Peaceful Resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Edited by Ike Jose and Marshall Steinbaum

March 2012

Packet 12

TOSSUPS

1. One work by this man begins with banter between the inconsequential Silius and Sibinus before the arrival of Cordus makes them realize that they are being spied on by followers of the title figure, who connives to seduce Livia. Another classically-themed work by this author begins with the ghost of a consul talking to the title character, who then invites Cethegus and Lentulus over to his home where they kill a slave and swear an oath to foment a rebellion by drinking his blood mixed with wine. Another play by this man opens with Knowell bemoaning his son’s interest in poetry; that work sees Brainworm’s disguises and mischief nearly spoil Bridget’s upcoming marriage before Judge Clement forgives all. In addition to Sejanus His Fall and Catiline His Conspiracy, this author wrote about the title character’s attempts to dupe Corvino and obtain his wife Celia for himself by pretending to be on his deathbed. For 10 points, identify this author of Volpone.

ANSWER: Ben Jonson

2. The “pumped probe” method, along with a neodymium laser, is used in a time-dependent version of this technique which allows for the studying of kinetic states as short as a picosecond. Another type is especially useful in studying hydrogen bond formation in metal carbonyls, and that two-dimensional procedure can be combined with a namesake correlation analysis. One type of this process is preferred due to its speed and reduced signal-to-noise ratio, known as Fellgett’s advantage. Attenuated total reflectance can be used in conjunction with a type of this procedure, in which a mathematical operation converts the raw data into the final spectrum. Presented on a graph with wavenumbers in inverse centimeters, for 10 points, name this laboratory technique of which one type involves the Fourier transform and is used to identify chemicals based on vibrational structure.

ANSWER: IR spectroscopy

3. This legal concept achieved its most expansive definition in the Supreme Court case U.S. v. SCRAP, in which a group of GWU Law students challenged the Interstate Commerce Commission’s proposed rail freight rate increase on the ground that it would impede recycling. In Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, this legal concept negated the challenge to using a tax credit to finance religious schools. This legal concept has often been used to thwart litigation brought under the Endangered Species Act since plaintiffs have trouble showing harm from a loss of biodiversity. The first Supreme Court decision that considered this legal concept was Frothingham v. Mellon, in which the fact that the defendant paid taxes was deemed insufficient to give him this status since there was no particularized harm in the government actions he considered unconstitutional. For 10 points, what is this legal status, which refers to whether a litigant is entitled to have a court decide the merits of his case?

ANSWER: standing to sue (accept word forms)

4. According to Propertius, one of these creatures protected a tiny city twenty miles away from Rome in exchange for a basket of food from a fearless beautiful virgin. According to Pliny’s Natural History, they dwell alongside elephants in Ethiopia, but the largest types of them are to be found in India. According to the Theogony, Lamia and one of these animals can be found by the waters of Styx. Another creature of this type eventually became connected with the North Pole after it was subdued. That one of these creatures guards an area named after four nymphs who were Atlas’s daughters. A pair of them pulls the chariot of Medea. While at Colchis, Jason plants the teeth of these creatures in order to appease King Aeetes. Another one of them guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides before it was incapacitated by Heracles. For 10 points, identify this type of creature exemplified by Ladon, which became the constellation of Draco.

ANSWER: dragons or serpents

5. A concept first proposed by this economist and elaborated by Kiyotaki and Moore explains how credit market imperfections lead to sudden, asymmetrical declines in asset prices. This economist argued that agents are forced to sell assets in order to pay off debt, thus flooding the market for those assets, reducing their price and thus the price of assets remaining on their balance sheet and further tightening the credit constraint in a vicious cycle. That process of “debt deflation” was posited by this economist after he lost all of his wealth in the 1929 stock market crash. Earlier, this economist had proposed the core tenets of the quantity theory of money: the quantity equation, which links the price level directly to the money supply, and an eponymous equation which states that the equilibrium real interest rate is equal to the nominal interest rate net of inflation. For 10 points, name this American economist whose Theory of Interest forms the basis for Monetarist macroeconomics.

