2007 Deep Bench
Questions by Drake University
Edited by Rob Carson, Andrew Hart, and Quentin Roper
Singlesand Doubles Packet Tossups
1. David Hilbert's seventh problem dealt with constructing these entities and was partially answered by the Gelfond-Schneider theorem. Their existence was first proven by Joseph Liouville, while Charles Hermite and Ferdinand vonLindemann were the first to prove that two members belonged to this class of numbers. Examples of these numbers include Chapernowne's Number, Feigenbaum Numbers, the Euler-Mascheroni Constant, and the natural log of 2. FTP, name this type of non-algebraic number, other examples of which include e and pi, which are not a solution to any non-zero polynomial equations with rational coefficients.
ANSWER: Transcendental Numbers
2. Before holding this position, its first occupant played for such teams as the Oorang Indians and the Rock Island Independents. Its third holder, Carl Storck, had previously coached the Dayton Triangles for five years, while Elmer Layden presided over such wartime events as the temporary mergers of Pittsburgh with Philadelphia and Chicago due to shortages of manpower. A more famous holder's notable actions included a merger negotiated with Lamar Hunt and the decision to continue play two days after JFK's assassination. FTP, name this position currently held by Roger Goodell, also the most notable job of Paul Tagliabue and Pete Rozelle.
ANSWER: commissioner or president of the National Football League
3. In one notable episode, the main character of this work angers an earth goddess by beating his youngest wife during the Week of Peace. In order to avoid appearing weak, that protagonist ignored advice not to take part in the ritual sacrifice of Ikemefuna; later, a misfiring of that protagonist's gun causes his exile. This work's protagonist's favorite child is his daughter Ezinma; he is especially ashamed when his son Nwoye converts to Christianity. Taking its title from Yeats's The Second Coming, it is set in the fictional village of Umuofia. FTP, name this novel about Okonkwo written by Chinua Achebe.
ANSWER: Things Fall Apart
4. Novels that describe this describe this event include TheLiberators by Viktor Suvorov, and Professional Foul and Rock 'n' Roll. A manifesto written "at the behest ofscientists and intellectuals," "The TwoThousand Words," was writtenby Ludvik Vaculikduring this event. It started when Antonin Novotny lost power of the KSC and Ludvik Svoboda became president. Alexander Dubcek ascended to first party secretary during this event, and it ended later that year when the Soviet Union invaded. FTP, name this period of political liberalization in Communist Czechoslovakia.
ANSWER: Prague Spring
5. Various derivatives of its chiral nematic phase are found in temperature-sensitive dyes and paints, and intermediate steps in its synthesis include mevalonate and squalene. It contains a hydroxyl group off one of its three six-carbon rings, and a heptyl chain with an attached methyl group off of its five-carbon ring. As it is insoluble in blood, it must be bound to lipoproteins to circulate. It is synthesized in the liver from acetyl coA, after which it is excreted in the bile, and it is a precursor to all steroid hormones. FTP, name this biomolecule whose levels in blood are characterized in terms of HDL and LDL.
ANSWER: cholesterol
6. The minimalist composer Steve Reich has set several of this man's works to music in pieces such as Proverbs. His lesser known works include Remarks onColor and Culture and Value, and he and Emil Post are independently credited with the development of the modern truth table. In one notable work, this man claimed that many philosophical problems are merely "bewitchments" rising from the misuse of language, while his most famous work contains seven major propositions, including "The world is everything that is the case." FTP, name this philosopher whose most notable works include Philosophical Investigations and Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
ANSWER: Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein
7. This author wrote five novels, including Voices in the House and The Long Love, under the pseudonym of "John Sedges." Another work by this author centers around the love between Bettina, a former slave, and Tom, a Civil War veteran. In addition to The Angry Wife, she also wrote a novel starring a bondmaid of the Ezra ben Israel family, Peony. Her first novel was East Wind: West Wind, whileSons and A House Divided are the middle and final parts of her "The House of Earth" trilogy. FTP, name this recipient of the 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature and author of The Good Earth.
ANSWER: Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (accept Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker, prompt on John Sedges before it is mentioned)
8. The Marmes Rockshelter, a notable archaeological site, is located at this river's confluence with the Palouse. That site was flooded by Lake Herbert G. West, created after this river's Lower Monumental Dam was constructed. The American Falls Dam was built where this river meets the Portneuf, and to the west of that dam one can find Massacre Rocks State Park. Other tributaries of this river include Henry's Fork and the Hoback rivers, while the Perrine Bridge spans its namesake canyon near the city of Twin Falls. FTP, name this largest tributary of the Columbia River, which flows through Hells Canyon and forms much of the Idaho-Oregon border.
