Quizzzbowwwl....Anyone?

Are you ready for a quizbowl weekend? First person to answer correctly wins champ! Answers will be posted on Monday!

1. Hippocrates wrote that it was the most widespread disease of his time, and called it phthisis. Edvard Munch’s sister, the subject of The Sick Child, died of it. The bacteria that causes it multiplies only about once a day, so infection is easily prevented by those with normal immune systems. Inmates of Georgian prisons are known to swap sputum to be tested positive for this disease and transferred to quarantine prisons with better facilities. In March 2007, Andrew Speaker became the first individual to receive a CDC isolation order since 1963 when he entered the United States while infected with the multi-drug-resistant type of this disease. Name this disease caused by mycobacteria, also known as TB.


2. He wrote about his disgust with conventional education in Beneath the Wheel, and other early works describe artists, Gertrud and Rosshalde. He was a bookseller until writing about a failed writer in his first novel, Peter Camenzind, while more mature works of his include Narcissus and Goldmund. He was psychoanalyzed by J.B. Lang, the results of which led to Demian. One famous work includes characters like Plinio Designori and Thomas van der Trave, the predecessor of the major character, while another has Kamaswami and Govinda. Along with Hermine and Maria, another work is about Harry Haller, while the first work is about Father Jacobus and Joseph Knecht. Name this author of Steppenwolf, The Glass Bead Game, and Siddhartha.


3. Askr and Embla were born from it, four deer run across it, representing the winds, and the Roaring Kettle, which serves as the source of rivers, lies beneath it. Also known as Laerad, Heidrun and Eikthyrmir eat from it, and Lif and Leifthrasir will use it as shelter. Urdarbrunnr is used to sustain it while it holds together three levels that contain the Nine Worlds, and the Aesir hold court here. Nidhogg gnaws at the base of it, and it will eventually be destroyed by Surt. The source of the mead served in Valhalla, Odin hung upside down for nine nights from it to receive runes. The golden bird Vidofnir is perched on a hawk at its top, and Ratatösk runs up and down it delivering messages. Name this giant ash, the world tree in Norse mythology.


4. Paintings from this movement include Funeral of the Anarchist Galli by Carlo Carra and The City Rises. It his movement was temporarily endorsed by Fascists, and its manifesto was written by Filippo Marinetti, who expressed a hatred for political and artistic traditions from the past and love for speed, technology, and violence. Paintings in this style sometimes portrayed people in progressive stages of motion, and used Cubist methods of division of space. One painting in this style shows a street lamp emitting light in the shape of V’s. Dog on a Leash shows a scurrying dog whose legs are blurred into circles by motion, and Unique Forms of Continuity in Space shows the dynamism of a walking man. Name this movement whose artists include Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, and Gino Severini.


5. As ambassador to Russia, he met and befriended Prince Gorchakov, who would later become one of his greatest adversaries, when the Prince would denounce him as having denied Russia’s victory by the modification of the Treaty of San Stefano. The League of Three Emperors thus fell apart during that same month-long meeting he led to decide upon the Eastern Question as the host and mediator of the Congress of Berlin. Seven years later, he organized another conference in Berlin to decide the fate of African colonization, which precipitated the Scramble for Africa. Name this German Chancellor to Emperor Wilhelm I, who famously proclaimed the great questions of the day will be decided by “iron and blood.”


6. One of his works is about an old man with "white hair descending/in a frothy cataract" who gives a speech to conscripts about the horrors they were praying to inflict on their enemy entitled The War Prayer, while he explains his problems learning "The Awful German language" in an epilogue to one of his more famous works. He wrote a work about Joan of Arc dictating memoirs to Sieur Louis and a collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner which gave its name to The Gilded Age. More famous works are The Tramp Abroad and some that follow a boy who meets Injun Joe in a cemetary and another vagrant son of a drunk who runs away on a raft with the slave Jim. Name this author of the books about St. Petersburg, Missouri, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.


7. This nation won the first match in World Cup history, beating Belgium 3-0, and finished 3rd in that 1930 World Cup, still their best finish to date. Their World Cup appearance in 1990 was the first in 40 years, but in 1950, Joe Gaetjans scored the goal that helped them defeat England 1-0 in the "Miracle on Grass". They finished in last place in the 1998 World Cup, losing to Germany, Yugoslavia, and Iran under coach Steve Sampson 4 years after hosting the tournament, and in 2006, failed to make it past the Group of Death against the Czech Republic, Italy, and Ghana, leading to the departure of coach Bruce Arena. Name this country whose soccer team is captained by Carlos Bocanegra and includes players such as DaMarcus Beasley, Landon Donovan, and Freddy Adu.


