2008 Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament - Packet 6
Questions by Illinois B (Miles Ford, Ben Montet, Jeet Raut) and Charles Meigs
Edited by Rob Carson, Andrew Hart, and Gautam Kandlikar
Tossups
1. A clone of this character lead a team of intergalactic peacekeepers which included Lady Quark and Captain Comet called LEGION, and this man’s eighth descendant infiltrated the Outsiders under the code-name Indigo. Another character with this name added a point 1 to the end of his name after installing some skull diodes, and is a member of the 31st century Legion of Super Heroes. The original character with this name shrunk the city of Kandor and placed it in a bottle, and tried to overthrow the Computer Tyrants on his home planet of Colu. His real name is Vril Dox, and he can’t shut up about his twelfth-level intellect. For 10 points, name this green alien with a series of disks on his head, a cybernetic enemy of Superman.
ANSWER: Brainiac [accept Milton Fine, Vril Dox I/II]
2. In one of this man's works, Fyodor finds true love in Zina Mertz as he passionately criticizes the work of Nikolai Chernyshevski. In addition to The Gift, he also wrote about a title character who meets his ex-wife's son Victor, and struggles to maintain a job as a professor of Waindell College. The narrator of one of his works writes a commentary of the titular poem and believes he is exiled king of Zembla, Charles Kinbote, and his most famous work is narrated by a scholar from a jail cell as he recounts his adventures with the titular nymphet. For 10 points, name this Russian born author of Pnin, Pale Fire, and Lolita.
ANSWER: Vladimir Nabokov
3. Three days before this battle, a division under Daniel Tyler attempted to attack a confederate flank, which resulted in a skirmish at Blackburn’s Ford. Col. Nathan Evans was an important figure for the Confederates, whoretreated to Matthews Hill after learning of Union attack on the Confederate Left Flank. Reinforcements under General Bee prevented the Union troops from fording the namesake river, and earlier, Robert Patterson failed to stop the advance of Johnston’s troops in the Shenandoah valley. It was a loss for the union troops under Irwin McDowell to confederates led by P.G.T. Beauregard, and Thomas Jackson also acquired the nickname “stonewall” during this battle. For 10 points, identify this first major battle fought during the American Civil War.
ANSWER: First Bull-Run or First Manassas Junction
4. When it occurs with 1,1-diarylethylene it is called the Wagner-Jauregg (yow-reg) reaction, although other benzenoid compounds usually do not undergo this reaction, while the aza modification of it can be used when either of two reactants contain imines. Lewis acids can be used to control the quantities of endo and exo products produced in this reaction which requires an overlap of the HOMO and LUMO. For 10 points, identify this 4+2 cycloaddition reaction wherein conjugated diene reacts with a dienophile to produce a cyclohexene system, named for its two German discoverers.
ANSWER: Diels-Alder reaction
5. The beginning of this work describes the title character’s engagement to Sarah, which broken after he is falsely accused by William Dane of stealing the money belonging to Lantern Yard. In another part, one character attempts to sell his brother’s horse, but only manages to hurt it, and ends up stealing gold that the title character has been hoarding. The title character finds a baby girl who refuses to live with Nancy Lammeter and Godfrey Cass, and this novel ends happily with the marriage of Eppie to Aaron Winthrop. For 10 points, identify this novel about a weaver of Ravelow, a work of George Eliot.
ANSWER: Silas Marner
6. In Act IV of this opera, one character sings the aria “Vecchia Zamarra” while agreeing to pawn a prized overcoat. In Act II, one character sings “Quando m’en vo” in which she complains about her shoes, and orders Alcindoro to find a new pair. In the duet “Sono Andati?” two characters recount a scene from Act I, where one character sings the aria “Che Gelinda Manina” as he searches for another character’s keys. It is based on a work by Henri Murger, though another opera by this name was written by Leoncavallo. Featuring a relationship between Musetta and Marcello, For 10 points, identify this Giacomo Puccini opera about Rodolfo’s love for Mimi, who dies from tuberculosis.
