Round 12
Tossups
1. This compounds 5-hydroxy form has potential for treating epilepsy, and some cases of Eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome have been traced to supplements containing this compound. It demonstrates strong absorbance at 280nm and 320nm, a fact exploited in folding studies. In one pathway, this compound is cleaved into kyeneurine, which is then in turn rearranged to niacin, and it is also the precursor for both melatonin and serotonin. Its namesake operon consists of five genes labeled A through E, and is attenuated by a leader peptide containing two of these residues in a row. FTP, name this amino acid with an indole side chain, which according to an urban legend is responsible for post-thanksgiving drowsiness.
ANSWER: Tryptophan or W before mention
2. This man presided over Operation Magic Carpet and gave the final orders to fire on the Altalena cargo ship. He married the Russian-born nurse Paula Munweis in New York City. He founded the party Hareshima Hamamlachtit, or the State List, after another party he founded Rafi voted to return to the fold during the Alignment. He resigned in the wake of the Lavon Affair, centering around his defense minister, and at the last minute opposed the bombing of the King David Hotel. This architect of the Haganah had his term interrupted first by Moshe Sharett and then appointed Levi Eshkol as his successor. FTP, name this first prime minister of Israel and namesake of their airport.
ANSWER: David Ben-Gurion
3. The only truly navigable river on this island is the Black River, but its capital contains the HopeRiver and the Wag Water, and the MilkRiver supplies irrigation. Its extremities include Portland Point, Morant Point, and the town of Negril, and its ranges include the Queensbury Ridge and JohnCrowMountains. Its central region features the Liguanea Plain, the city of Mandeville, and a series of broken limestone hills known as the Cockpit country. More famous though is Montego Bay and the Blue Mountains towards the east. FTP, name this Caribbean Sea island with its capital at Kingston.
ANSWER: Jamaica
4. The Schaeffer-Bergmann variety of this phenomenon arises in interactions with sounds that take place in crystals, and the Kirchhoff formalism derives this phenomenon from a scalar differential wave theory. The Cornu spiral is a graphical depiction of Fresnel integrals, which characterize the near-field variety of this process, while the far-field variety is known as the Fraunhoffer type. For a circular aperture, this phenomenon results in Airy discs, and the Rayleigh criterion represents the maximum resolvability of a lens known as this phenomenon's namesake limit. Governed in x-ray crystallography by Bragg's law, FTP, identify this optical effect in which light bends around the edges of an aperture.
ANSWER:diffraction
5. This document prompted the “protest of the Nineteen Lords,” who demanded that a group be convened to discuss its implications. Two men were employed to deliver it in person, Arthur Lee and Richard Penn, while a working copy was initially sent to Lord Dartmouth. It speaks of the “wonder and envy of other nations” at the wealth and power of the recipient nation and a “tender regard” on the part of the drafters for the dignity of the kingdom. Written mostly by John Dickinson, FTP, name this last ditch effort to avert war, a petition for peace on behalf of American colonists.
ANSWER: Olive Branch petition
6. A man who lost his leg and manhood in an accident aboard a ship is the subject of one of his novels, while his only translated play is In the Grip of Life. August, The Road Leads on, and Vagabonds form a trilogy of that name, and other novels include Children of the Age and A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings. The love interest of the poet and miller’s son Johannes is the subject of his Victoria, while another of his novels claims to be “From the papers of Lieutenant Thomas Glahn.” He wrote about the industrious Norwegian Peasant Isak in Growth of the Soil, but better-known is a novel about an unnamed author who is too poor to feed himself. FTP name this nazi bastard and author of Hunger.
ANSWER: Knut Hamsun
7. This man's name is sometimes appended to a theorem by Hurwitz, which relates the genus and ramification indices of two surfaces, and his namesake mapping theorem of complex analysis ensures that besides the Euclidean plane, any two simply connected regions can be mapped conformally onto each other. The Hopf-Rinow Theorem is a statement about the geodesic completeness of his namesake manifolds, which possess metric tensors. A one-dimensional complex manifold is a surface named after this man, who posited that the nontrivial zeros of the zeta function lie on the critical line in his namesake hypothesis. FTP, name this German mathematician who is also the namesake of a certain sum used in calculus to approximate integrals.
ANSWER: Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann
8. The Grammarian Monkey and East Slope were written during this man’s ambassadorship to India. This man founded the short-lived magazines El Popular and Plural, as well as Taller, or “Workshop”, which recruited poets like Rafael Solana and Neftali Beltran. He claimed that “The crimes of the…regime are its own…and not of socialism” while attacking the Gulag system as ambassador to France, where he wrote his best-known work, a social and cultural analysis of his home country. FTP, name this 1990 Nobel Laureate in Literature, the Mexican author of Sun Stone.
