Karl Coryat is an American writer, comedian, and musician.
Jeopardy! contestant
In 1996, he was a two-day champion on the television game showJeopardy![1] Subsequently, he wrote an online article with advice for prospective Jeopardy! contestants, which included a method to play along at home, keep score, and gauge one's performance. Enthusiasts of the show, and now even the show itself, refer to this as the "Coryat score".[2][3]
Coryat scores ignore all Final Jeopardy! rounds, wrong Daily Doubles, and only count correct Daily Doubles by the answer value.
As a multi-instrumentalist musician (vocals, bass, guitar, drums, and keyboards), he has been recording music under the name Eddie Current since the 1980s.[7]
Other pursuits
Coryat's essay "Toward an Informational Mechanics" was awarded a Judging Panel Discretionary Prize in the 2012 physics essay competition sponsored by the Foundational Questions Institute and Scientific American magazine.[8] Drawing on work by John Archibald Wheeler, Carlo Rovelli, and Bob Coecke, the essay calls for a generalization of quantum mechanics that incorporates informational legacy or context into quantum measurements, which might ultimately lead to a description of an "it from bit" universe with the least possible complexity.[9] He has produced video essays on how the biocentric universe theory of Robert Lanza may be the best route to this.[10]
As a comedian under the pseudonym Edward Current,[11] he makes YouTube satires of religious fundamentalism and politics,[12] as well as serious videos demonstrating physics[13][14] and criticizing the 9/11 Truth movement.[15]