Princeton University Buzzerfest Resurrection: Episode IV, A New Hope

April 21, 2001

Packet by Yeshiva (David Druce and Louis Nemzer)

Tossups

1. Located on the estuary of the Nervion River, seven miles from the Bay of the Biscay, this capital of Vizcaya province is Spain�s fourth largest city. A chief port for trade with Latin America and a major producer of ironwork, it was besieged four times during the Carlist Wars. The center of the Basque country, its recent improvements include a renovated airport, new subway, and a branch of Guggenheim designed by Frank Gehry. FTP, name this Spanish city.

ANSWER: Bilbao

2. �Know thyself� and �nothing in excess� are quotes attributed to this man, one of the Sophoi, born during the 39th Olympiad. Better known is his cosmologic claim that all is made of water, and the earth is a flat disc floating on a vast sea. Legend attributes to him five geometrical theorems, the study of eclipses, the measure of the pyramids, and politically, the merger of Ionian city-states. FTP, name this pre-Socratic philosopher.

ANSWER: Thales of Miletus

3. Quantum field theory predicts that the vacuum contains virtual particles in a state of constant fluctuation. While the zero-point energy in the vacuum is infinite when summed over all possible photon energies, when two parallel plates of area A are placed in close proximity, the difference in energies results in this force dropping off as the distance d to the fourth power. FTP, name this force, with formula Pi squared times c times h-bar times A divided by 240 d to the fourth, first measured in 1996 by Steven Lamoreaux and named for the Dutch scientist who predicted it in 1948.

ANSWER: Casimir effect (accept Casimir force, Casimir energy, prompt

begrudgingly on early �vacuum energy�)

4. In retribution for her snub in the terrestrial world, she would appear from Sheol to kidnap infants, and Kabbalistic amulets were made to protect male babies from her wrath. She consorted with Satan after her expulsion from the Garden of Eden, producing a series of demons. FTP, name this first wife of Adam who gave her name to a much more

benign music tour featuring Sarah McLaughlan and Alanis Morisette.

ANSWER: Lilith

5. Only one country recognized its 1983 declaration of independence. Rauf Denktash of the National Unity Party leads this island �nation�, whose flag is a red crescent on white. That flag mirrors that of the ethnic majority, whose home country has a sizable military presence condemned by the United Nations. FTP, name this Mediterranean �nation� supported by Turkey.

ANSWER: Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (do not accept or prompt on �Cyprus�)

6. Charged elements of the solar wind are caught by Earth�s magnetic field and swept toward both poles. As the charged particles enter the atmosphere, they collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms, creating a series of briefly excited ions that give off photons in characteristic colors of blue-green and red. Such are the causes of, FTP, what physical phenomenon sometimes called the �northern lights�?

ANSWER: aurora borealis (Accept: aurora australis before �northern�)

7. In his recent book �In the Footsteps of Adam�, this World War II commando discusses the life lessons he�s learned from his expeditions to such places as Easter Island, Southern Iraq, and the Maldive Islands. In 1969, he crossed the Atlantic in an Egyptian reed boat, in an attempt to prove that ancient Egyptians could have visited the Americas. His book �Kon-Tiki�, written in 1950 has been translated into over 65 languages at the last count, and describes his 1947 voyage across the Pacific in a balsawood raft. FTP, name this Norwegian explorer.

ANSWER: Thor Heyerdahl

8. In 1901 this author founded an experimental school at Santiniketan, meaning �Abode of Peace�, where he drew on the best features of both Indian and Western traditions. He settled permanently at the school, which became Visva-Bharati University in 1921. In between, he wrote India�s national anthem and won the 1911 Nobel Prize for literature for the poetry collection Gitanjali. FTP name this Bengali writer who abandoned his knighthood to protest the Amritsar Massacre.

ANSWER: Rabindranath Tagore

9. It began as a parody of Buddhist prayer, and is attributed to Okuni, a female dancer, and former attendant at the Grand Shrine of Izumo. Fears that it was �immoral� led to a ban of female actors in 1629, and on young boys performing in 1652. It grew in sophistication, with such plays as the Chushingura cycle (1748), a faithful dramatization of an incident in which a band of 47 ronin (masterless samurai), after having waited

patiently for almost two years, wreaked their revenge upon the man who had forced the suicide of their lord. FTP, name this Japanese form of theater.