ANSWER: Octavio Paz Lozano
9. The author of this poem describes how its subject “laves” his oozy locks with nectar. This poem’s speaker talks of “Myrtles Brown, with Ivy never-sear” the leaves of which he will “shatter…before the mellowing year,” Critics often debate the significance of the phrase “two-handed engine” in the context of this poem’s criticism of the clergy. The speaker invokes Arethuse and Camus, the “Pilot of the GalileanLake,” along with Phoebus, who tells the speaker that “fame is not mortal, but eternal.” He calls himself an “uncouth swain” and recalls the pastures of Cambridge, where he met the poem’s subject. FTP name this elegy on the death of Edward King by John Milton.
ANSWER: “Lycidas”
10. David Leitao argues that they are only a historical “legend” and never truly existed, on the basis of the meaning of hierosclochos as a protreptic writing designed to exhort people. Other historians have argued that an inscription reading “Nobas son of Axiuba the Carthaginian” explains their appearance in the history of Carthage. They were buried beneath an enormous stone lion which still stands today and they consisted of pairs of parabatai and heniochoi or charioteers, as Diodorus tells us, and were supposedly created upon the inspiration of Plato’s Symposium. Commanded by Pelopidas and Epaminondas at the Battle of Leuctra, FTP, name this force of Theban warriors reportedly consisting of gay lovers.
ANSWER: Sacred Band
11. The party assembled during this event included Theodore Weiner and James Townsley, who wrote a rather biased account of it. They crossed Mosquito Creek, to the north of Marais de Cygnes, and visited the houses of Allen Wilkinson and James Doyle, but their main target was Henry Sherman or “Dutch Henry.” When the Doyles and their sons tried to escape, they were hacked to death with broadswords; the main leader was spurred to serve “God’s will” after hearing that the Border Ruffians had recently attacked Lawrence. FTP, name this 1956 massacre of pro-slavery advocates in Kansas by John Brown.
ANSWER: Pottawatomie Massacre
12. A woman removes her right arm and loans it to the narrator of one of this man’s stories, while children with homemade lanterns hunting for insects are one of the subjects of this man’s “Palm-Sized Novels.” A schoolteacher with feet like a monkey’s is fired for hitting on a student in his The Lake, while a philanderer beats his mistress Kinu in an attempt to abort their child while his wife has an abortion behind his back in The Sound of the Mountain. Another novel concerns a bachelor who is inexorably attracted to a tea ceremony instructor, and Shimamura meets the geisha Komako at a hot-spring resort in his Snow Country. FTP name this author of The Master of Go and A Thousand Cranes.
ANSWER: Yasunari Kawabata
13. According to the Völuspa, this character’s Jotun counterpart Eggther will sit on a grave-mound happily strumming a harp during Ragnarök while this character fights, presumably with his sword Hofund. He proposed the trick of sending Thor dressed as Freya to retrieve Mjolnir from Thrym. He is credited with fathering Jarl, Karl and Thrall and founding the three classes of men in the Song of Rig. He is slated to kill and be killed by Loki at Ragnarök after blowing the Gjallarhorn and leaving his post at Bifrost. FTP name this guardian of the Aesir.
ANSWER: Heimdall
14. This ruler appointed Domitius Corbulo to fight King Tiridates of Armenia, and early in his reign, he provided aid to Jews at the request of Josephus. He later faced insurrections in Gaul under Julius Vindex and in Britain under Boudicca, while a group including the poet Lucan and his former advisor Seneca tried to oust him in the Piso Conspiracy. His personal struggles included killing his first wife Octavia to marry Poppea, and killing his mother Agrippina the Younger. FTP, name this stepson of Claudius and fifth Roman emperor, who ruled during the great fire.
ANSWER: Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus
15. Delmore Schwartz wrote a poem about Albert Einstein and this man, who wrote a response to “DoverBeach” in which he describes the “withdrawing waves.” The author of a play about a character describe originally by William Blake as “silent and invisible,” Nobodaddy, and poetry collections such as America Was Promises, he writes “And here face down in the sun…the shadow of the night comes on” in a poem addressed to the author of “To His Coy Mistress.“ Also well-known is his “True History” of Bernal Diaz, also called del Castillo, and a play featuring Zophar, Eliphaz, and Bildad, J.B. FTP name this author of “You, Andrew Marvell” and Conquistador.
ANSWER: Archibald Macleish
16. This man began his career by painting scenery for operas such as Tito Sempronio Gracco and Turno Aricino, while other early works include a series of paintings of the tombs of Archbishop Tillotson and Lord Somers commissioned by Owen McSwiny. Later in life most of his business was conducted through the patron Joseph Smith, who led him to travel to England and paint “Views of Badminton” and a series of London landscapes as seen from WestminsterBridge. Most of his better-known works were created as souvenirs for wealthy Europeans on their Grand Tour, which took them through the major cities of Italy. FTP name this Venetian painter named for the most famous feature of his home city.
ANSWER: Canalettoor GiovanniAntonioCanal
17. This work, notably translated by Wade Baskin, comes with an introduction by Jonathan Culler in its revised edition and a preface detailing the contribution of Albert Reidlinger. Its first part outlines some “General Principles” and includes subsections on “Value from a Material Standpoint” and “Value from a Conceptual Standpoint,” while the fifth and final part concerns the “retrospective” type of the title subject. Earlier, it contrasts “diversity of relationship” with absolute diversity in elaborating on the geographical component. Albert Sechehaye and Charles Bally are responsible for compiling this work, which famously distinguishes between diachronic and synchronic axes and the ideas of parole and langue. FTP, name this classic of linguistics written by Ferdinand de Saussure.
