Technophobia 4: Massive Quizbowl Overdose
Tossups by Berkeley A (Jeff Good, Nick Meyer, Andy Penner, Mike Usher)

  1. A Guggenheim fellow during one point of his career, his collections include Angle of Geese and Other Poems, and The Gourd Dancer. Now teaching at the University of Arizona, one of his better known works depicts the 18th century migration of the Kiowa to the Great Plains. For 10 points--name this Stanford educated author of The Way To Rainy Mountain, who also won a Pulitzer Prize for his story of a Native American World War II veteran, House Made of Dawn.

    answer: N(avarre) Scott Momaday

  2. The first to be developed were red, green ones came later, and, in the 1980's they first started appearing in blue. Their basic structure consists of a die and a lead frame which are surrounded by epoxy. The dies of the first commercially successful ones made use of gallium, arsenic, and phosphorus. They are essentially p-n junction semiconductors that luminesce when current passes through them. For 10 points--name these devices that are commonly used to indicate if something is on or off.

    answer: Light Emitting Diodes

  3. Around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, this species suffered a drastic near-extinction; its population fell to as low as ten--or perhaps even two--individuals. As a result, its members are all very closely related, which may limit their ability to survive changing conditions. They are fairly shy for predators, probably due to their small size, which is offset by their enlarged nasal passages, powerful limbs, and strangely supple spine, which combine to give--for 10 points--what big cat incredible speeds of up to 65 miles per hour?

    answer: cheetah

  4. One of the most linguistically diverse areas in the world, the name of this group of mountains is thought to be derived from Hittite. There are two ranges--the Greater and the Lesser--and their highest peak is Mount Elbrus, and the Greeks believed that both Prometheus and the Golden Fleece were located within them. For 10 points--name these mountains which have traditionally been part of the southern line dividing Europe from Asia.

    answer: Caucasus

  5. It developed independently in Europe and in Meso-America. The Meso-American kind is first found after A.D. 1000 and contains pictographs and ideograms. Its development in Europe is tied to production of long Christian texts and increased availability of parchment, and it replaced papyrus scrolls as early as the fourth century A.D. For 10 points--name this type of manuscript which was the first to consist of written pages stitched together on one side.

    answer: codex

  6. He enrolled at the age of fifteen at the University of Chicago, where he studied mathematics and philosophy, graduating in 1956. He went on to Juilliard to study composition, and studied under Nadia Boulanger in Paris. While there, he met Ravi Shankar who was to have a major effect on his music. For 10 points--name this composer of monotonous and repetitive music who is famous for such works as Akhnaten, Satyaghara, and Einstein on the Beach.

    answer: Phillip Glass

  7. Most languages have at least three, but some dialects of Berber may have only one. Back ones tend to be rounded and front ones unrounded, and you can't have a diphthong without one. Usually accompanied by voicing, they result when the flow of air from the lungs through the mouth is relatively unobstructed. For 10 points--name these speech sounds, represented in English spelling sometimes with "y" but more often with "a", "e", "i", "o", and "u".

    answer: vowels

  8. In this work, the composer withholds the timpani until the fourth movement, identifying them solely with the representation of thunder. In addition to its common name, the author inscribed "Or a Remembrance of Life in the Countryside" when he submitted it for printing. It was also called the Characteristic Symphony before its first performance in 1808. For 10 points--name this work, opus 68 by Ludwig von Beethoven.

    answer: Pastoral Symphony or Symphony no. 6 in F major

  9. In this novel, the firm Films Par Excellence, headed by Joseph Bloeckman, makes a movie out of The Demon Lover, the first novel of Dick Caramel, a friend of the protagonist. The main character's wife, the former Gloria Gilbert, later attends a screentest with Bloeckman in an effort to relieve the economic problems she and her husband have faced since his grandfather Adam, a prohibitionist, wrote him out of his will. For 10 points--name this novel dealing with the downfall of Anthony Patch, the second novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

    answer: The Beautiful and Damned

  10. One piece of American legislation by this name was passed in 1918. It included a provision banning the display of foreign flags, and was one of two acts whose constitutionality was examined in the case Schenck v. U.S. An earlier act bearing this name led to the arrest of newspaper editor Thomas Cooper for his support of the Republican Party, but was repealed in 1801 thanks in part to the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. For 10 points--name this 1798 act which, along with three Alien Acts, raised sentiment against President John Adams.

    answer: Sedition Act

  11. Begun as an antidote to its author's boredom while he was living in Tolouse, it addresses the struggle between passion and impartiality, much like its author's previous work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Book III identifies the four main stages of social organization, corresponding to hunting, pastoralism, feudalism, and commercial interdependence, and argues that, since the feudal stage is no more, institutions such as guild-determined wages and government-constrained enterprise should be eliminated. For 10 points--name this book, which proposes replacing mercantilist institutions by an invisible hand, written by Adam Smith.

    answer: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

  12. Notable modifications to this musical instrument have been made by Heinrich Band and the French manufacturer Busson. It was invented in the 1820s by either Friedrich Buschmann, who called his instrument the Handaoline, or Cyril Demian. It can have a range of up to eight octaves, and the "double-action" variety often makes use of couplers which activate extra sets of free reeds inside the casing. For 10 points--name this relative of the concertina, a staple of polka and tango which uses a hand-operated bellows.