ANSWER: La Boheme or The Bohemians
7. Eberhard of Franconia attempted to depose this man and replace him with Thankmar (tahnk-mahr), but this man defeated Eberhard and his allies at the battle of Andernach. He also invaded Italy after his son and brother attempted to do so, and he married the woman who was held captive by Berengar, Adelaide. He divested Liudolf and Conrad the Red of their titles at the Diet of Auerstadt. He established his capital at Magdeburg, though he is better known for defeating the Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld. For 10 points, identify this son of Henry the Fowler, who was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 962.
ANSWER: Otto the Great or Otto I
8. The Lundmark law is a quadratic form of this law, which was found to better fit empirical observations by I. E. Segal, and the Tully-Fisher relation can be used to estimate on of the quantities in its mathematical expression. Friedmann's equations can yield the constant of proportionality in this law, while recent recent observations of Cepheid variables estimate that constant to be between 65 and 80 kilometers per second-megaparsec. For 10 points, identify this law developed by a namesake American astronomer, which states that the redshift of light coming from any source is proportional to the distance of the source.
ANSWER: Hubble's Law (prompt on H-naught)
9. This son ofMuireann (mih-ran) Muncheam(mun-kham) once beheaded the demon Aillen mac Midna, who had previously raided Tara every Samhain (suh-vehn). For that act, Cormac mac Airt rewarded this man with a position previously held the man who killed this man’s father had Cumhaill (cuh-vell), Goll mac Morna. He once threw the Isle of Man at a rival and also legendarily built the Giant's Causeway. He encountered a doe while hunting; that doe transformed into his wife Sadb (Sad-dub), who eventually gave birth to his son Oisin. While apprenticed to Finnegas, this character burned his thumb on a creature who'd previously lived in the Boyne. For 10 points, identify this mythical Irish hunter-warrior who led the Fianna and caught the Salmon of Knowledge.
ANSWER: Finn MacCool or Fionn mac Cumhaill
10. Events like the Slagter’s Nek Incident preceded this action. The lead singer of the band Dschingis Khan, Louis Potgieter, is a descendant of Hendrik, one of the men involved in this event, and many like, Potgieter, were Doppers. One incident in this event was an attack on Mosega, and Delagoa Bay was the intended target of Louis Tregardt, a Swede. After this incident, states were begun at places such as Potchefstroom and Winburg, and among the leaders of this event were Piet Retief and Andreus Pretorius. Provoked by the negative influences of the Xhosa and the British, FTP, name this South African event which led to the establishment of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal
ANSWER: Great Trek or Voortrek
11. This theory led to the formation of a quantum interpretation of the Zeno effect. For an ideal gas, the quantity described by this theory is evaluated by dividing the square root of the product of the Boltzmann constant, mass and temperature of the gas, and two pi into Planck's constant. One confirmation for it came from Otto Stern's experiments with Helium atoms, though it was first confirmed when high energy electrons were fired at a nickel atom in the Davisson-Germer experiment. Described by a French physicist, for 10 points, identify this theory which describes an inverse relationship between wavelength and momentum and thus explains the wave-particle duality of matter.
ANSWER: de Broglie Hypothesis (accept: de Broglie Wavelength)
12. The Sorites paradox applies to an entity of this name, while the buddy-block allocator helps manage another entity with this name. A variation of a third entity with this name, invented by Aragon and Seidel in 1989, adds a priority attribute to the data, whileChazelle's"soft" version"corrupts" the data in order to achieve constant-time-bounded operations.The Fibonacci version usesseveral trees at once, while the "leftist" version, much like NAQT, utilizes an s-value.The namesake of a big O of n log n sorting algorithm, for 10 points, give this term referring to either a large pool of dynamically allocatable memory also known as the free storeor a modified tree in which each child is either greater or less than its parent, both named for their arbitrary size. ANSWER: heap [accept "heap of sand" or equivalents before "buddy-block"]
13. Leaders of this event stole mail and held it at the Blackhorse Tavern, and a failed mediation of this event was led by Hugh Henry Brackenridge. David Bradford's coerced role in this event led to his acquittal in its aftermath, and people involved in this skirmish attacked John Neville's slaves. Its leader eventually fled to Louisiana after he was crushed by the so-called "Watermelon Army," and Meriwether Lewis fought for Daniel Morgan's Virginia militia that helped put down this rising. For 10 points, name this revolt quashed by Lighthorse Harry Lee and George Washington, fought in Pennsylvania and spurred by Hamilton's high tax on alcohol.