ANSWER: Irving Fisher

6. One scene in this work features the protagonist visiting his wealthy relative Byrrhaena, who owns a group of statues which depict Actaeon spying on Diana lasciviously. A comic scene in this work occurs when Philesietaerus makes love to the “virtuous” Arete, which causes Myrmex to be dragged throughout town by his master Barabus. Another digression in this work describes a mythological woman, who isn’t allowed to see her husband, until she sorts some grain. During another scene, the protagonist is warned about Pamphile, who is suspected of being a necromancer. Translated into English by Robert Graves, in Walter Pater’s Marius the Epicurean, this book’s section on Cupid and Psyche is read by its title character. Its last section sees its protagonist joins the pastophoroi, after he is initiated into the cult of Isis. Chronicling a picaresque hero who seeks to reverse the title condition, for 10 points, identify this prose work of Lucius Apuleius, in which the protagonist is transformed into the title creature.

ANSWER: The Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius or The Golden Ass (prompt on just Metamorphoses)

7. The anisotropy of this quantity is guaranteed in both directions under the external synchronization as provided by Mansouri-Sexl theory. Interactions with a Casimir field between two closely-spaced parallel plates result in an increase in this quantity as per the Scharnhorst effect. An alternative to inflation is explained using its time-evolution by Petit and Moffat as a solution to the horizon problem. This quantity can be calculated using the rotation rate of a mirror as well as the separation between those mirrors using a Fizeau device. It is equal to the inverse square root of the product of the permeability and permittivity of free space and is also the ratio between the electric and magnetic components of an EM-wave. Recently thought to have been exceeded by neutrinos in the OPERA experiment, for 10 points, name this fundamental quantity, about 300 million meters per second in a vacuum.

ANSWER: speed of light (prompt on “c” before mention)

8. Niall Ferguson described this event as “Brownian Motion with human beings.” A notable episode that took place at this event concluded when one participant shouted “when it comes to killing, you know well how to kill,” to which his antagonist replied that Turkey would have responded “the same way” had rockets been directed at Istanbul. Those participants in this event were Recep Erdogan (AIR-DO-WAN) and Shimon Peres. This event’s namesake “man” “has little need for national loyalty, views national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and sees national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the élite's global operations,” according to a neologism coined by Samuel Huntington. For 10 points, what is this annual conference of the world’s most accomplished and meritorious billionaires that takes place under tight security at a Swiss ski resort?

ANSWER: Davos World Economic Forum

9. One member of this group bought a two hundred and fifty talent estate for only two thousand sesterces after entering into a plot with Magnus and Capito to frame Sextus Roscius for patricide, according to the defense Pro Roscio. That member of this group, Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus, was ostensibly in a position to profit from the plot due to his close relation to Sulla. Another member of this group practiced a “petty trade” as a coactor in Venusia by acting as middleman in estate auctions. Another member of this group served as secretary to the Governor of Cilicia and eventually edited the writings of that patron, Cicero. People with this status could be distinguished by the pileus which they wore, and the Fufio-Caninian law limited the number of people who could be given this status in a will. For 10 points, name this group that included Horace’s father and Cicero's companion Tiro, both of whom had been manumitted.

ANSWER: Roman Freedmen or Liberti or Libertini (Accept equivalents like “Freed Slaves” or “Manumitted Slaves” or “Former Slaves” or whatever but do not accept or prompt on “Slaves.” Prompt on “client” and also prompt on “Greeks” until “Venusia”)

10. Pietzschmann argued that this religious practice stopped in the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates when barren women started to make vows to their gods. In South America, this practice involved pirac, in which blood was used to anoint the ears and face of a figure in the Haucaypata. That kind of practice usually occurred during the capacoha, an initiation rite. Psalms 106:34-39 describes this practice in detail as practiced by a foreign country. The discovery of twenty thousand urns in the sacred area of Tophet gave evidence for one type of this practice, which Philo of Alexandria claimed the Phoenicians engaged in to appease their god Ba’al Hammon. More likely, though, Tertullian and other church fathers accused Carthaginians of engaging in it for propagandistic reasons. For 10 points, what type of religious offering was almost performed by Abraham, who used his son Isaac?

