Auspicious Incident – Packet 2
Questions by Ezequiel Berdichevsky, Paul Litvak, Matt Lafer, Ben Heller
Tossups
1.Rigestan Square, in the center of the city, is surrounded by several Islamic schools, including those of Shirdar, Tilakari, and the astronomer Ulugh Beg. Originally part of the ancient kingdom known as Sogdiana, it was captured by Alexander in 329 B.C. and was held at various times by the Arabs, Samanids, and the Khwarezm-Shah dynasty, and Genghis Khan destroyed it in 1220. One of his descendents later captured it again, and he built the Bibi-Khanom mosque and the Gur-e Amir mausoleum, where he is currently entombed. FTP, identify this current city of Uzbekistan and the former capital of Tamerlane’s empire.
Answer: Samarkand
2.Puccini’s first opera is based on the same legend that inspired this work, which was written by Theophile Gautier especially for its star Carlotta Grisi. With the help of St. Georges, Gautier finished the script and convinced its composer to abandon La Jolie Fille de Gand in favor of this piece featuring characters like Myrtha and Bathilde, supernatural beings who have died before their wedding day and now haunt the earth. When the title character realizes that her love might abandon her she commits suicide. The work ends with Albrecht visiting her grave and being compelled to dance until he dies, yet by the end the true love of the heroine saves him. FTP identify this 1841 ballet about the “Villi” the masterpiece of Adolphe Adam.
Answer: Giselle
3.One region is composed mainly of the nucleotide sequence TATAAT, and these sequences are separated by 16 to 19 base pairs. Some of the functions they are capable of are methylation of DNA, caused by the reading of the sequence GATC; and attenuation, which is regulated by the presence of tryptophan in the cell, and is the premature termination of mRNA translation. Repressors, which bind to the region known as the o-site, come in two varieties: translational and transcriptional. FTP, name this genetic unit, the most well known of which is the lac- type in E. coli, composed of a promoter and operator region.
Answer: operon
4.The presence of his name in texts dealing with scorpion bites suggest that he was seen as a god of healing, and the valuable medicinal herb “khenem” was known as his plant. He is partly a vegetation god and in that role is aided by his friend Hapi, who controls the Nilc. He also imprisoned wicked souls so they could not ascend to heaven and Atum would later decree that he would preside as judge over the struggle between Horus and Set, an interesting position for a deity known as “the great cackler.” Often depicted with black or green skin, his sacred animal and symbol was the goose, and he was the eldest son born of the union of Shu and Tefnut. FTP identify this Egyptian earth god, whose offspring included Osiris and Isis, the consort of Nut.
Answer: Geb or Seb or Keb
5.It ends with Miss Bogle leaving the room with their son, and the husband telling the heroine: “See, I see nothing but you.” Composed in six sections, the heroine debates the selfish nature of her relationship with the men in her life and discovers the story’s great secret at Bob and Fanny’s home after visiting the same Bloomsbury Street shop at which her old friend and future mother-in-law saw the title object that is actually made of gilded crystal. After Mrs. Assingham breaks it, Charlotte confesses her prior relationship with Prince Amerigo forcing Adam to leave the country in, FTP, what 1904 novel about Maggie Verver by Henry James.
Answer: The Golden Bowl
6.The “test” named for him says that liability depends on the burden of adequate precautions being less than the probability of the event times the gravity of damage that would result from the event. In the Masses Publishing Co. vs. US case of 1917 he defended free speech. He served as Judge of the US district court of the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924. He declared that it did not matter the nature of the monopoly because Congress forbade all trusts in the famous Alcoa decision while serving on the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. For 10 points, name this greatest justice never appointed to the Supreme Court.
