History’s greatest question is a little closer to being answered and the best answer gets half a million dollars. Dave Courvoisier has an update to an ongoing contest to prove life after death. Back in February of this year, Las Vegas businessman Robert Bigelow announced he was offering over $1 million in prize money for the best answers to the question about life after death. The large prize payout and Bigelow’s own reputation guaranteed there would be high interest. The world’s religions all make claims about the afterlife as a central theme in their traditions and customs, but Bigelow sees it more as a practical question. The answers came in the form of over 1,000 essays submitted by hopeful contestants. Contest rules whittled that down to about 200 final contenders. Now, five highly-regarded judges are working on a Nov. 1 deadline to announce the top winners.