ANSWER: Course in General Linguistics
18. Small examples of these objects interact with Lindblad resonances and migrate quickly, while larger examples clear gaps and exhibit type II migration behavior, moving inwards on the accretion timescale. Nulling interferometers and stellar coronagraphs can be used to detect these objects, and will supplement previous searches for these objects based on Doppler spectroscopy. April 2007 saw the first detection of the so-called “Goldilocks” variety, lying within the habitable zone. FTP name these objects that come in terrestrial and gas giant varieties, found orbiting stars.
ANSWER: extrasolar planets or exoplanets
19. This sect traces its origins to a disciple who smiled during the Flower Sermon. Its Southern School draws inspiration from the teachings of its sixth patriarch as recorded in the Platform Sutra. It emphasizes the importance of its masters via the concept of dharma transmission. Its central texts include the Blue Cliff Record and The Gateless Gate, whose contents provide fodder for seated meditation in pursuit of satori. Soto and Rinzai are two Japanese sects of, FTP, this syncretism of Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism whose adherents sometimes ponder paradoxical koans.
ANSWER: Zen Buddhism
20. This man’s first opera was written for high schoolers in the Henry Street Settlement and features “The Capture of Burgoyne” and “Queenie’s Song,” while the sexuality of an adolescent girl is the subject of his second opera, The Tender Land. The kickass second of his three symphonies is known as the “short symphony,” while the first was originally an Organ symphony, and latin-inspired orchestral works include Danzon Cubano and El Salon Mexico. The song “Camptown Races” is quoted in his Lincoln Portrait, and he used folk music heavily in ballets such as Billy the Kid. FTP name this composer of Appalachian Spring and a “Fanfare for the Common Man.”
ANSWER: Aaron Copland
Bonuses
1. Name these people and places related to foreign intervention in twentieth-century Latin America, FTPE.
[10] A CIA-sponsored attempt to invade Cuba at this location ended in abject failure four days after landing in 1961.
ANSWER: Bay of Pigs
[10] During the War of the Falkland Islands, the short-lived Argentine government referred to the islands by this Spanish name.
ANSWER: Islas Malvinas
[10] The Swedish freighter Alfhem smuggled rifles, artillery, and antitank mines from Czechoslovakia to this Guatemalan president before he was overthrown in 1954 at the behest of the United Fruit Company.
ANSWER: Jacobo Arbenz Guzman
2. Name these buildings designed by Le Corbusier, FTPE:
[10] This house in Poissy, France, was designed to meet Le Corb's Five Points of Architecture. Columns raise the structure off the ground, there's garden on the roof, and the driveway loop is the exact turning radius of a Citroen.
ANSWER: Villa Savoye
[10] This church outside of Ronchamp has a silo-like projection on one side, many erratically placed pinhole windows, and a sweeping, massive-looking roof.
ANSWER: Notre Dame du Haut (Our lady of the height)
[10] This German working-class housing project partly designed by Le Corbusier was built for the 1927 Deutscher Werkbund. Le Corbusier pitched in along with Mies Van der Rohe, Gropius, and others to design the 21 villas here.
ANSWER: Weissenhof Estate/Settlement (or Weissenhofsiedlung)
3. His operas include Montezuma, Tito Manlio, and L’incoronazione di Dario, FTPE
[10] Name this baroque composer of the oratorio Juditha Triumphans, the subject of the hateful pamphlet Il Teatro alla moda.
ANSWER: Antonio Vivaldi
[10] Vivaldi is best-known for this set of four representative concerti, for which he wrote accompanying poetry.
ANSWER: The Four Seasons or Le quattro stagioni
[10] Vivaldi was a priest, and there's a priest in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Rigoletto is based on a work by Victor Hugo, and this is a cool canzone from Rigoletto in which the Duke of Mantua tells the world about how fickle women are.
ANSWER: “La Donna e Mobile”
4. Name these authors from da Caribbean FTPE:
[10] “Girl” and “Lucy” are among the stories collected in this Antiguan author’s At the Bottom of the River, but she is better-known for the novel Annie John.
ANSWER: JamaicaKincaid
[10] Your question author once received this author’s Tiepolo’s Hound as a present from Chris Romero, who hates the novel in verse. He is better known for Pantomime and Omeros, the national epic of his native St. Lucia.
ANSWER: Derek Walcott
[10] The author of Miguel Street, this Trinidadian has created characters like Salim in A Bend in the River and Mr. Biswas, for which there is a house.
ANSWER: Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
5. Ladislaus Bortkiewicz published his work The Law of Small Numbers about this distribution. FTPE:
[10] Name this discrete probability distribution which characterizes events which have very low probabilities of occurring during some period of time, named after its namesake French mathematician.