ANSWER: Kabuki

10. A museum recently opened in Salford Quays, a suburb of Manchester, where this artist was born in 1887. Discovered after his one-man show in London in 1939, he lived a reclusive life, also working as a cashier for a real estate company. He is famed for his paintings of industrial landscapes that express the bleakness and loneliness of modern urban life. His work, in drab colors is known for its skillful drawing and strong composition. FTP, name this British artist of such works as �Going to the Match� and �A Manufacturing Town.�

ANSWER: Laurence Stephen Lowry

11. "Her manner has been described as that of a dominatrix, but with her practical cropped hair and glasses, she is more like a school librarian in a black leather coat." So said a New York Times critic about the British host of NBC�s new show. The Sun, a British tabloid reports that she has been given an armed guard amid fears for her safety. This could be because this host is known for belittling and generally having little patience with those who can�t cut it on her show. FTP, name the host of �The Weakest Link�

ANSWER: Anne Robinson

12. Its scientific name is Papaver somniferum, and it is cultivated for the liquid in its unripe seedpods. Most of these plants grow in the Golden Triangle, or until recently, in Afghanistan. A fight over this narcotic drug's distribution lead to a war between Great Britain and China, which legalized it in 1858. FTP, name this drug that Karl Marx likened to religion.

ANSWER: opium poppy

13. Born of an Italian Jewish family, baptized by an irate father, this politician�s philosemitic novels include Alroy, a novel about a Kurdish messianic figure. More famous ones include Vivian Grey and Coningsby, as well as Endymion, his swan song to politics. FTP, name the Earl of Beaconsfield, thrice Prime Minister of Great Britain.

ANSWER: Benjamin Disraeli

14. Steve Roach, a twelve year police officer, was placed on administrative leave following the shooting of Timothy Thomas, an 19 year-old African-American wanted on fourteen misdemeanor charges mostly consisting of traffic violations. Bean Bags were fired at demonstrators in the Over the Rhine district, and head of the NAACP Kwesi Mfume had a very public discussion with Keith Fangman, head of the local Fraternal Order of Police. FTP, all of this recent unrest took place in what city, home of Ken Griffey Jr?

ANSWER: Cincinnati

15. Born into a priestly family, he soon became commander of forces in Galilee, where he turned traitor at Jotapata, and defected to Vespasian. Adopting the family name of the emperor and his son Titus, he wrote many histories among the Romans, including �The Antiquities of the Jews.� FTP, identify this author of �The Jewish War.�

ANSWER: Flavius Josephus

16. Archaeologists discovered the unlooted tomb of a warrior-priest at Sipan in 1987. The jewelry and pottery found there expanded knowledge of this civilization, which had previously come mostly from the Trujillo site famous for its Temple of the Sun and Temple of the Moon. FTP, identify this culture which flourished from the first to the eighth century CE, using vast networks of irrigation canals to water the dry northern coast of Peru.

ANSWER: Moche

17. This rotund comedian from St. Louis starred in Spike Lee's 'The Kings of Comedy' and plays the gym teacher on the �Steve Harvey Show.� He was also featured in a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl where in his excitement, he accidentally sprays beer all over his date. He also had a movie appearance in �Big Momma�s House� as a Lil� Wayne quoting preacher. FTP, name this man who also appeared on in three tracks on rapper Nelly�s CD.

ANSWER: Cedric the Entertainer

18. Infinitely dense and usually incredibly massive, these objects can form when the gravitational force of a body overpowers the degeneracy pressure of the strong and weak nuclear forces. In the absence of any constraints, this body becomes point size, but not point mass. A supermassive �naked� one was the point from which the Big Bang emanated. FTP, name these exotic objects, thought to lie in the center of black holes.

ANSWER: singularities

19. The year 1816 was known to Europeans and North Americans as "the year without a summer." Some effects included much snow and frost in New England and Canada and rain in Western Europe and brilliant sunsets and twilights were seen in London. These phenomena may have been due in part to the volcanic dust and aerosols that reached the stratosphere and were dispersed around the world by high level winds. FTP, name the source, an Indonesian volcano on the island of Sumbawa responsible for killing over fifty thousand islanders in what may have been the world�s worst volcanic explosion.

ANSWER: Tambora

20. He first appeared in the 1145 Chronicon of Bishop Otto von Freising, who had received garbled reports of Persian defeats at the hands of the Karakitai nomads. Sometimes thought to be a descendant of the Magi, his armies were poised to attack the Islamic world from behind and reclaim Jerusalem for Christianity. FTP, name this legendary Nestorian �ruler of the east� who was unsuccessfully sought by a series of European explorers visiting Asia and Africa.

ANSWER: Prester John

OT 1. His grandfather Samory fought the French, but he started as a postal clerk, where he organized the first successful union strike in West African history, soon after, he became mayor of Conakry. When Charles DeGaulle offered the French African colonies the choice of immediate independence, or a chance to join a French Federation, only his nation opted for breaking ties, thus becoming independent in 1958. A friend to Kwame Nkrumah and Stokely Carmichael, he died in a Cleveland hospital in 1984. FTP, name this dictatorial ruler of Guinea.

