Ballpark
Puzzle #10 · 29 September 2026
The five questions from that day's Ballpark, each with its answer, the fact behind it and a link to the source. Rather play it first? It is in the archive.
1. How far from the nearest land is Point Nemo, the spot in the ocean that is farthest from any land?
2,688 kilometers
About 2,688 km, equally far from Ducie Island, Motu Nui and Antarctica's Maher Island. It is named after Jules Verne's submarine captain. Source
Image: Christopher Michel · CC BY 3.0, cropped
2. About how many filtering units (nephrons) are in one human kidney?
1M nephrons
About a million per kidney, each a tiny blood filter. Individual kidneys vary a lot, from under 200,000 to over 2 million. Source
Image: Wagner Souza e Silva / FMVZ USP · CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped
3. About how many words does a person speak per day, per a 2007 study that fitted volunteers with voice recorders?
16,000 words
About 16,000 words a day, for women and men alike. The 396 volunteers wore recorders that sampled the sounds around them for several days. Source
Image: Dick Rowan · Public domain
4. About how many pages of textual (paper) records does the US National Archives hold, by its own estimate?
13.5B pages
Approximately 13.5 billion pages, plus 10 million maps, charts and drawings. Only about 2 to 5 percent of each year's federal records are kept. Source
Image: U.S. National Archives · Public domain