8. Classical physics can be defined as the limit of quantum mechanics as this quantity tends to zero. It was originally proposed in reference to black-body radiation, where E, the quantized energy of the photons of radiation, equals this quantity times nu, the frequency. A related constant which is useful when calculating with angular frequency instead of constant frequency is called Dirac's constant, and is simply this constant divided by 2 pi. It is denoted by the letter “h” and has a value of approximately 6.626 times 10-34 Joule-seconds. Name this physical constant named after a German physicist, which describes the sizes of quanta.


9. One character in this work opens a store for “the most miserable of the miserable”, then proceeds to sing his “Morning Hymn”, and the “Instead-Of Song” is between him and his wife. The House of Prostitution in Turnbridge is the setting for “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency”, and a barmaid sings a song about herself, “Pirate-Jenny”. At the end, the main character is presented Castle Marmarel, but we are first told about his banditry before seeing the opening of that store by Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum. The “Jealousy Duet” is sung between Lucy and Polly, while the first song of Act I is the most famous, a ballad covered by Lyle Lovett and Louis Armstrong, among others, about the main character, Mack the Knife. Name this opera based on John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, a collaboration between Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht.


10. In 1995, this land mass was struck by an earthquake that destroyed the town of Neftegorsk. Its highest point is Mount Lopatin, and it is separated from the mainland by the Tatar Strait. In 1875 the country that controls it today traded it for a nearby archipelago and ran a penal colony on it before losing its southern half thirty years later. During that time, the island was known as Karafuto, and was handed over according to the Treaty of Portsmouth. Cities on it include Alexandrovsk and Yuzhno, which is the capital of the province formed by this namesake island and the nearby archipelago, part of which is still claimed by Japan, the Kuril Islands. The Sea of Okhotsk lies east of what island, the largest in Russia?

Taken from the Hunter College High School Quizbowl

QUIZBOWWWWL......Anyone?

Who's ready for a Quizbowl weekend? (Enter annoying cheer here) We'll supply you with the questions and you supply us with the answers. Capish? Answers are posted on Monday morning. First post wins champ! GET IT ON!

1. This battle was followed up by Operation Églantine, the losing side's last offensive in the war, which led to the Battle of Mang Yang Pass. The aftermath saw the 17th parallel established as a temporary boundary between the victorious nation and the occupier-backed losing side. The latter, which counted among its number Hmong mercenaries, had captured the namesake mountainous border town, which was promptly cut off and surrounded by Vo Nguyen Giap indirectly leading to the fall of the Fourth Republic. Name this major victory for the Viet Minh and disaster for the French that effectively ended the First Indochina War.

2. The first use of this phrase appeared in the title of a committee, which came up with a “February Outline”, but the “Group of Five” was declared in a “Notification” sent to the Politburo as “completely penetrated with double-dealing” and subsequently disbanded. A major spark to this event was “big-character-poster” written by Nie Yuanzi labeling professors as "black anti-Party gangsters," and within a week, the first Red Guard groups formed in Tsinghua University, and rival Red Guard groups fought street battles in Beijing. Name this disastrous period in modern Chinese history during which Mao Zedong’s cult of personality spiraled out of control.

3. This author's unfinished autobiography, Illumination and Night Glare, was released over 30 years posthumous in 1999. Novels include one about a latent homosexual officer and his nymphomaniac wife, and one about Jester, Fox Clane, and J.T. Malone. In addition to Reflections in a Golden Eye and A Clock Without Hands, she wrote the short stories "A Domestic Dilemna" and "The Sojourner" in one collection. One of her more famous works features Janice Evans getting married to Jarvis, the brother of the title character, Frankie Addams, while her most famous novel includes Jake Blount, a drunk who frequents Biff Brannon's New York Cafe, as well as Spiros Antonapoulos and John Singer, both of whom are deaf-mutes. Name this author of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, The Member of the Wedding, and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

4. He founded his own architectural firm in 1955 with James Freed and Henry Cobb, a year after becoming a U.S. citizen. He was a member of the National Defense Research Committee from 1943 to 1945. While at Harvard, he studied under Walter Gropius, and during his early years, he designed many of his buildings in the style of Mies van der Rohe. One of his buildings was commissioned by François Mitterrand and includes an underground lobby. Some of his other projects include the Mile High Center in Denver, the Dallas City Hall, the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, the Javits Convention Center in New York, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong. Name this Chinese-American architect who designed the glass pyramids in front of the Louvre.

