Wahoo War of the Minds 1997

Round Ten

1.  It begins with a prayer to Venus, who the poet asks to befriend him as he writes the work for Memmius.  Book One establishes that things cannot be reduced to nothingness, while later books show that all things in the universe, including the soul, are 
mortal.  FTP, name this Epicurean epic, written near the end of the Roman Republic by Titus Lucretius Carus.

Answer: On the Nature of Things (accept De rerum natura) 

2.  He was victorious over Tippoo Sahib as governor-general of India from 1786 to 1793, and was reappointed to the post in 1804, although he died a year later.  Negotiator of the peace of Amiens, he put down the Irish rebellion of 1798 as lord-lieutenant,
 though he is better known for his military failures.  FTP, name this English soldier, who defeated Gates at Camden and went on to success at Guildford before he was besieged and forced to surrender at Yorktown.

Answer: Charles Cornwallis

3.  It functions as a light receptor in many lower vertebrates, often with nervous connections to the eye, and has been suggested as an evolutionary forerunner to the modern eye. Also known as the epiphysis cerebri, it develops from the roof of the dience
phalon, shrinking and calcifying with age. It is believed to play a role in sexual maturation, secreting the hormone melatonin, but is no longer seen as “the seat of the soul”.  FTP, what is this gland whose name derives from its pine-cone shape?

Answer: pineal gland

4.  Although her followers claimed that her 1944 death was the result of a heart attack, it has been argued that she died of an overdose of barbiturates.  After her first husband, a Pentecostal missionary, died in China in 1910, she returned to America an
d began her religious career.  FTP, identify this woman, who preached from the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, founder of the Foursquare Gospel Movement.

Answer: Aimee Semple McPherson

5.  Located on the Tigris River, it now exists as two tells, Kuyunjik (koo-YOON-jik) and Nebiyunus (NEH-bih-YOO-nus).  Rebuilt by Tiglath-pileser, Sennacherib made it his capital, and Ashurbanipal expanded it in the fifth century B.C.  FTP, identify this 
city, the legendary site of Jonah's tomb, the final capital of the Assyrian empire which Genesis states was founded by Nimrod.

Answer : Nineveh

6.  His collaboration with Stefan Zweig on The Silent Woman drew criticism from the Nazis, and he was forced to resign as president of the Reichsmusikkammer.  Assistant conductor to von Bulow at Meiningen, he was invited by Cosima Wagner to conduct at Bay
reuth in 1891, and his first opera, Guntram, was produced three years later.  FTP, name this composer, who collaborated with Hugo von Hoffmanstael on Ariadne of Naxos and Der Rosenkavalier, best known for tone poems like Also sprach Zarathustra.

Answer: Richard Strauss

7.  It reversed the court's ruling in 1942's Betts v. Brady, and it was made to apply to all cases that could lead to imprisonment in 1972's Argensinger v. Hamlin.  The court ruled that the Sixth Amendment guaranteed qualified representation as essential 
for fairness, and a retrial was ordered.  FTP, identify this Supreme Court decision of 1963, which required states to provide public defenders in felony cases.

Answer: Gideon v. Wainwright

8.  As an adjective, it describes hypotheses concerning the precise shape of the Earth and the significance thereof.  As a noun, it can refer to a curve with the greatest lapse of proper time between two events in space-time, such as would be described by
 a freely falling body.  Generally, they are the curves of minimal path length in a certain metric space, such as a great circle on a sphere.  FTP, what is this term which Buckminster Fuller used to describe his domes?

Answer: geodesic

9.  It focuses on 13 characters, whose lives before entering the military are described in flashbacks.  The author’s cynicism is expressed in the clash between Lieutenant Hearn, a wealthy liberal, and General Cummings, a fascist who believes that soldiers
 must be mere automatons.  FTP, identify this 1948 novel, set on a Pacific island during World War II, and written by Norman Mailer.

Answer: The Naked and the Dead

10.  After completing his four years at UCLA, he was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams.  He had a solid career, but blossomed into a star after his 1992 free agent move to Pittsburgh, becoming one of the leaders on their Super Bowl team.  When the Steelers 
did not want him back, he changed teams again over the last off season.  FTP, name this linebacker who led the NFL in sacks for the Carolina Panthers this year.

