TOSSUPS – UTCCenter of the Known Universe Open 2004 -- UT-Chattanooga
Questions by UTC A & B with special visual bonus consultant Wally Edmondson and your genial quizmaster
1.Kalkot Kelekele is the current President; one of the opposition parties is the Jon Frum Movement, a political offshoot of the cargo cult of the same name on the island of Tanna. Ruled by an Anglo-French Condominium from 1906 till 1980, it counts both English and French as official languages along with a pidgin called Bislama or Bechalama. It encompasses over 80 islands, 65 of which are inhabited, with the 4 principal islands forming a “Y” shape. FTP name this nation with capital at Port-Vila, formerly the New Hebrides, brought to prominence by the current edition of Survivor.
Answer:Vanuatu
2.His writings include technical documents for the Minuteman missile and other Boeing nuclear missile projects. He guest-starred on The Simpsons in January, when he endorsed Marge’s novel, although his character’s head was covered with a bag. This author is known for his twists and turns of plots, and most especially for having abundant characters in his works, some with vivd names like Genghis Cohen and Manny DiPresso. In 1974 the Pulitzer advisory board overruled the judges’ unanimous selection of his third novel for the Fiction prize. FTP name this author of Mason & Dixon, V., and Gravity’s Rainbow.
Answer:Thomas Pynchon
3.His training as a physician at the University of Buenos Aires came into play in 1952; after he took part in the riots against Juan Peron, he worked in a Bolivian leper colony. In 1953 he went to Guatemala in support of the leftist regime of Jacobo Arbenz. When Arbenz was overthrown in 1954 he fled to Mexico, where he joined a group of rebels who would invade Cuba in 1956. He served as Cuban Minister of Industry from 1961-1965, then left to foster revolutionary activities in the Congo and elsewhere. In 1967, while directing an ineffective guerrilla movement in Bolivia, he was wounded, captured, and executed by government troops. FTP name this iconic revolutionary, chief lieutenant of Fidel Castro.
Answer:Ernesto “Che” Guevara
4.This film became a reality after producer Jon Avent saw a six-minute CGI clip created by its director, Kerry Conran. The plot deals the disappearance of famous scientists around the world and an attack by robots on New York City. Determined to find out more, reporter Polly Perkins enlists the help of her ex-boyfriend to search for Dr. Totenkopf, played in CGI-altered archive footage by Sir Laurence Olivier. Shot entirely on blue screen, FTP, name this 2004 film starring Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jude Law.
Answer:Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
5.His work Flore francoise in 1778 earned him recognition in the field of botany. He introduced the terms biology and Invertebrata and suggested the invertebrate classes Infusoria, Annelida, Crustacea, Arachnida, and Tunicata. He is also considered the founder of invertebrate paleontology. His ideas concerning the origin of species were first made public in his Système des animaux sans vertèbres in 1801; later works included Philosophie zoologique and Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertebras. FTP name the man who proposed a theory of evolution based on the inheritance of acquired characteristics half a century before Darwin’s On the Origins of Species by Natural Selection.
Answer:Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de
6.The right background of the painting is filled with the obscured skyline of a small town, including a clock tower. The left background is dominated by a hill that slopes down to the center of the painting. The bottom left shows a blood spattered man heaped on the ground, and the bottom right is filled with the feet of a line of soldiers who all have their back to us and their rifles up. The line of the hill, the angle of the rifles and the lighting of the seen all draw us to a wild-faced prisoner in bright yellow pants with is arms raised in, FTP, what painting by Francisco Goya also called “The Execution of The Defenders of Madrid”?
Answer: The3rd of May, 1808 [accept May 3rd 1808, also Execution of the Defenders of Madrid before it’s read]
7.He served as Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley from 1958 until 1961, when he was appointed by JFK to the Atomic Energy Commission and eventually made its Chairman. However, he is better known for his successes in the lab. He took a leave of absence from 1942-1946 to head the plutonium work of the metallurgical lab at the University of Chicago for the Manhattan Project, and is the co-discoverer of plutonium and all subsequent transuranic elements through element 102. FTP, name this nuclear chemist, the namesake of element 106.
Answer:Glenn TheodoreSeaborg
8.After studies in Hawaii, in 1892 he received a diploma from a Hong Kong medical school, and subsequently practiced medicine in that city, but shifted his efforts to overthrowing the Ch'ing dynasty in favor of a stable Chinese republic. He fled China in 1895 after an abortive revolt, and then toured the world several times to enlist the aid of other nations in financing his activities. To develop the military power needed for the Northern Expedition against the militarists at Beijing, he established the Whampoa Military Academy, with Chiang Kai-shek as its commandant. After his death, when the Communists left the Kuomintang, both the nationalist Kuomintang and the Communists claimed to be his true heirs. FTP name the first provisional president of the Republic of China.