ANSWER: Sekou Toure

OT 2. Lying 900 miles northeast of Tahiti, this part of French Polynesia is composed of 14 irregularly shaped islands. These wind-swept islands were first discovered by Spain in 1595, and were later popularized in Herman Melville�s �Typee�. FTP, name this archipelago whose capital is at Nukuhiva.

ANSWER: Marquesas Islands

OT 3. Often mentioned in �The Diaries of Adrian Mole� she was born in Australia in 1939, before attending Cambridge University. Soon after she wrote her influential first book, The Female Eunuch which was published in 1970. It postulates that passivity in women's sexuality is a characteristic associated with a castrate, hence the title, and is a role foisted on them by history and by women themselves. Other books written by her

include Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility and The Change: Women, Aging and the Menopause. FTP, name this sometime actor and journalist.

ANSWER: Germaine Greer

Bonuses

1. FTPE, given a work and the monarch who appointed him, name the British Poet Laureate.

�Absalom and Achitophel,� Charles II

Answer: John Dryden

�Mariana,� Victoria

Answer: Alfred, Lord Tennyson

�Troilus and Cresida� Richard II

Answer: Geoffrey Chaucer

2. FTP each, name the former Portuguese colony from its present day capital.

a. Luanda

ANSWER: Angola

b. Dili

ANSWER: East Timor

c. Maputo

ANSWER: Mozambique

3. Name the historical figure 30-20-10.

30 Pyotr Shuvalov, his chief of secret police, encouraged his repressive tendencies by inventing a variety of conspiracies against him.

20 On February 19, 1861, he signed the Emancipation Act, freeing Russia�s serfs.

10 Twenty years later he was assassinated by the terrorists of the �People�s Will.�

ANSWER: Czar Alexander II

4. These African-American celebrities share first names that are similar to Roman poets. Identify the similar names FTPE

The goggle wearing basketball player who starred at Clemson, and a poet famed for his odes and epistles.

Answer: Horace Grant

This Roman wrote the Satires, and this Dirty South rapper from New Orleans wrote �Back that Thang Up�.

Answer: Juvenal/Juvenile

This running back won a Super Bowl with the Rams, and this poet brought the epigram to perfection.

Answer: Martial / Marshall Faulk

5. Answer these questions about mythical floods FTPE.

a. In Greek myth this man, the husband of Pyrrha, throws stones to repopulate the world after a disastrous flood.

ANSWER: Deucalion

b. In this Mesopotamian legend the hero is advised by Utnapishtam, the sole survivor of a world-destroying flood.

ANSWER: The Epic of Gilgamesh

c. In Zoroastrian myth, he tells Vama to escape �the great winter� by building a barn-like structure to house animals and plants.


ANSWER: Ahura-Mazda

6. Name the composers of these choral symphonies (10 each)

Symphony #8: �Symphony of a thousand�

Answer: Gustav Mahler

Symphony #5: �Reformation�

Answer: Felix Mendelssohn

�Kullervo� Symphony

Answer: Jean Sibelius

7. H.L Mencken coined the phrase ecdysiast for this profession. That�s right, name this famous strippers, fictional or historical for ten points each.

Her name was Javanese for �eye of the storm.� Though she may have been a double agent, the French executed her during World War I.

Answer: Mata Hari

Roger of Wendover�s chronicle says that her famous exploit prompted her husband, Leofric of Mercia, to reduce the city of Coventry�s taxes.

Answer: Lady Godiva

c) She died in Nice in 1924, when her scarf was entangled in the rear wheel of her car. A pioneer in dancing, she makes into this category due to an apocryphal tale that she exposed her breasts to an angry Boston crowd, and said �you Philistines, this is art.�

ANSWER: Isadora Duncan

8. An eponym is a word named for a historical or fictional figure. Name

these FTPE.

a. This Englishman produced an edited version of the complete works of Shakespeare in

1825.

ANSWER: Thomas Bowdler (ize)

b. This 19th century French fictional character was excessively devoted to

Napoleon.

ANSWER: Nicolas Chauvin (ist)

c. This governor of Massachusetts created a electoral district that favored

his party in 1812.

ANSWER: Elbridge Gerry (mander)

9. Identify the following relating to British military historian John Keegan.

(10) Keegan�s best known work, which examines the experience of soldiers in three historical conflicts.

ANSWER: The Face of Battle

(5 each) Five points for each, identify any two of the three battles described by John Keegan in �The Face of Battle.�

ANSWER: Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme

(10) Keegan has lectured at Britain�s Royal Military Academy, which is popularly known by this name.