Answer: Kevin Greene

11.  It was known to Europeans by its current French name until Joseph Priestly renamed it in 1770.  The all-trans geometry is called gutta-percha, and the more common all-cis yields the material ebonite when heated with certain additives.  The most commo
n synthetic substitute is a copolymer of butadiene with styrene, but a “synthetic natural” variety, all-cis polyisoprene, is also produced.  FTP, what is this elastomer, first made useful with Charles Goodyear’s discovery of vulcanization?

Answer: rubber

12.  After marrying Margaret Burr, the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Beaufort, he left London and settled in Ipswich as a portrait painter.  A founding member of the Royal Academy, he retired from it in 1784, dissatisfied with the place given to hi
s The King’s Daughters.  FTP, name this painter of Cattle Crossing a Bridge, The Harvest Wagon, Mrs. Siddons, and Blue Boy.

Answer: Thomas Gainsborough

13.  At the end of the play, Vivie rejects both of her suitors and decides to continue to do actuarial work with her friend Honoria.  Written in 1893, the Examiner of Plays would not allow it to be acted, and its first public performance did not come unti
l 1925.  FTP, identify this play, which hinges on the conflict between Vivie and her mother, who runs a chain of brothels in European capitals, written by George Bernard Shaw.

Answer: Mrs. Warren’s Profession

14.  After his wife died in 1832, Liebig invited him to Giessen to study almonds, a collaboration which resulted in the discovery of the benzoyl group.  Although he was the first scientist to make aluminum, calcium carbide, and crystalline silicon, he is 
best known for his discovery of the cyanates.  FTP, name this German chemist, who showed in 1828 that heated ammonium cyanate produced urea.

Answer: Friedrich Wohler

15.  He also worked at Orchomenos, Tiryns, and Ithaca, though he is best known for his first work at Hissarlik.  With the assistance of Wilhelm Dorpfeld, he went to Turkey at the age of 49, and discovered nine superimposed sites there between 1871 and 189
0.  FTP, name this German businessman and amateur archaeologist, best known for his excavations of Mycenae at Troy.

Answer: Heinrich Schliemann

16.  He started out in a grist-mill, earning the nickname “mill-boy of the Slashes” before going on to become assistant clerk to the chancery court of Virginia.  Elected to Congress in 1811, he would serve as secretary of state before entering the Senate 
in 1831.  FTP, name this man, an unsuccessful candidate for President in 1832 and 1844 who was known as the “great pacificator” for his role in creating the Missouri Compromise as a representative from Kentucky.

Answer: Henry Clay

17.  Although his parents held him prisoner for a year to prevent him from entering the church, he escaped and was sent to Cologne, where he was nicknamed "the dumb ox" by his classmates.  He went to Paris in 1252, where he wrote a commentary on the Sente
nces of Peter Lombard, and returned to Italy seven years later, where he made his name with the Summa Contra Gentiles.  FTP, name this scholastic philosopher, known as the angelic doctor, best known for his unfinished masterpiece, the Summa Theologica.

Answer : Saint Thomas Aquinas

18.  The son of Halfdan the Black, king of Vestfold, he gained power after his victory at the battle of Hafursfjord.  A strict authoritarian, his rule saw most of the aristocracy leave the country, and he led several raids on Scotland.  FTP, name this man
, nicknamed “fair-hair,” who abdicated in favor of his son, Eric Blood-Axe, in 942, after ruling for 50 years as the first king of all Norway.

Answer: Harald I (accept Harald Fair-Hair on early buzz)

19.  Depressed by attacks on his work by the logical positivists, he committed suicide while taking a holiday on the Adriatic in 1906.  His first work was an extension of the kinetic theory, as he developed the law of equipartition of particle energy betw
een degrees of freedom.  FTP, name this Austrian physicist, whose equation states that the entropy of a system is related to the number of microstates in which it can be made, and who shares his name with Maxwell on an energy distribution and with Stefan 
on a law of black body radiation.

Answer: Ludwig Boltzmann

20.  He began writing as a collaborator with Rowley and Dekker on The Witch of Edmonton, and continued to work with Dekker on The Welsh Ambassador and The Sun’s Darling.  Although he wrote two comedies, he is better known for morbid tragedies, such as The
 Lover’s Melancholy and Love’s Sacrifice, noted for its villain, D’Avalos.  FTP, identify this playwright, best known for The Broken Heart, Perkin Warbeck, and the tale of Giovanni’s incestuous love for Annabella, ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore.

