VC
2005 Terrapin Invitational Tournament
October 22, 2005 – University of Maryland
Tossups by Virginia Commonwealth (Matt Weiner)
1. Dijkstra generalized it to a statement that can provide the value of the signum function, and it can be used to prove the equivalence of areas of adjacent figures that satisfy its namesake similarity condition. Its generalization into three dimensions is known as de Gua’s theorem, and, among others methods, it can be demonstrated via the “bride’s chair” or “windmill” proof that accompanies it in Proposition 47 of the first book of the Elements. For 10 points, name this relationship, proven by Brodie to be equivalent to the parallel postulate, that associates the lengths of the sides of a right triangle by the formula a2 + b2 = c2.
ANSWER: Pythagorean theorem
2. In a letter to Albert Willis, he disputed the Blount report findings in favor of the Morgan version and cited the attempt to start a lottery as a key factor in his actions. Shortly after, his rule was opposed by Robert Wilcox’s rebellion and the Oni pa’a movement. As a legislator for the Missionary Party, he was a leading proponent of the “Bayonet Constitution” that curtailed the powers of David Kalakaua, and six years later he declared himself president of a new republic and began seeking American annexation after overthrowing Liliukolani. For 10 points, name this only president and first territorial governor of Hawaii.
ANSWER: Sanford Ballard Dole
3. This novel’s protagonist dreams of a crouching tiger in the jungle and has several further visions including a conversation on the spiritual value of love between Socrates and Phaedrus. Under the influence of “that dark God whose pleasure it is to trample man’s reason and dignity underfoot,” the protagonist dyes his hair and dons makeup to imitate a deranged old gondolier and meets the “vassal” Jashu, who nearly suffocates the object of his pursuit in the final scenes, when Tadzio discovers the protagonist. For 10 points, name this Thomas Mann novel in which Gustav von Aschenbach engages in the title activity due to cholera.
ANSWER: Death in Venice or Der Tod in Venedig
4. An Arthur Bliss piece by this name is written in nonsense syllables to achieve the use of the voice as an instrument. Frederick Delius wrote two “dance” versions of this form; Engelbert Humperdinck wrote a Moorish one for orchestra; and Georges Enesco wrote two Romanian ones. A nineteen-part piano cycle bearing this title was written after research into Gypsy folk music and includes Csardas Obstin and the Racoczy March; that is Franz Lizst’s “Hungarian” version. For 10 points, name this type of musical piece also by Rachmaninoff “on a theme of Paganini” and by George Gershwin “in blue.”
ANSWER: rhapsody
5. Its extremes are Chippewa County to the east, Gogebic County to the west, and the city of Menominee on the south. Between Munising and Grand Marais, one may find Pictured Rocks, which is the first-ever National Lakeshore. The city of St. Ignace here is the north terminus of the Mackinac Bridge. The Superior Dome can be found in its largest city, Marquette, while the Soo Locks ensure the flow of ships through its oldest settlement, Sault Ste. Marie [soo saint marie]. For 10 points, name this area whose only land border is with Wisconsin, due to two Great Lakes separating it from the rest of Michigan.
ANSWER: Upper Peninsula of Michigan [do not accept or prompt on Michigan]
6. Its triangular lobby has a coffin-shaped entrance on each side. An Edward Turnbull painting covers the lobby’s ceiling, while murals of itself are found on the red Moroccan marble walls. This edifice formerly hosted an observatory decorated with paintings of sunrays, ten floors above the eight eagle sculptures. It added a thousand feet in ninety minutes when its spire, assembled in secret inside the building, was lifted through the roof and attached to the seven concentric parabolas that form its dome. For 10 points, name this William Van Alen art deco design, a prominent feature of the midtown Manhattan skyline.
ANSWER: Chrysler building
7. A type of them can be used to make inorganic salts soluble in nonpolar organic solvents. That type can exist in an 18-member ring around potassium, a 15-member ring around sodium, or a 12-member ring around lithium. Essential to the formation of Grignard reagents, they can be created by bimolecular dehydration of alcohol or the Williamson synthesis and sometimes exist in the “crown” form. For 10 points, name this organic compound containing a bond between an oxygen atom and two alkyl groups, whose diethyl form was once a common anesthetic.