ANSWER: Sandhurst

10. Name these scientists involved in the creation of the inflationary universe theory FTPE:

a) The MIT physicist whose 1979 to 1981 work is widely considered the discovery of the theory.

Answer: Alan Guth

b) The Stanford physicist whose notebooks show that he simultaneously solved many of the problems with the Big Bang theory, but who claims not to have been allowed to publish in his native Russia.

Answer: Andrei Linde

c) The British physicist who accused two Penn physicists of plagarizing himself and Linde in a bestselling book. It took the intervention of Newsweek to disprove his allegations.

Answer: Steven Hawking

11. FTP, answer these questions about Rastafarianism.

a. Name the emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974, Ras Tafari himself.

Answer: Haile Selassie

b. This form of marijuana is often ritually smoked

Answer: ganja

c. Some Rastafarian doctrine may stem from this Jamaican-born �Back to Africa� leader

Answer: Marcus Garvey

12. How well do you know Asian politics? Name the politician under fire for fifteen points each.

This Malaysian politician, once groomed as a successor to Mahathir Mohammed,

just lost a libel case in which he sued the Prime Minister for libel, as

he was accused of sodomy, which is illegal in Malaysia.

Answer: Anwar Ibrahim

A military court would most likely try her for corruption if this former Pakistani prime minister returns from exile in Britain.

Answer: Benazir Bhutto

13. For 15 points each, answer the questions about Latin American Music.

This dance for couples originated in the Dominican Republic. It is danced

with a �limping step� as the weight always on the same foot, in sections

including the paseo and jaleo.

Answer: Merengue

This Afro-Cuban dance became internationally popular in the early 20th

century. It is best known for the dancers' subtle side to side hip

movements with the torso erect, in a basic pattern of two quick side

steps and a slow forward step.

Answer: Rumba

Answer the following about Pithecanthropus erectus FTSNOP.

a. (5) The fossil�s common name comes from the island on which it was discovered, the most populous in Indonesia.

ANSWER: Java

b. (10) The Dutch paleontologist who discovered �Java man� in 1891.

ANSWER: Eugene Dubois

c. (5) Dubois� Pithecanthropus is now classified as this species of early human�

ANSWER: Homo erectus

d. (10) � not as this type of lesser ape of the family Hylobatidae, despite the claims of some creationists.

ANSWER: gibbon

15. Give the English titles of the following major works of twentieth century writing given the titles in the original languages, FTPE.

a. Das Unbehagen in der Kultur

ANSWER: Civilization and its Discontents

b. La Peste

ANSWER: The Plague

c. Cien Años de Soledad

ANSWER: One Hundred Years of Solitude

 

16. Give the proper name for each of the following vitamins, FTPE.

a. Vitamin C

ANSWER: ascorbic acid

b. Vitamin B-1.

ANSWER: thiamine

c. Vitamin B-2.

ANSWER: riboflavin

17. It�s a cheese shop, sir! Name these cheeses mentioned in the Monty Python skit for ten points each.

a) Named for a village in Normandy where it is made, it has a cow milk base, with an ivory interior and downy white surface.

Answer: Camembert

b) Also the name of a character in the TV show �Chip N� Dale�s Rescue Rangers,� this cheese is often supplemented by pimentos, or jalapenos.

Answer: Monterey Jack

c) This cheese shares its name with an English breed of sheep and the cheese shop�s proprietor.

Answer: Wensleydale

18. Identify the famed name, 30-20-10.

(30) The first name of Uruguayan and Peruvian left-wing urban guerilla groups.

(20) The name of the Inca king Amaru who led the last revolt against Spanish control.

(10) The West Coast rapper killed on September 12, 1996.

Answer: Tupac

19. Name these fought-over �strips� for ten points each.

a. Its towns include Rafiah, Deir-el Balah, Khan Yunis, and settlements such as Dugit, Netzarim, and Neve Dekalim.

Answer: Gaza Strip

b. Contested by Chad and Libya, this area is rich in uranium, which may be why France aided its former colony against Ghadafi.

ANSWER: Aozou Strip

c. Bordering Angola, Botswana, and Zambia, this panhandle region would like to secede from Namibia.

Answer: Caprivi Strip

20. Name the alleged authors of these basketball books that, we certainly hope, were ghostwritten, FTPE.

a. �Just Give Me The Damn Ball�

Answer: Keyshawn Johnson

b. �Walk on the Wild Side�

Answer: Dennis Rodman

c. �Outrageous�

Answer: Charles Barkley

OT 1. Identify the Civil War battlefield from landmarks, 30-20-10.

(30) Trostle�s Woods, Bliss Farm, Codori House

(20) Lutheran Seminary, Culp�s Hill

(10) Cemetery Hill, Little Round Top

ANSWER: Gettysburg