5. The composer intended it and its two successors, Songs of Catullus and Triumph of Aphrodite, to be accompanied by dancers and scenery, but usually only the music is performed. The penultimate song equates Venus with two medieval heroines, Blanzifor and Helena, and is in Latin, as is the rest of the work, except for most of Part I, which is in Low German. That section, Uf Dem Anger, uses folk melodies from the composer's native Bavaria. Part II consists of a bunch of drunk monks having fun in a pub, and is, as such, named In Taberna. The work begins and ends with an evocation of a goddess "in a state of change like the moon", O Fortuna. Name this collection of 26 medieval songs set to music by Carl Orff.

6. His courage came from the thunder god Adad, and to amuse himself he sounded the tocsin. He loses the pukku and mikku, and on his journey he encounters the only man to survive the Flood. Two scorpions at the base of Mount Mashu warn him of impending danger, and he has to prove his identity to the tavernkeeper Siduri. He dreams of a meteorite that he is forced to compete with, and has another where he has to fight an axe. A snake consumes the plant he found that would restore his youth, and he is offered the chance to become immortal if he can stay awake for six days and seven nights. His friend dreams of a "house of dust" after they slay the Bull of Heaven sent to kill him after he rejects Ishtar's marriage proposal, and he returns home on a raft of cedar after slaying Humbaba. Identify this King of Uruk and subject of a Babylonian epic.

7. During his lame-duck period, he appointed Nathan Goff, Jr., as Secretary of the Navy to replace Richard Wigginton Thompson, and other members of his cabinet included Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz and Attorney General Carl Devens. Pozo Colorado is the capital of a department named after him in Paraguay, where he is a national hero, having arbitrated in their favor while president after the War of the Triple Alliance. Congress overrode his veto of the Bland-Allison Act, and he promised not to run for a second term after a supposed bipartisan committee rewarded him 20 disputed electoral votes. Name this 19th president who won a controversial election in 1876 against Democrat Samuel Tilden.

8. This work claims that the words "brotherly love" have led to "the best lying and dissembling" in its section "The Spirit of Gravity," and it called for the creation of new values in the section "Old and New Tables." The most famous quote from this work first appeared in its author's earlier tract The Gay Science, and it discusses the ideas of the "superman" and the "the will to power" and was also the inspiration for a Richard Strauss tone poem. Name this work, in which the title character, an ancient Persian mystic, asserts that "god is dead," written by Friedrich Nietzsche.

9. He wrote an article entitled Report on the Mode of Detecting Vegetable Substances mixed with coffee for the Purpose of Adulteration in 1857, and his work in the field of absorption of hydrogen gas by palladium has been recently made significant by the cold fusion controversy. While a 14-year-old student at Glasgow, he angered his professor by accurately suggesting that when gases are absorbed by liquids they become liquids. Name this man, best known for his equation that states that the rate at which gases diffuse is inversely proportional to the square root of their densities.

Taken from the Hunter quizbowl

T-R-I-V-I-A.....Anyone?

Today's questions are going to be a little different because they come from Hunter Collage's High School Quizbowl. The questions are VERY long. Here are a few of the tossup questions. First correct post wins for today. Answers will be posted Sunday night.

1. Among his scientific works was Treatise on the Astrolabe, written for his ten-year-old son, and one of his earliest works was an elegy for Blanche, the first wife of the Duke of Lancaster: Book of the Duchess. The first recorded use of the word "galaxy" is found in his House of Fame. Most of his works were left unfinished, but one of his completed poems took the plot from Boccaccio's Filostrato and saw rhyme royal used in English for the first time. That poem, Troilus and Criseyde, is often considered to be his best work, although his most famous depicted a storytelling contest between pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Thomas à Becket. Name this author of The Canterbury Tales.

2. In the Mozart oratorio La Betulia Liberata this widow of Manassas's return interrupts a discussion between Ozias and Achior. Erwin Panofsky argued that in northern art that she had both a maid and a charger, to distinguish her from Salome. In Gustav Klimt's portrait she wears a thick gold brooch and is partially nude, draped with a billowy blue cloth. She was also subject of a Donatello statue, and Artemisia Gentileschi's most famous work is a thinly veiled self portrait as this biblichal character. Name this Israelite who beheaded the Assyrian Holofernes.