    answer: accordion

  13. 581 of them are alive at the novel's end, down from an initial count of 1001, at which point they are all sterilized and sperectomized--drained of all hope. Each has a miraculous gift, such as time travel, the ability to change gender at will, or, as in the case of the narrator, telepathy. The narrator lives in fear of being murdered by the man with whom he was switched at their August 15, 1947 birth. For 10 points--name this Booker Prize-winning novel by Salman Rushdie.

    answer: Midnight's Children

  14. Respect for this principle is the root of such customs as not eating or drinking after dark, and the principle must be respected more strongly by those who have taken the mahavrata rather than the anuvrata. Developed by a man who wandered around naked and meditated for 12 years during the sixth century B.C.E., it was extended into the political sphere as satyagraha by Gandhi in the early 20th century. For 10 points--name this principle of non-injury toward all living substances, the fundamental ethical virtue of Jainism.

    answer: ahimsa

  15. This man's name is associated with a formula which states that the differential cross section is proportional to the fourth power of the cosecant of half the scattering angle for scattering from a repulsive inverse-square law force. He derived that formula in order to explain the results of an experiment done by two of his students, Marsden and Geiger, in 1911, involving gold foil and alpha particles. For 10 points--name this New Zealand-born physicist credited with the discovery of the nucleus.

    answer: Ernest Rutherford

  16. This show won an Emmy in 1977, and its British born host won an Emmy a year later for his work on the show. It debuted on July 12, 1976 on ABC, and the first question asked was "Name a famous George." It has also appeared on CBS and in syndication, and its most recent run started in September with its third host. A good answer will earn you 10 points--but no fast money--for naming this Mark Goodson game show now hosted by comedian Louie Anderson.

    answer: Family Feud (prompt on "The Feud")

  17. He was a national hero, so he was sent back to his home country for burial; unfortunately, there was no refrigeration at the time, so his body was stuck in a cask of brandy. His uncle opined that his head would be knocked off by a cannonball the first time he went into action. Indeed, he was often hurt, losing an eye at Calvi in 1794 and his arm below the elbow in 1797. For 10 points--what British admiral was successful in battles such as St. Vincent, Copenhagen, the Nile, and, of course, Trafalgar, where he was killed?

    answer: Lord Horatio Nelson

  18. On December 29, 1998, in a game against Texas, this team collected not a single offensive rebound--and yet they won the game, with the final nail in the coffin being a three-pointer by Gabe Lewullis. Lewullis also made the most important shot in this school's recent history, a backdoor layup that provided the final points in a 43-41 victory over defending champion UCLA in the first round of the 1996 NCAA tourney. For 10 points--name this team now coached by Bill Carmody, a perennial Ivy League power.

    answer: Princeton Tigers

  19. His analyses of Wittgenstein's Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus were considered brilliant. His papers on taxation and saving are still fundamental reading in economics. His contribution to math consisted of only one eight-page paper, but the theorem contained within has kept mathematicians busy for decades. And this student of Russell at Cambridge did all of this before dying at age 26 in 1930. For 10 points--name this man, whose contribution to combinatorics lay in generalizing the "party problem": that among six people, there will be either three mutual friends or three mutual enemies.

    answer: Frank Plumpton Ramsey

  20. They originated during the reign of caliph al-Mutasim, and their most successful leaders included Baybars I and al-Malik an-Nasir. Their decline began with the accession of the Circassian sultan Barquq in 1382. Although they were conquered by the Ottomans in 1517, they retained important positions in the military and by the end of the 18th century held virtual control over the government. For 10 points--name this class of slave soldiers finally put down by Muhammad Ali in 1811.

    answer: Mamluks

  21. Assuming that a satellite has both zero tensile strength and the same density as its primary, this value is approximately 2.4 times the radius of the primary. In general, this is defined to be the minimum distance at which a satellite can remain in equilibrium under the influence of both its own gravity and that of its primary; if a satellite strays inside, it might break apart. For 10 points--name this limiting distance, a violation of which may have formed Saturn's rings.

    answer: Roche limit

  22. This fan of the Boston Red Sox was also a specialist in comparative literature. He taught at Princeton for a couple of years before moving on to Yale, where he would eventually become the youngest man to hold the office of university president. Though he has now been dead for ten years, his name has reappeared in the news with the resurfacing of a scandal during the World Series. For 10 points--name this commissioner of Major League Baseball who ruled that a lifetime ban be imposed on Pete Rose.

    answer: A(ngelo) Bartlett Giamatti

    Tiebreaker question

  23. To our knowledge, Jackson Pollock never went by the name "Cody," nor did Edouard Manet ever go by "Paris"; however this Italian baroque painter took his professional name from the Lombardy hill town where he was born. Originally born Michelangelo Merisi in 1573, perhaps this mannerist expert of genre paintings had reason to be shifty, as he was often arrested and imprisioned, and was even charged for murder in 1606. For 10 points--name this painter whose works include The Flagellation of Christ and The Calling of Saint Matthew.

    answer: Caravaggio (accept Merisi before his name is mentioned)