Answer:Sun Yat-sen
9.It’s the source of these quotes: “God heals, and the doctor takes the fee.” "Plough deep while sluggards sleep," "dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of," "in this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes," "Diligence is the mother of good luck," "There never was a good war or a bad peace," "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead" and "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." FTP, these quotes all come from what yearly publication written by Benjamin Franklin?
Answer:Poor Richard's Almanac
10.His favorite color used to be purple, but now it’s black and gold. While in college, he set school records with 4,486 passing yards and 37 touchdowns. He was named the Mid-American Conference’s Freshman of the Year in 2001 and joined Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich as the only MAC quarterbacks to throw for over 3000 yards in three separate seasons during his three years at the University of Miami-Ohio. FTP, name this quarterback, the 11th overall selection in the 2004 NFL draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Answer:Ben Roethlisberger
11.Originally developed in part by Bill Joy, James Gosling, Mike Sheradin, and Patrick Naughton, this began as an attempt to allow the building of, according to Gosling, "...a large, distributed heterogeneous network of consumer electronic devices all talking to each other.” This language was originally called "Oak" but later had its name changed since the name was already trademarked by another programming language. FTP name this programming language by Sun Microsystems with a trademark of a picture of a coffee cup on a saucer.
Answer:Java
12.He rejected the importance of abstractions as advocated by Anaxagoras and Empedocles, building instead on the ideas of his mentor Leucippus. He thought sense perception to be confusing and saw thought as the only way to appreciate the nature of things. He asserted that there were consistent mechanical principles guiding the universe without intervention of the divine. FTP name this philosopher whose most lasting contribution was his description of a universe composed of tiny particles of matter he called “atoms.”
Answer:Democritus
13.This is a non-essential, neutral, genetically-coded amino acid. It is the only protein forming amino acid without a center of chirality, making it the simplest of the 20 natural amino acids. It serves as an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, especially in the spinal cord. FTP, name this amino acid with a molecular weight of 75.07 formula
N H2 C H2 COOH.
Answer:Glycine
14.He was born in 1908 in Bar Harbor, Maine. From 1940-1944 he was the coordinator of the Office of Inter-American Affairs, from 1950-1951 he was the chairman of the International Development Advisory Board, and from 1952-1958 he was the chairman of the President's Advisory Committee on Government Organization. He also made three failed bids for the presidency in 1960, 1964 and 1968. However, he is better remembered either for his death of a heart attack during a clandestine visit to his secretary’s apartment, or for his stint as governor of New York from 1959 to1973. FTP, name this incredibly wealthy liberal Republican who was selected as Gerald Ford’s Vice-President in 1974.
Answer:Nelson Rockefeller
15. Her first name comes from a character in her most famous work while her last name comes from the title her father had at the Bureau of Ceremony. Little is known of her later life, but it is known that she was married to a distant relative in her early 20's. After her husband's death in 1001 A.D., she worked at the royal court where she kept up a diary for two years. The best-known writer from the Heian period of Japanese history, FTP, identify this author of The Tale of Genji.
Answer:Lady Murasaki Shikibu
16.This composer’s music has been in continuous production at least since early February 2003. And if there are no changes in the current production schedule, the streak will continue until at least 2642. This remarkable streak is due to a planned production of an appropriately named piece of music that will take 639 years. The late composer’s estate also recently received a six-figure windfall from a plagiarism suit involving a silent piece of music. FTP name the composer of As Slow As Possible and 4:33 (4 minutes 33 seconds).
Answer:JohnCage
17.Born a plebeian, he rose to become a tribune in 119 BC and a praetor in 115 BC. He served under Scipio Africanus Minor at Numantia and under Quintus Metellus against Jugurtha. Later, when he was commander of Roman forces against Jugurtha, he hastened the end of the war by a bold attack against the Numidians. In 102 BC he defeated the Teutones at Aix, and the next year he bested the Cimbri at Vercelli. His rivalry with Sulla over the command against Mithradates VI of Pontus turned into a civil war, which Sulla won. He was then forced to flee from Rome but returned in 88 BC to slaughter all of his opponents. FTP name this General who was consul an unprecedented seven times.
Answer:Gaius Marius
18.When it was first proposed in 1961 by British biochemist Peter Mitchell, it was not widely accepted in its explanation of ATP synthesis. This theory includes an electron transport chain to create a proton gradient that powers an ATP synthase in its transformation of ADP to ATP. FTP what was this process, whose name comes from the Greek “osmos”, which won Mitchell the Nobel prize in 1978?
Answer:Chemiosmosis [prompt on “osmosis”]
19.She is described as being half-black and half-white. Her father is Loki the Trickster and mother is another giant Angurboda. Her realm was Niflheim and her hall is Elvindir, the Norse word for misery. She is sister of Fenrir and the Jormungand. FTP, name this Norse goddess of the underworld.
