jeopardy! and another media franchise. And that acquaintance—who I should point out is younger than I am—made sure to mention to me that his favorite Jeopardy! categories were the “crossover” categories, specifically pointing out a recent category featuring Phineas & Ferb. That brings me to my point, especially considering the recent complaints on Facebook regarding those categories. To the diehards who are more likely to complain about such things: You are not the target audience for these categories. What these categories do is introduce the Jeopardy! brand to fans of these other media properties, who see their favorite characters do a Jeopardy! category and then might get introduced to the show itself. And it’s those fans who will become the diehard fans of the next generation and will ensure there is still a Jeopardy! for everyone to enjoy when the current generation of diehards is in the grave. Thus, I will say that even though there are hundreds of fans who might take to social media to decry these categories, those fans are not taking the best interests of the show into account, and the show should absolutely not listen to the complaints.
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Correct response: Who is Johannes Kepler?
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.)
Although born in 1571 (remember, if there’s a year and a number, do the math!), German polymath Johannes Kepler is well-known today for his laws of planetary motion, described in the early 17th century, correctly stating that planets have elliptical orbits (compared to the circular orbits posited by Copernicus) and that a planet’s velocity is related to its distance away from the Sun itself.
If I’m not mistaken, I think this is the fifth time that Kepler has shown up in the Final Jeopardy Round alone in the decade since I’ve been the sole writer here at The Jeopardy! Fan; that said, it’s sometimes hard to tell how a clue is going to play amongst the players. I’d like to hope that it goes at least 2-for-3, though.
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My mind went right to 1571 – and I had nothing. So went with Copernicus – who was a century too early.