Answer: John Ford

Boni:

1.  Identify the novels by George Eliot from characters on a 10-5 basis.
1.  10 points:  Mirah Cohen and Henleigh Grandcourt
5 points:  Gwendolyn Harleth
Answer: Daniel Deronda
2.  10 points:  Nancy Lammeter and Dunstan Cass
5 points:  Eppie
Answer: Silas Marner
3.  10 points:  Fred Vincy and Doctor Lydgate
5 points:  Dorothea Brooke
Answer: Middlemarch

2.  FTP each, identify these laws of physics.
1.  The change in internal energy of a system equals the difference of heat added to, and work done by, the system.
Answer: the First Law of Thermodynamics
2.  The electromotive force induced in a conducting loop is equal in magnitude to the time rate of change of the magnetic flux through the loop.
Answer: Faraday’s Law
3.  The product of the index of refraction with the sine of the angle of incidence is constant across an optical boundary.
Answer: Snell’s Law

3.  Given a series, name the series its pilot episode aired on, FTP each.
1. The Jeffersons
Answer: All in the Family
2. The Andy Griffith Show
Answer: The Danny Thomas Show (accept Make Room for Daddy)
3. Happy Days
Answer: Love, American Style

4.  Answer these questions about the Byzantine empire for the stated number of points.
1. 5 points:  This former actress was Justinian's wife and adviser.
Answer: Theodora
2. 15 points:  This uprising in Constantinople in 532 almost cost Justinian his life and throne.
Answer: Nika rebellion
3. 10 points:  In 533 this general defeated the Vandals in North Africa before beginning his campaigns in Italy.
Answer: Belisarius

5.  Identify the following nineteenth century paintings from descriptions on a 10-5 basis.  You'll only receive 5 points if you need the name of the artist.
1.  10 points:  In the foreground, two woman are fully bent over, while a third is partially stooped.  Two enormous haystacks stand in the background on the left.
5 points:  Jean Millet
Answer: The Gleaners
2.  10 points:  There are two men with their backs to the viewer.  The one on the left holds a basket and has a torn shirt, while the one on the right is lowering a hammer.
5 points:  Gustave Courbet
Answer: The Stonebreakers
3.  10 points:  The light is provided by a large cube lying on the ground in the middle.  It spotlights a man in a white shirt with his hands outstretched on the left.
5 points:  Francisco Goya
Answer: The Shootings of May Third, 1808 (accept the Third of May, 1808)

6.  While time traveling in Chaucer's day, you have the urge to run a chemistry experiment, but the supply shop uses strange names.  Given the alchemical name, identify the modern chemical you would be getting, for five points each and with a bonus five f
or all correct.
1.  Quicklime                                 
Answer: Calcium (oxide)
2.  Ratsbane                                  
Answer: Arsenic (trioxide)
3.  Vitriol                                       
Answer: Sulfuric acid
4.  Aqua ardens                              
Answer: Alcohol
5.  Litharge                                   
Answer: Lead (oxide)

7.  Identify the following concerning a German-American philosopher FTP each.
1.  Author of Reason and Revolution and Soviet Marxism, he started out as a member of the Frankfurt school, but went on to criticize it from a Freudian perspective.
Answer: Herbert Marcuse
2.  This 1955 Marcuse work argued for both the erotic liberation of the unconscious and the political liberation of the masses.
Answer: Eros and Civilization
3.  This 1964 book stated that only an fringe of independent students and the dispossessed poor could break free from the trivial materialism of capitalism.
Answer: One-Dimensional Man

8.  Answer the following about the Opium Wars of the 19th Century for the stated number of points.
1.  5 points:  This 1842 treaty ended the First Opium War.
Answer: Nanking
2.  10 points:  The First Opium War began with Chinese seizure of British-owned opium in this city.
Answer: Canton
3.  15 points:  The Second Opium War began in 1856 with the Chinese decision to board this English ship.
Answer: H.M.S. Arrow

9.  Name the Egyptian deities FTP each.
1.  This jackal-headed god of embalming supervised the weighing of souls at the final judgment.
Answer: Anubis
2.  This sky goddess was the mother of Isis and Osiris.
Answer: Nut
3.  This falcon-headed god was the son of Isis and Osiris.
Answer: Horus

10.  Name the World War I poets for the stated number of points.
1.  5 points:  This author of "Trees" was killed in France in 1918.
Answer: Joyce Kilmer
2.  10 points:  This author of 1914 and Other Poems died in 1915 of infection following a mosquito bite.
Answer: Rupert Brooke
3.  15 points:  This author of Counter-Attack and Other Poems was wounded twice but survived the war.
Answer: Siegfried Sassoon