Answer:Hel
20.He was elected to his country’s Senate as a Communist in 1945, but was forced underground and then into exile after criticizing the government of Gabriel Gonzalez Videla. Before publishing his first volume of poetry, he took it to the headmistress of his school to make sure she deemed it worthy -- a gutsy move, considering that the headmistress was future Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral. Because his parents opposed his career choice, he took the surname of a favorite Czech poet as his pen name, legally adopting it in 1946. FTP name this Chilean poet, famous for his Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.
Answer:Pablo Neruda [accept Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto]
21.Mongols attempted to invade Japan twice during the Kamakura shogunate, in 1274 and 1281. Both times the invasions were repulsed with the aid of timely arrivals of typhoons. This term, meaning “divine winds,” was coined by the Japanese to commemorate the typhoons. FTP give this term, later applied to Japan’s World War II pilots on suicide missions.
Answer:kamikaze
22.He wrote a symphony, ballets, incidental music for The Tempest, and the opera Ivanhoe. Two of his better-known works are the songs “The Lost Chord” and “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” But his fame rests on work he considered unimportant at the time, a series of comic operettas. FTP name this man, who had a stormy relationship with librettist W.S. Gilbert.
Answer:Arthur S. Sullivan
23.Approaching the age of 100 she was introduced as a “great humanitarian”; taking the podium, she declared, “I’m not a humanitarian, I’m a hellraiser.” Her many causes included prison reform and opposition to the Spanish-American War. In 1903 she led a week-long march of child mill workers from Pennsylvania to the Long Island home of President Roosevelt. FTP name this labor activist, namesake of a left-leaning investigative magazine launched in 1976.
Answer:Mary Harris “Mother” Jones
BONI – UTCCenter of the Known Universe Open 2004 -- UT-Chattanooga
Questions by UTC A & B with special visual bonus consultant Wally Edmondson and your genial quizmaster
1. TRAVELS WITH CHARLIE: At the wedding reception for UTC quizbowler David Moore and his lovely bride Rachel, your genial quizmaster was practically handed a 3-part bonus by the groom’s cake, which was oh-so-cleverly split in half and used as bookends for 5 of David’s favorite books. Given a cake-encrusted book, name the author FTPE:
a) A Confederacy of Dunces
Answer: John Kennedy Toole [sorry, not “O’Toole.” We might take it at a high school tourney, but not here.]
b) The Things They Carried
Answer:Tim O’Brien
c) Trying to Save Piggy Sneed
Answer:John Irving
2.Let’s get small. FTPE:
a) One of the elementary particles studied by quantum electrodynamics, they are the quanta of excitation that you could call the “building blocks” of electromagnetic radiation, and of light.
Answer:photons
b) Patrick M.S. Blackett won the Nobel in Physics in 1948 for observing this process, in which a high-energy photon interacting with an atomic nuclei can be transformed into a particle and antiparticle, usually an electron and a positron.
Answer:pair production
c) Photons have a spin of 1 and therefore belong to this class of particles with integer spin.
Answer: bosons [accept if they say gauge bosons, though that involves stuff beyond the definition above.]
3.Answer these questions about the first century Roman empire FSNOP.
10) Though the chaos began with Nero’s death the summer before, what year is known as “year of the four emperors?”
Answer:69 AD (or CE)
For five points each name the four men who were each recognized as Emperor of Rome in 69 AD.
Answers:Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian
4.VISUAL BONUS:[Moderator: hand out attachment] Given these three unrelated pieces of art, give the title FFPE and the artist for another 5 pts. each. You have 15 seconds.
Answers:a) Raft of the Medusa byTheodore Gericault
b) Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp
c) Madonna of the Long Neck by Parmigianino
5.Name the following statistics terms given definitions FTPE.
A definable set of individual units to which the findings from statistical examination are intended to be applied.
Answer:Population
A set of individual units, drawn from some definable population of units, and generally a small proportion of the population, to be used for a statistical examination of which the findings are intended to be applied to the population.
Answer:Sample
In a range of values indicative of a specific characteristic of the population, this is the value at which precisely half the population will fall above the value and half will fall below the value.
Answer:Median
6. Given a line from an early American poet, name him or her FTPE. If you need the name of the poem, you'll get five.
10) “This arm beneath your head; / It is some dream that on the deck, / You’ve fallen cold and dead.”
5) “O Captain! My Captain!”
Answer:Walt Whitman
10) “To him who in the love of Nature holds / Communion with her visible forms, she speaks / A various language”
5) “Thanatopsis”
Answer:William Cullen Bryant
10) "Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, / May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train."
5) “On being brought from Africa to America”
Answer:Phyllis Wheatley
7. Given a MLB statistical category, name the players that led the NL and AL during the 2004 regular season in that category, 5 points for one or 15 points for both right.