ANSWER: crown ethers
8. It was founded in Paris in 1889 under the leadership of Emile Vandervelde and broken during World War I, issuing a final statement at the Zimmerwald conference calling for a “no annexations, no indemnities” peace. As part of its ideological transformation under such leaders as Karl Kautsky and August Bebel, it held the London Congress of 1896, at which it expelled anarchists, conceding to the aims of Georgi Plekhanov and Friedrich Engels. For 10 points, name this worldwide organization of leftists that existed from 1889 to 1915, replaced by Trotsky’s Labour and Socialist organization and Stalin’s Comintern.
ANSWER: Second International [prompt on Socialist International; prompt on partial answer]
9. She wrote about a “stampede…of brass and flowerswirl” in her dedication for the “Wall of Respect,” just weeks after reminding dignitaries that “Art hurts. Art urges voyages” at the unveiling of the Chicago Picasso. “Boy Breaking Glass” and “Malcolm X” were published alongside her long poem about occupants of a Southside slum called the Mecca, set in the same circles as her Maud Martha, A Street in Bronzeville, and Annie Allen. She may be best known for writing about a group that “strike straight,” “thin gin,” and “die soon.” For 10 points, name this author of “We Real Cool.”
ANSWER: Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks
10. He labeled his metaphysics “naive realism” in The Existence of the World as a Logical Problem. His shift away from neo-Hegelianism culminated in his essay “Thought and its Subject-Matter,” while founded functional psychology with his essay “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology.” He was the first president of the American Association of University Professors and the head of a commission that went to Mexico to investigate Stalin’s charges against Trotsky. For 10 points, name this “instrumentalist” philosopher, author of Experience and Education, The Child and the Curriculum, and The School and Society.
ANSWER: John Dewey
11. Olive branches, a vertical sword, scales, and four lightning bolts on a light blue background surround a globe on its flag. Founded in Vienna by Johann Schober, this group was reorganized after years of Nazi control and is now based in Lyon, France, where it operates through the National Central Bureau of each member. It issues four types of “confidential circular,” including pictures of unidentified corpses, descriptions of smuggled property, and requests for detention prior to extradition. For 10 points, name this organization that aids cooperation among national police forces for the prosecution of cross-border crimes.
ANSWER: Interpol or International Criminal Police Organization or International Criminal Police Commission
12. His name graces a set of equations, applicable to electromagnetic radiation incident on a dielectric, which determine the ratio of transmitted and reflected electric field amplitude to the initial electric field. He also has a device which makes use of constructive interference, called his “zone plates,” and a “number” calculated as the aperture radius squared over the wavelength times distance from the aperture. When that number is approximately equal to 1, his “diffraction” occurs. For 10 points, name this physicist who also assembled concentric rings of glass into a device useful in lighthouses, known as his “lens.”
ANSWER: Augustin-Jean Fresnel
13. The creation of this entity was accomplished by defeating Tippu Tib and King Msiri. Movements against this government included the religions of Kitawala and Kimbanguism and the Abako social club. It was policed by the Force Publique, which made use of kidnapping of family members and bodily mutilation to ensure a supply of free labor. Its government was transferred to parliamentary control in 1908 after the “rubber atrocities” of Leopold II were exposed, and it was finally brought down by the National Movement under Patrice Lumumba. For 10 points, name this colonial government in the area later known as Zaire.
ANSWER: Belgian Congo or Congo Belge or Congo Free State or État Indépendant du Congo [prompt on Congo]
14. Susy and Jill are excited to receive the feminine version of this product after becoming bored with dolls. It also comes in G.I, Electro, Frontier, and Visible models. The speaker of “Svenish” finds another upgraded version “really fun” and announces that he is a bearded lady, and it can also tell you that roaches check in but do not leave in Spanish. Mr. Horse endorses this Blammo product for its ability to fit on your back or roll over your neighbor’s dog, and viewers are assured that it is “better than bad.” For 10 points, name this versatile toy found on Ren & Stimpy that is activated by pulling its twig.
