TOSSUPS – GEORGIA TECH A Center of the Known Universe Open 2004 -- UT-Chattanooga
Questions by Stephen Webb with a couple by your genial quizmaster
1. He wrote the only Roman textbook on physics, Quaestiones naturales and his eight tragedies include Thyestes and Phaedra. Implicated in Piso's conspiracy, he was ordered by his former pupil to kill himself, and thus this Stoic philosopher-playwright had his veins opened and bled to death. For ten points, name this Spaniard and tutor to the future emperor Nero who was made consul in 57 AD before resigning in 62 after losing favor with the emperor.
Answer: Lucius Annaeus Seneca
2. It holds generally if the energy terms vary only with the square of each of the generalized momenta and coordinates, and only in the classical limit with a continuum of energy. It explains why the internal energy of a monoatomic gas is given by 3/2 NkT but for a diatomic gas the energy is 5/2 NkT, but it breaks down for quantized energy levels. For ten points, name this theorem of statistical mechanics which states that each additional degree of freedom adds a fixed amount of energy per particle to the internal energy.
Answer: equipartition theorem
3. In the foreground of this painting a man is dragging a horse and stabbing it, while just above his shoulder a woman lays dead across a bed. Another man stabs a nude woman, and all around the household is committing suicide as its leader watches on. The events depicted occur after Nineveh had been sieged by the Medes for two years, and the Assyrian monarch is preparing for his own suicide as the city is about to fall. For ten points, name this 1827-1828 work by Eugène Delacroix.
Answer: Death of Sardanapalus
4. The first generators came online in 1984, and the final one was activated on April 9, 1991. Each of the eighteen generators is capable of producing 700 megawatts, and when fully functioning it provides 25% of the electricity to Brazil and 90% of Paraguay's. For ten points, name this currently largest hydroelectric power plant in the world, situated on the Paraná river, which will be surpassed in capacity, though not output, with the completion of Three Gorges Dam.
Answer: Itaipu Dam
5. His father Fuad I spoke no Arabic, and following his coronation at the age of sixteen he was the first time the King of his nation had directly addressed his people. As he aged, he began to steal things during official state visits, including a ceremonial sword from the Shah of Iran, to whom his sister Fawzia was married, and a pocket watch from Winston Churchill, and this coupled with his defeat in war in 1948 led to his overthrow. For ten points, name this las king of Egypt, overthrown by Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Answer: Farouk of Egypt
6. Identifiable with the Jacobi integral, it is a Legendre transform of the Lagrangian, in which the generalized momentum replaces the time derivatives of the generalized velocities of the Lagrangian, and is identifiable with the energy only if the Lagrangian does not explicitly depend on time. For ten points, name this quantity, formulated in 1833 by its namesake Irish mathematician, which in quantum mechanics is identified with the operator that defines the Schrödinger equation.
Answer: Hamiltonian
7. During the travels of the main characters, they encounter Thomas Codlin and his traveling puppet show and work for Mrs. Jarley's Wax Works. A kindly schoolmaster, Mr. Marton, gives the pair a house near an old church in return for tending the graves. Sent on their journey when Daniel Quilp takes over the grandfather's title location, for ten points, name this work in which both Nell Trent and her grandfather die shortly after being found by Kit Nubbles, written by Charles Dickens.
Answer: The Old Curiosity Shop
8. It has been used in two shows, BBC Two's Time Commanders, and the History Channel's Decisive Battles, in both cases being used to recreate key historical battles of antiquity. A demo of the game was released on August 23, 2004 and featured the battle of Trebia, and work on the game had begun from the beginning of Creative Assembly's first game of the series. For ten points, name this latest release of real time strategy that was finally released September 22, 2004, much to your question-writer's great joy.
Answer: Rome: Total War
9. He purchased a seat in Parliament in 1757, and five years later he founded the periodical The North Briton and began writing articles critical of George III. He was arrested on a general warrant, but that was ruled a breach of Parliamentary privilege. So the government got him expelled from Parliament first, then convicted for seditious libel. He was repeatedly reelected to Parliament but denied his seat, raising the issued of royal manipulation to thwart the popular will. FTP name this eventual Lord Mayor of London, whose chief claim to fame is as the namesake of a second-rate actor and Southern sympathizer of the acting Booth family.
Answer: John Wilkes
10. In 1933 he fled from Germany to the US, as many intellectuals did, where he taught at the New School for Social Research and published the book Productive Thinking. In 1912, following work with two younger colleagues, he published the work "Experimental Studies of the Perception of Motion" based upon their studies of pictures of a toy stroboscope. For ten points, name this psychologist, who along with Koffka and Kohler, was one of the leading founders of the Gestalt school of psychology.
Answer: Max Wertheimer
11. In April of 1870 he put forth a city charter in New York that placed all the power in the hands of a select few men, and proceeded to plunder between 30 and 200 million dollars. A chairmaker by trade, in 1851 he became an alderman, and the following years was elected to the US House of Representatives, and from 1860 until 1870 he controlled all Democratic Party nominations in the state. For ten points, name this man, brought down by Samuel Tilden in 1871, the first political "boss" of Tammany Hall.
Answer: Samuel Marcy "Boss" Tweed
12. The first completed edition contains in its Preface the line "There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted," and though new editions continued to be published, Mary I had its original author burned at the stake in 1556. For ten points, name this work of Thomas Cranmer, first completed under Edward VI, which fully incorporated Protestant ideas into the Anglican Church.
Answer: Book of Common Prayer
13. In 1972 he established the first Environmental Engineering program at UCLA, at the time being a Professor of Chemistry at Berkeley. Working with Harold Urey at Columbia on the Manhattan Project, he was responsible for developing the process of gaseous diffusion used to enrich the uranium-235 used in the Hiroshima bomb, however he is more famous for his work that he led with James Arnold and Ernie Anderson. For ten points, name this 1960 Nobel laureate in chemistry who won for his development of Carbon-14 dating.