11.  Answer the following about nearby stars, FTP each.
1.  What is the closest star other than the sun?
Answer: Proxima Centauri or Centauri C
2.  What type of star is Proxima Centauri?
Answer: red dwarf
3.  To what spectral class does Proxima Centauri belong?
Answer: M (accept M5)

12.  Name the battles from World War II FTP each.
1.  The remaining US troops in the Philippines surrounded on this heavily-fortified island in 1942.
Answer: Corregidor
2.  U.S. forces prevented the Japanese from landing at Port Moresby in this May 1942 battle.
Answer: Coral Sea
3.  In August 1942 U.S. forces landed on this and 2 other Solomon Islands, beginning the U.S. counterattack.
Answer: Guadalcanal

13.  Identify the twentieth century composers from works on a 10-5 basis.
1.  10 points:  The Song of the Forests and The Nose
5 points:  Lady Macbeth of Mtensk 
Answer: Dmitri Shostakovitch
2.  10 points:  Tapiola and Kullervo
5 points:  Finlandia
Answer: Jean Sibelius
3.  10 points:  Uirapuru and Mandu Carara
5 points:  Bachianas Brasileiras
Answer: Heitor Villa-Lobos

14.  Identify the following concerning a classic American novel, for the stated number of points.
1.  10 points:  Subtitled "A Horseman of the Plains," this 1902 work, set in the Wyoming cattle country during the 1870s, builds toward the wedding of Molly Wood and the title character.
Answer: The Virginian
2.  5 points:  Name the author of The Virginian.
Answer: Owen Wister
3.  15 points:  When this man accuses the Virginian of cheating at poker, he replies "When you call me that, smile!"  Later, the Virginian kills him in one of the first show down duels in literature.
Answer: Trampas

15.  Identify the following nineteenth century anthropologists, for the stated number of points.
1.  5 points:  In 1899, he became the first professor of anthropology at Columbia, and went on to teach a generation of anthropologists.
Answer: Franz Boas
2.  10 points:  In 1877, this American published Ancient Society, putting forth his stage theory of social evolution.
Answer: Louis Henry Morgan
3.  15 points:  This Englishman published Primitive Culture in 1871, becoming the first to make quantitative assessments of cultural phenomena.
Answer: Edward Taylor

16.  FTP each, identify these explosive substances.
1.  Mixtures of this substance with fuel oil are used as high explosives, as are water gels combining it with TNT.  Transportation of large quantities has been regulated since 1947, when a French freighter carrying it as fertilizer exploded in Galveston B
ay, Texas, killing 600.
Answer: ammonium nitrate
2.  This fluffy, white, highly flammable material, made by treating cotton with nitric acid, is the main ingredient of modern gunpowder.
Answer: guncotton or nitrocellulose or cellulose nitrate
3.  Discovered by Hans Henning of Germany in 1899, but not used until World War II, it was called hexogen by the Germans and T4 by the Italians.  Today it is mixed with various stabilizers to produce the deadly plastic explosive C4.
Answer: RDX or cyclonite

17.  Identify the following works by Albert Camus, FTP each.
1.  In this short novel, a former lawyer from Paris meets a man in a bar in Amsterdam, and explains why he works as a judge.
Answer: The Fall or La Chute
2.  In this 1942 essay, Camus used a figure from Greek myth to explain his belief that life is possible, even though man must live without hope.
Answer: The Myth of Sisyphus
3.  This lengthy essay of 1951 makes the distinction between political revolution, which Camus believed useless, and the philosophical independence needed to face an absurd universe.
Answer: The Rebel or L'Homme révolté

18.  Name the 2-term vice-president who served under the following presidents, FTP each.
1.  James Monroe
Answer: Daniel Tompkins
2.  Woodrow Wilson
Answer: Thomas Marshall
3.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Answer: John Nance Garner

19.  Identify the device, 30-20-10.
1.  Two common varieties are laser, with a polished face transverse to the depletion zone, and Zener, which operates by quantum tunneling.
2.  Represented in circuit diagrams by a triangle with a bar crossing one vertex, they are used as rectifiers and in regulated power supplies. 
3.  The older, evacuated glass tube variety has been largely replaced by solid state kind, a junction between p-type and n-type semiconductor materials.
Answer: diode

20.  Given a river, name the state where it has its source, FTP each.
1.  Susquehanna
Answer: New York
2.  Rio Grande
Answer: Colorado
3.  Wabash
Answer: Indiana