Answer: Billings Learned Hand
7.Attempts to use this equation in studies of the circulatory system have been difficult in large arteries due to variations in the viscosity, but is quite accurate for capillaries. When drawing analogies with electrical circuits, it is roughly equivalent to Ohm’s law. Derivable from the Darcy-Weisbach equation, Wilberforce and Hagenbach attempted to extend the idea to turbulent flow, and the equation sometimes bears Hagenbach’s name. Also derivable from the Navier-Stokes equations, this is, FTP, what equation which relates the internal radius, viscosity, characteristic length, and pressure difference to the flux flowing through a cylindrical tube with constant circular cross-section?
Answer: Poiseuille’s equation
8.When Arthur Gride’s housekeeper steals some of her employer’s papers, it allows the protagonist’s friends Newman Noggs and Frank Cheeryble to arrest one of this novel’s most revolting characters. It also frees Madeline Bray from the conspiracies of the title character’s evil uncle, Ralph. Meanwhile the leering Lord Verisopht and Mulberry Hawk are also disposed of, allowing his sister, Kate, to quit Mantalini’s dress shop. FTP identify this novel about a man who acts with the Crummles theater company and meets his best friend Smike at Dotheboy’s Hall, which is run by Wackford Squeers, in an 1838 novel by Charles Dickens.
Answer: Nicholas Nickleby
9.Theophrastus suggests that he was a pupil of Anaxiamander on Ionia, while Timon of Phlius put much of his satire of philosophers into this man’s mouth. These satires attributed to him were called the Silloi. Among his social criticism are his disparagement of athletic accolades and his discussion of poets’ stories of the Gods. He held a “two substance” theory of matter, earth and water, and he also thought that the world alternated between flood and drought cycles. He is most important, however, for his criticism of Greek religion, attacking polytheism. He claimed that every culture makes the gods in their own image, and he himself equates God with the Earth. FTP, identify this philosopher, possible teacher of Parmenides, native of Colophon, and founder of the Eleatic school.
Answer: Xenophanes of Colophon
10.His entry into the country as a stowaway cost him his two-year position with the WPA. Too poor, at this point, to afford color paint he used black and white enamels to compose the large abstractions Light in August and Zurich. A great friend of Arshile Gorky, his first show featured more color in works like Excavation and Asheville, the latter of which was painted during his time as professor at Black Mountain College. But it was his meeting of Elaine Fried, who encouraged him to focus on the biomorphic forms of the body that inspired his greatest works like Pastorale, Pink Lady, and a series of figurative abstract expressionist portraits that depicted females as savagely sexual. FTP identify this Dutch-born American artist of the Woman I-VI series.
Answer: Willem de Kooning
11.This anthropologist analyzed Bentham’s concept of ”deep play” in his essay on the Balinese cockfight. His most recent book is Available Light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics. His first project was a study of the effects of drought, death and the effects of alcohol on the five Native American cultures at Rimrock. His first book contrasted the swidden and the sawah rice fields in Indonesia and was titled Agricultural Involution. Known for his supposed cultural relativism and theories of local knowledge, his most famous work argues against a scientific outlook on anthropology. FTP, identify this Princeton anthropologist, the author of The Interpretation of Cultures.
Answer: Clifford Geertz
12.The opposing forces met each other seven days before any action was taken, this was part scouting and part pooling of loot, as one side tried to consolidate the spoils of battles at Toulouse and Bordeaux. The pact between Othman ben abi Neza and Eudo provoked the advance of the invaders who would eventually be defeated by the taking of a strong a defensive position along the Loire river. When the cavalry under Abd ar-Rahman broke upon the Frankish forces they were repulsed again and again, as the son of Pepin of Herstal earned his nickname. FTP identify this 732 battle at which Charles Martel defeated the Muslims.
Answer: Tours (accept Poitiers grudgingly)
13.Finding this property in graphs is an interesting problem in computer science since it has not been proven to be in either the class P or NP-Complete. A space of this type is one where both addition and scalar multiplication are preserved, and for a group, all identities and inverses of the group are preserved. When a group is mapped to itself it is called an automorphism, and for topological spaces it is called a homeomorphism. Formally defined as a morphism which is bijective, this is, FTP, what type of mapping which preserves sets and relations among elements?