ANSWER: Snake River
9. This man, who studied under Charles Gleyre early in his career, was depicted Painting at the Edge of a Wood in a work of John Singer Sargent. He was so impressed by the work of an associate that he would produce his own version of Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe in 1865, while other early works by this man includeThe Woman in the Green Dress and On the Bank of the Seine. While staying at the Savoy Hotel he produced a series of seven paintings featuring the Houses of Parliament, while other works include Haystacks and Water Lilies. FTP, name this French impressionist who also painted the Rouen Cathedral and Impression Sunrise.
ANSWER: Claude Oscar Monet
10. This man worked on a road building project in Yugoslavia, and in France he joined the Cercle Marxiste. Only seven of the 14,000 men who entered this leader's death camp known as S-21survived. He was preceded as Prime Minister by Khieu Samphan, and he came to power through opposition to Nodorom Sihanouk. He served as Prime Minister after forcing Lon Nol out of power. FTP, name this ruler who started a revolution to rid his country of educated people and return to an agrarian society, the Cambodian leader of the Khmer Rouge
ANSWER: Pol Pot or Saloth Sar
11. The general form of this equation includes a term that includes thermodynamic energy per unit mass, also known as "sie." That form of this equation can be written as v-squared over two plus phi plus omega, where v is velocity, phi is gravitational potential energy per unit mass, and omega is enthalpy per mass. A special case of this is known as the Venturi effect, and this equation can be written v-squared over two plus gh plus pressure over density for incompressible flow. FTP, name this equation from fluid dynamics named after a Swiss dude that helps explain flight.
ANSWER: Bernoulli'sEquation/Principle
12. This work was the basis for both Terence McKenna's ideas of novelty theory, as well as Carl Jung's theory of synchronicity. The first of the mythical Three Sovereigns is said to have discovered the principles behind it, though it was not actually compiled until the Zhou dynasty, when King Wen developed his namesake sequence for ordering its contents. The fact that one result is three times more likely than the other led to the end of the yarrow-stalk method of implementing it; three coins are used instead, with the two sides representing yin and yang. Legendarily divined from marks on the back of a turtle, FTP, name this ancient Chinese book of divinations that contains 64 hexagrams.
ANSWER: I-Chingor Book of Changes or Classic of Changes or I Jing or Yi Chingor Yi King or Yi Jing
13. Ignatius Donnelly published a book with this title subtitled The Age of Fire And Gravel, while a short story with this title by Borges features characters including Thoth and Janus interrupting an election and getting shot by revolvers. It will be preceded by the disappearance of morality after three consecutive winters, as well as the crowing of three cocks and the devouring of the moon and sun by Hati and Skoll. Hymir and Surt will lead their giants towards Vigrid, and seeing their approach, Heimdall will blow the Gjallerhorn. FTP, these events lead up to what climactic confrontation of Norse mythology between the armies led by Odin and Loki?
ANSWER: Ragnarok (possible prompt instructions)
14. A sea shanty about this entity describes its "being laid in the yard of Jonathan Laird...in the town of Birkenhead." Along with its most famous counterpart, it was the subject of a painting by Edouard Manet, and the commanders of those two ships had shared a cabin while fighting in the siege of Veracruz. It destroyed the Hatteras off the coast of Galveston and sunk 61 other ships, but its most famous action took place in 1864 in the harbor of Cherbourg, where it was sunk by the USS Kearsage. FTP, name this Confederate sloop-of war, commanded by Raphael Semmes, which took its name from a southern state.
ANSWER: CSS Alabama
15. The NOvA project will shoot these objects from Fermilab to northern Minnesota to study their mixing angles and CP-violating phase. A major unresolved question is whether these are Majorana Particles, and the MINOS experiment studied their oscillation. Positron emission always results in a neutron and one of these particles, and in single beta decay one of these particles or its antimatter counterpart is emitted. FTP, name this class of extremely weakly interacting leptons that do not carry electric charge and that come in electron, muon, and tau varieties.