ANSWER: child sacrifice (prompt on human sacrifice)

11. One figure in this non-fiction work is quoted as saying “Alas, I believe in the virtue of birds. And a feather is all it takes for me to die laughing!” Near its beginning the author illustrates the subjectivity of the marvelous by imagining a castle in a rustic landscape where two of his friends Robert Desnos and Roger Vitrac are dueling. This work notes that the titular category applies to the Marquis de Sade when he is sadistic and Victor Hugo when he is not stupid. It attacks the tradition that has existed from the time of Aquinas, but which now continues in Anatole France. This work praises Paul Eluard and Louis Aragon, two of the author’s close friends, and notes that the titular quality can be defined as works produced by thought without reason in a pure state, “exempt from any aesthetic and moral concern.” Championing pure “psychic automatism,” it was penned by the author of Nadja and Arcane 17 and signed by Max Ernst and Antonin Artauld. For 10 points, identify this artistic manifesto by Andre Breton.

ANSWER: The Surrealist Manifesto or Manifesto of Surrealism

12. HD107914, a double star in Centaurus, could be responsible for this region’s perforation. John Matese suggested that data from NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer will provide evidence for or against the existence of the hypothetical Jupiter-sized body Tyche [TIE-key] in this region. Kenneth Edgeworth posited its existence in 1943 as a source for objects like C/1980 E1, whose path is more hyperbolic than any other of its kind, and Hyakutake. Safronov and Cameron theorized models for this region’s origin. Matese proposed that disk tides were responsible for the time-dependence of the flux of objects from this region. One K-T Extinction Event theory rests on a MACHO disturbing this region. It is composed of an outer section and a toroid-shaped inner region also named for Hills, which only has four observed constituents. Richard Muller theorized that a brown dwarf, Nemesis, disrupted orbits of objects located here. For 10 points, name this source of long-period comets beyond the Kuiper Belt, named for a Dutch astronomer.

ANSWER: Öpik-Oort Cloud

13. This work’s author removed a scene that would have been between Acts II and III, in which a female character shows another the wound on her abdomen and the pin-shaped injuries on her leg; that scene dramatically ends with the male lead calling that character a “murderous bitch.” In an early scene in this work, one character arrives with heavy books of religion which are “weighted with authority.” Near the end of Act I, a minor character named Ann is asked whether or not it is natural for a woman to lose seven children on the first day after childbirth. Another scene sees one character recite “thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,” twice, forgetting that there is a commandment against adultery. John Hale appears at its beginning as an expert, and this work ends with Danforth trying to extract a confession. This play sees Judge John Hathorne preside as Giles Corey refuses to plead guilty or not guilty. Beginning shortly after Abigail Williams and John Proctor had an affair, for 10 points, name this retelling of the Salem Witch Trials by Arthur Miller.

ANSWER: The Crucible

14. One controversy surrounding this painting concerns the identity of its model, possibly the same as in a Coronation of the Virgin by the same artist. Mary Richardson compared the central figure of this painting to Emmeline Pankhurst, “the most beautiful character in modern history,” who was being destroyed by “the government” just as Richardson vandalized this painting. The viewer of this painting is able to see the central figure’s face, thus giving rise to a namesake “effect,” but the shared gaze between subject and viewer is rendered ambiguous by the indistinct image of the subject in the mirror, while the rear view of the recumbent subject of this work was an innovation for the form. For 10 points, what is this rare surviving 17th century female nude, a goddess of love painted by Diego Velazquez?