ANSWER: log
15. A dark nebula found here corresponds to a similar feature in Cygnus and is called the “coalsack.” The open cluster known as the “jewel box” is found just under Mimosa, which forms its left side. Certain stars from Vela and Carina can form a similar shape to this constellation and are known as its “false” version. Found north of Musca and otherwise adjacent only to Centaurus, it covers the smallest area of any constellation and is useful in navigation because its long arm points towards the south celestial pole. For 10 points, name this constellation visible below the Tropic of Cancer taken as a divine message by Christian explorers.
ANSWER: Southern Cross or Crux Australius
16. They occupied Mount Ithome for five years until being evacuated to Naupactus. Ephorus wrote that Agis I captured their namesake city and created this group that was dissolved during the wars of Nabis. They revolted after the Battle of Hysiae and as conspirators with Cinadon, even though their complacency was enforced by the Krypteia and the ephors’ annual declaration of war on them. Some were Messenians, others descendants of the indigenous Laconians conquered by the migrating Dorians. While they could not be sold and owned some property, they were otherwise enslaved. For 10 points, name this lowest class of Sparta.
ANSWER: helots
17. Discovered still alive in the 1950s in a squalid cottage in Devon, her second writing career culminated in her autobiography Smile Please. Her characters include Julia Martin, who talks to herself in a hotel; Anna Morgan, who aborts Walter Jeffries’s baby; and Marya, who has an affair with the art dealer Heidler. These figures appear in After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie, Voyage in the Dark, and Quartet, written after her affair with Ford Maddox Ford. Her fame depends on the character Antoinette Cosway, who takes the name Bertha Mason as the wife of Edward Rochester. For 10 points, name this author of Wide Sargasso Sea.
ANSWER: Jean Rhys or Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams
18. This image includes a man in a pointy black hat using a comically oversized knife to retrieve a roasted chicken, two overturned jugs, and an effigy of an old woman’s head on the top of a walking stick. At the top are a mask in a tree and a long yellow banner with a crescent on it. A monk is divided from a nun playing a lute by a hanging loaf of bread, and their table hangs over the head of one of two figures begging for food from the water, while only one of the twelve figures in the painting appears interested in the direction of the oar. For 10 points, name this Hieronymus Bosch painting condemning human folly.
ANSWER: Ship of Fools or Das Narrenschiff
19. It was proposed by the “Quartet” group after the failure of the Taba conference and includes such measures as full implementation of the Bertini Report on civil liberties. A planned 2005 conference fulfilling its provisions has not occurred, due to the failure to meet such provisions as “free, fair and open elections” and a freeze on settlements. This three-stage program starts with a “normalizing” and ends with a promise to reach agreement on refugees and the status of the mutual capital. For 10 points, name this 2003 plan for a “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
ANSWER: A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict [accept anything reasonable with the word ‘roadmap’]
20. It formally originated in a 1674 declaration of the Tagsatzung and was presaged by the disaster at Marignano and an even split between Catholic and Protestant populations that created barriers to a coherent foreign policy. Guaranteed by the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna and the Hague conventions, it does not preclude participation in economic sanctions or international missions, as seen by the deployment of troops to Bosnia and Kosovo. For 10 points, name this “armed, perpetual, and non-aligned” policy that has secured centuries of peace in the Alps.
ANSWER: Swiss neutrality [accept clear equivalents; accept neutralité perpétuelle or perpetual neutrality before “perpetual” is read]
21. The dissent claimed this ruling “contradicts the basic principle that a State may organize itself as it sees fit.” Although the majority opinion declared the principle of “intent” sufficient to “satisfy the minimum requirement for non-arbitrary treatment,” the imprecise application was found contrary to rulings in Gray v. Sanders and Moore v. Ogilvie. Thus, this case found a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment in the “standardless” and “manual” nature of the proceedings, and reversed the Florida Supreme Court’s order. For 10 points, name this ruling ending the recount of ballots in the 2000 Presidential election.