ANSWER: neutrinos
16. Its director references David Copperfield in a scene in which the protagonist shakes with her wrong hand. A dress intended for a formal dinner party is ruined when the protagonist ventures under the roots of a tree in the rain to retrieve a key. One character places a mandrake root in milk under the bed of her mother to facilitate childbirth, and that character is tantalized into eating a grape, causing a white-skinned man with eyes in his hands to chase her. That character's stepfather is an evil officer trying to root out rebels during the Spanish Civil War. FTP, name this 2006 Guillermo del Toro movie featuring Ofelia's adventures in the titular maze.
ANSWER: Pan's Labyrinth or El Laberinto del Fauno
17. The protagonist's mother sees a soggy horsehead filled with eels and subsequently dies from starving herself. One of the most important jobs for the main character is one working at a place called "The Onion Cellar" with his friend Klepp. Eventually, he finds the severed finger of a woman he loves, is turned into the officials for her murder, and sent to a mental institution. Herbert Truczinski is a neighbor of this work's central family, and the protagonist's father died after swallowing a Nazi party pin. FTP, name this the first book of the Danzig Trilogy featuring Oskar Matzerath, a work of Günter Grass?
ANSWER: The Tin Drum or Die Blechtrommel
18. An essay by Henry David Thoreau about this man quotes Sir Thomas Browne in saying "Offer not only peace-offerings, but holocausts, unto God."This man wrote that heaven "sits and marks still who doth act amiss" in a poem called"What is Our Life," while another of his poems is a response to Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love." In 1595 he searched Venezuela for the legendary city of Manoa and was wounded in the 1596 capture of Cadiz. His final words were said to be "Strike, man, strike" and he was executed for supposed involvement in the Main Plot. FTP, name this Englishman who is also credited with establishing the first English colony in the Americas at Roanoke.
ANSWER: Sir Walter Raleigh
19. A lesser-known work by this name is the seventh in a series, following works titled Will o' the Wisp and Vision, and this title also names Glazunov's Fifth Symphony. A more famous work of this name opens with a theme based on the opera Bastien et Bastienne. Its finale features a theme originally found in this composer's ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, while Strauss's Metamorphosen is based on a theme from this work's second movement, which contains a notable funeral march. FTP, name the symphony dedicated "to a great man," the third of Ludwig van Beethoven.
ANSWER: Eroica(accept Symphony Number 3 in E Flat Major early)
20.Chapter eight of this work is titled "The Power of Words in Magic-Some Linguistic Data," while the seventh chapter is titled "Departure of an Overseas Expedition."The author of this work claimed it contradicted Radcliffe-Browne's ideas of structural functionalism, arguing that culture functioned for the benefit of individuals, rather than all of society. Marcel Mauss's The Gift discussed this work's description of the Kula exchange ring among the Trobriand Islanders. FTP, name this anthropological work by Bronislaw Malinowski.
ANSWER: Argonauts of the Western Pacific
21. Aelred of Rievaulx wrote a notable biography of this person, and the "Winchester style" of art gained popularity under this ruler. His appointment of Robert of Jumièges to the archbishopric of Canterbury was the cause of great conflict with the Earl of Wessex,who later refused to punish rioters in Dover, leading to the Earl's exile at the hands of this man. His great nephew Edgar Aetheling was never able to take the throne, as this man's successor was defeated and overthrown by William of Normandy. Taking the throne after his half-brother Hardecanute died, FTP, name this son of Ethelred the Unready and last king of the house of Wessex, who would be canonized in 1161.
ANSWER: Saint Edward the Confessoror Eadweread III
22. In one work by this man, the reader is entreated to "view the haunts of nature;" one figure mentioned in that work is "the squirrel," which "chirps merrily." In addition to that poem, "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," he published a blank-verse translation of the Iliad, as well as a poem about "one who in her youthful beauty died," "The Death of the Flowers." He gave Thomas Cole's funeral oration, and was later depicted standing next to Cole in a painting by Asher Durand entitled Kindred Spirits. FTP, name this longtime New York Evening Post editor, an American poet who also penned "To a Waterfowl" and "Thanatopsis."
ANSWER: William Cullen Bryant
TB. This constellation is the home of a namesake elliptical dwarf galaxy with little star formation that was discovered by A.G. Wilson in 1954. This constellation was once known as Cynosura or "dog's tail" by the Greek poet Aratus. Its beta star is Kochab, and in ancient times this constellation was called Draco's wing. Its alpha star is a Cepheid variable whose most notable function will eventually be taken over by Thuban and Vega because of the Earth's precession. FTP, name this constellation containing Polaris, the smaller neighbor of the "big bear."
ANSWER: the Little Dipper or Ursa Minor (prompt on "Little Bear")