Michael Shveima apologizes to members of the Physics Department, who were probably screaming at the TV when he decided not to answer a question about Bernouilli's Principle on ABC's Who Wants to be a Millionaire? last week.
But Shveima, a University Ph.D. candidate in Architectural History, still walked away with $125,000 after competing on the popular game show, which aired Wednesday.
"It was the most intense, acute pressure I've ever felt in my life," Shveima said of his experience on the show.
He correctly answered 12 multiple choice questions using all three of his lifelines on topics ranging from The Waltons to sheet music to ascorbic acid.
When he got to the $250,000 question though, two of the four choices seemed right, and he had no lifelines left. He decided to walk away instead of risking the $125,000 he already won.
"$125,000 means a lot to me, the poor academic," he said. Most of his winnings will pay off his student loans to the University, where he earned a master's degree in 1999, and to the University of Notre Dame where he studied as an undergraduate.
ABC flew Shveima and his girlfriend, University graduate student Astrid Liverman, to New York on Oct. 30 and put them up in a swank Manhattan hotel for the taping of the show.
"The trip was the grand prize," Shveima said.
The question that stumped Shveima was: In 1738, Daniel Bernouilli developed a scientific principle that explains how which of the following works? A: Pitched curve ball, B: Yo-Yo, C: Gyroscope, D: 3-D movie.
Shveima said he sat for 15 minutes under the spotlight contemplating the answer with the "obnoxious music" playing the whole time. The show's producers edited the wait down to about four minutes, he said.
Sheivma could not come up with A, the correct answer.
Shveima said the questions are much harder when you are actually sitting in the show's "hot seat."
If he were at home watching the show on TV, he would have known instantly that ascorbic acid is also known as Vitamin C, he said.
But under the stressful conditions of the show, he decided to ask the audience about that question, which was worth $4,000.
Liverman, who sat behind Shveima in the audience, said she was part of the show almost as much as Shveima.
"I was clapping like a fool the entire time," she said, because the show's producers had told her to be enthusiastic.
"I am very, very, very, happy to have been so fortunate as to walk away with enough money so as to take care of my debts to" Notre Dame and the University, Shveima said.
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