ANSWER: Whiskey Rebellion
14. One character in this work likes war because it requires people to register troops and keep an inventory of rations. Towards the end, one of the title characters dreams about living in Amsterdam as she worries about marrying off her daughter. That character draws out black crosses for the other titular characters, one of who is executed for stealing a cashbox from a regiment, and another who tries to warn a residents about an attack planned on their town. For 10 points, identify this play in which Anna Fierling loses Eilif, Swiss Cheese and Kattrin as she manages a canteen during the Thirty Years War, a work by Bertolt Brecht.
ANSWER: Mother Courage and Her Children or Mutter Courage und Hier Kinder
15. Art historian Longhi argued that the creator of this painting may also have worked on Raising of Tabitha, and the building depicted in this painting belongs to a resident of Capernum. The right side of this painting features the four apostles standing in a line facing the central group. Another figure is seen addressing the central group and collecting the title object from a different figure, and its left most scene depicts St. Peter taking a coin from a fish. Housed in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence, for 10 points, identify this work by Masaccio which depicts three different scenes pertaining to Jesus paying the titular taxes.
ANSWER: Tribute Money
16. The speaker of this poem wants to "Let be be finale of seem," and this work describes a dresser that is missing three glass knobs. An object that the central figure of this poem once embroidered with fantails is now spread "as to cover her face," and her dumbness is proven by how her "horny feet protrude." Beginning with an exaltation to "the muscular one" to "whip / in the kitchen cups concupiscent curds." For 10 points, name this poem which begins "Call the roller of big cigars" about a ruler of a dairy item, by Wallace Stevens.
ANSWER: "The Emperor of Ice Cream"
17. His namesake algebra consists of bounded operators on a Hilbert space closed in the weak operator topology, and contains the identity operator. He was second man to win the Fermi prize, and identified quantum mechanical states with vectors and pioneered the use of operator theory in quantum mechanics.With Stanislaw Ulam, hedesigned the implosion mechanism for the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. He invented the field of cellular automata and the idea of a universal constructor; in a different field, his namesake architecture maps data and program memory to the same space. For 10 points, name this badass Hungarian polymath who invented the minimax theorem and, with Oskar Morgenstern, game theory.
ANSWER: John von Neumann [accept Margittai Neumann János Lajos]
18. One character in this work chides his manager with "you are a shithead" after another character chews out that manager by claiming "a child" would know that "You never open your mouth until you know what the shot is." A plot to defect to Jerry Graff is hatched by Dave Moss, who first attempts to recruit Aaronow but whose eventual accomplice is nicknamed "The Machine." A gullible character named James Lingk is fast-talked into making a purchase by Ricky Roma, and in the end Shelly Levene is nabbed for robbing the sales leads. For 10 points, name this drama about Chicago real estate agents, by David Mamet.
ANSWER: Glengarry Glen Ross
19. Along with microtubules, these entities are recruited to facilitate the invasion of the host cell by the parasite T. Cruzi, and the protein hVam6p is responsible for the clustering of these entities in humans. Glycogen buildup in these entities in muscle cells results in Pompe's disease, and the lack of fat-metabolizing enzymes in it is the cause of Tay-Sachs disease. Mannose-6-phospate is tagged to proteins bound for this organelle, which pumps protons into itself for maintaining an acidic environment. For 10 points, identify these organelles that are important in the autolysis of cells.
ANSWER: lysosomes
20. One chapter of this work briefly discusses the role of Marsyas who travels with Cybele to soothe her; that chapter quotes some verses from the Havamal where Odin hangs from a tree for nine nights. One section notes the placement of various effigies in order to deceive ghosts and evil spirits, while an earlier section describes an event whose winner is bestowed with the title Rex Nemorensis. It begins with a description of a J.M.W. Turner work of the title object, which is a branch presented to Sibyl by Aeneas before entering Hades. For 10 points, identify this “study in magic and religion,” a work of Sir James Frazer.
ANSWER: The Golden Bough