Answer: isomorphism
14.The fourth and fifth chapters of this book anticipate the national recovery of the people, while the sixth and seventh prophesy the moral recovery. The sixth chapter also alludes to the story of Balaam and Balak in Numbers. Jeremiah, 26:17, claiming that repentance will lead to God’s compassion, quotes chapter 3, verse 12 of this book. Chapter four features the famous image of swords being beaten into ploughshares, like in Isaiah. To Christians, this book is famous for chapter 5 describing the Messiah as being from Bethlehem. A contemporary of Isaiah and native of Moresheth, this is, FTP, what minor prophet, which in the King James Bible precedes Nahum and follows Jonah.
Answer: Micah
15.In the end, the main character marries his landlady, who is involved in a plot to steal his money. Some of the parasites that surround the protagonist are his valet Zahar, and his friend Tarantyev, who embezzles money from the title character. The protagonist almost goes to France to meet his childhood friend, but falls in love with Olga Ilyinsky and stays to plan their wedding. In the end, she leaves him and marries his friend Stoltz instead, while the title character continues his life of sloth. FTP, identify this novel satirizes the gentry, written by Igor Goncharov.
Answer: Oblomov
16.He declined to have the months September and October renamed after he and his wife. His mother was Arria Fadilla and his father had been consul twice. The death of Aelius Verus, whose son he adopted as his heir, opened his road to the imperial throne. His wife Faustina was deified after her death in 141 and in her memory this emperor donated many funds to support orphan girls. He personally escorted the body of Hadrian from Baiae to Rome and completed the Temple and Mausoleum of his predecessor and his faithfulness to Hadrian’s memory helped him earn his famous moniker. For 10 points, name this Roman emperor who died in 161 and was succeeded by Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus whose religious practices earned him fame.
Answer: Antonius Pius
17.The narrator is invited to a family feast to honor men with over thirty descendents, the worthiest of his descendents being called “Son of the Vine.” Saint Bartholomew sends an ark with copies of the Old and New Testaments following the appearance of a cross at sea, which the inhabitants of Renfusa could not approach. The narrator is also shown Salomon’s House, a society of scientists who are sometimes sent out to learn about the outside world. The inhabitants say that the first place with their country’s name was America, and it was later destroyed in a flood. FTP, identify this utopian work written by Francis Bacon.
Answer: New Atlantis
18.It is used as an intermediate step in the synthesis of the HIV-inhibiting drugs known as calanolides. Occcasionally it is followed by the formation of an alkene bond, and it does not work for substrates with high molecular weights or those that are highly sensitive to acid. Commonly used to convert the product of the Friedel-Crafts reaction to an alkyl-side chain, it is performed in the presence of a zinc and mercury catalyst, which provides an active metal surface. FTP, name this reaction similar to the Wolff-Kishner reaction, but performed in an acidic environment, which converts a carbonyl group to a methylene.
Answer: Clemmensen reduction
19.Its founder published many of his ideas in the periodical Arriba, though its manifesto of 27 points was a distant memory by the time Ramon Serrano Suner became spokesperson. Eventually its importance was replaced by Escriva’s Opus Dei order, but originally its methods proved more popular than the CEDA headed by Gil Robles. Uniting with the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista in 1934, it had been founded a year earlier by the son of a former dictator, and its ideologies were soon adopted by Franco for his run at power. FTP identify this Spanish party known for its extreme nationalism that was founded by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera.
Answer: Falange
20.This author worked as a blacksmith for the Royal Air Force during World War II. He was one of the founders of the Mbari Club, an influential writers’ journal in his country. His later works, such as Pauper, Brawler and Slanderer, and The Wild Hunter in the Bush of Ghosts, followed his pattern of reinterpreting folktales, though they were not as successful as The Feather Woman of the Jungle and Yoruba Folktales. His most famous work concerns a man with a drinking problem who journeys into the land of the dead to retrieve his favorite “tapster”, or wine-maker. FTP, identify this Nigerian author of The Palm-Wine Drunkard.