Answer: Willard Frank Libby
14. One of the earliest objections to it can be found in the form of Gaunilo's Island, in which the namesake conceives of the perfect island, then argues that it is unlikely that such a perfect island exists, even though to be such a perfect island it would have to exist. First appearing in the second chapter of the Proslogion, for ten points, name this argument for the existence of God by Saint Anselm.
Answer: Ontological argument
15. Among the contemporary radicals of the novel's publication, only Dmitry Pisarev accepted the portrayal of the title character, who is in direct conflict with his friend Arkady's uncle, Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov, who upholds the aristocratic tradition in the face of the central character's ridicule. Published in 1862, the chief character of the work, Bazarov, allows the author to introduce the term "nihilist." For ten points, name this novel, the most famous work of Ivan Turgenev.
Answer: Fathers and Sons or Ottsy i deti
16. An indemnity of a little over two million dollars was paid after the aggressor nation acknowledged full responsibility for the attack, much to the relief of Joseph C. Grew. The survivors of the attack were rescued by the USS Oahu and the HMS Ladybird and Bee, as the ship had been with three Standard Oil tankers on the Yangtze. For ten points, name this 1937 incident in which the Japanese sank the namesake US ship as it was escorting vessels in occupied China.
Answer: Panay incident
17. Many of the stories regarding this man can be found in The Cattle Raid of Cooley, and one myth of his birth is that his mother Dechtere was impregnated when she swallowed a gadfly. Taught the art of war by the goddess Scathach, he fell during the War for the Brown Bull against the forces of Queen Maeve, although another myth holds that he died after throwing his spear at a satirist. For ten points, name this Celtic hero, whose spear Gae Bulg sang for the blood of his enemies.
Answer: Cúchulainn
18. All but the simplest members of this phylum have tubules called protonephridia, which probably function as excretory and osmoregulatory organs. Classes within this phylum include Monogenea, Turbellaria, Trematoda (or flukes), and Cestoda (or tapeworms.). FTP name this phylum of flatworms.
Answer: Platyhelminthes; prompt on “flatworms” before it’s read
19. At the moment that the main character kills an eagle, his love recalls a foreboding message she received from a hermit she met in the forest, and a picture of her ancestor falls to the floor. The next day, she continues to feel on edge, and her love has succeeded in striking the mark six times, with the seventh shot to be guided by the Evil One, as Caspar has arranged. For ten points, name this opera, in which Agatha is saved from Max's last bullet by her bridal wreath, written by Carl Maria von Weber.
Answer: Der Freischütz or The Freeshooter
20. The work is partly based upon the story of Robert Nixon, who was electrocuted for two murders in 1938. The central character's Communist lawyer is the voice of the author, who declares that there is no escaping the destiny of his client or any other African American, since they are a product of the society that raised him, and he is ultimately convicted of killing a white woman and his girlfriend. For ten points, name this story about Bigger Thomas, written by Richard Wright.
Answer: Native Son
21. A 27-year old colonel, Muammar al-Qaddafi, deposes King Idris to take power in Libya. The FCC bans cigarette ads from radio and TV. The Stonewall riot in New York City marks the inception of the gay rights movement. The Mets stun the Orioles to win their first World Series. And no matter what he claims, Bryan Adams was only 9 ½ and couldn’t have started that garage band that summer. FTP name the year, whose other major cultural landmarks included Woodstock and Apollo 11.
Answer: 1969
22. After his education in Saigon he went to military school at Saumur, France, and when his maternal grandfather died in 1941, he succeeded him to a post that he would abdicate the first time in 1955, when he turned the office over to his father. President of his country once, prime minister twice and non-titled head of state, and since earlier this year he has been residing in Pyongyang and Beijing, finally allowing his son, Chea Sim, to succeed him. For ten points, name this popular but ailing man, who abdicated the throne of Cambodia on October 7.
Answer: Preah Bat Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk Varman
23. His involvement with the National Revolutionary Youth Organization prior to World War I led to his being interned at the Doboj Austrian detention camp, and afterwards he became an ambassador to Germany. Early works include The Journey of Alija Đerzelez but he is perhaps most famous for a work focusing on the relations between Serbs and Muslims in the Ottoman Empire. For ten points, name this author of the Bosnian Chronicle, which includes The Bridge on the Drina, winner of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Answer: Ivo Andrić
24. In Scotland, his efforts to extend the Anglican church led to riot in St. Giles', and the riot let to the "Bishops' War," which led to the calling of the Long Parliament. A confessor to Buckingham beginning in 1622, he, along with Strafford and Charles I became chiefly responsible for spreading absolutism in church and state, and it was for his attacks on Puritans that the Long Parliament sentenced him to death by beheading in 1644. For ten points, name this archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Charles I.
Answer: Archbishop William Laud
25. The design was first introduced in public in 1920, with a model of the spiraling tower displayed in Petrograd at the same time as the performance of The Staging of the Winter Palace. The original design for the work was meant to be taller than the Eiffel Tower, and was intended to house a telegraph office, but the actual engineering problems were never worked out by the architect and the building was never completed. For ten points, name this abandoned tribute to the Bolshevik Revolution designed by Vladimir Tatlin.
Answer: Monument to the Third International
26. Construction on it was begun by Professor William E. Gordon of Cornell, who hoped to use it to study the ionosphere. Currently the home of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, it is operated jointly between Cornell and the NSF, its main purpose now is the observation of stellar objects. The first observatory to directly image an asteroid and responsible for revising the period of orbit of Mercury to 59 days, for ten points, name this radio telescope, the largest radio telescope ever constructed.