3.The land near the coast of this body of water is home to the famous Lavaux vineyards and its coast is home to the Castle of Chillon, which was built by the Dukes of Savoy. There is a city that shares a name with it in southern Wisconsin, and the lake was called Lacus Lemanus in Roman times. The stretch of coast from it's namesake city to Lausanne is called La Cote. What is the second largest European lake, named for a Swiss city?

4. The author of this work is frustrated after waiting nine years to meet a man named Faustus, only to discover Faustus is ignorant. Book three of this work discusses Cicero's lost work Hortensius, and also includes an episode where the narrator steals from a pear tree just for the thrill of theft. It talks about the death of the author's mother Monica and the narrator discusses how he gave up Manichaeism due to the influence of Saint Ambrose of Milan. Name this autobiographical work describing the conversion of the Bishop of Hippo, Saint Augustine.

5. This war commenced after an ultimatum demanding the revision of the Straits Convention, free access of the Danube River, relinquishing responsibility of Orthodox Christians, and surrendering protectorate over the Danubian Principalities. Hostilities spilled over to the Pacific Theatre when the Allies attacked but were repulsed at Petropavlovsk, as well as Archangelsk. While Baltic operations such as the bombardment of Bomarsund lead to stalemate, its main battles of Inkerman and Balaclava near the besieged city of Sevastapol took place on the war's namesake peninsula. Name this conflict which pitted France, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire against Russia.

6. His 1944 book What is Life? introduced the term "negentropy" and discussed the idea of an "aperiodic crystal" which contained genetic information, a concept which later inspired Watson and Crick to research the structure of DNA. In his 1926 paper, Quantization as an Eigenvalue Problem, he published an equation describing the time- and space-dependence of quantum mechanical systems, using a model of the atom as waves rather than particles. Later, he rejected the mainstream definition of wave-particle duality altogether, promoting the wave concept alone. This led him to propose a thought experiment to demonstrate the absurdity of wavefunction collapse. Name this Austrian-Irish physicist whose namesake thought experiment involves a vial of poison, a decaying atom, and a cat.

7. At one point in this novel, a female character gives shelter to pilgrims Ivanushka and Pelageyushka. Another character loses 40,000 roubles while gambling with his friend Dolohov, and Vassily Denisov gets rebuffed in a marriage offer to a teenager. The novel opens at a party hosted by Anna Scherer, at which Anna Drubetskoy reveals her desire to get a position for her son, Boris, in the army. Mademoiselle Bourienne falls in love with Anatole Kuragin, who has actually come to the estate of Bleak Hills with his father, Vassily, to meet and ostensibly court a friend of his sister Julie, Marie Bolkonsky. Marie's sister-in-law, Lise, dies in childbirth, allowing Andre Bolkonsky to fall in love with that teenager, Natasha Rostov. Name this gigantic novel about Pierre Bezuhov and other early Russians during the time of Napoleon, a major work of Leo Tolstoy.

8. It was first demonstrated in the laboratory in a 1968 study by Darley and Latane, in which participants heard audio recordings of different voices and were told that their microphones would be off until it was their turn to speak. A famous example of it occurred on March 13, 1964, when a young woman returning to her home in Rego Park, Queens, was approached by Winston Mosely, who repeatedly stabbed her and raped her while she was dying, in an attack that lasted half an hour. The New York Times reported that there were 38 witnesses. It is an example of diffusion of responsibility leading to social loafing. Sometimes it can be caused by pluralistic ignorance, or groupthink, where each person concludes from the inaction of others that the other people don't think help is needed. Name this psychological phenomenon in which people are less likely to give help in a life-threatening situation when others are present.

9. Its earliest mention is from the eleventh century from the diaries of a woman who lived on the edge of the marsh that would give it its name, who only knew the name of one day of the week. The first full description of its modern form is from 1398 by Zacharias Mumps. In 1884, stooging was declared a penalty, one year after the three goal baskets on each side were replaced with the modern hoops. There are 700 types of fouls listed in the rule books, every one of which occurred in the final of the first ever World Cup, in 1473. The two best Australian teams of this sport are the Thundelarra Thunderers and the Woollongong Warriors, while British teams include the Tutshill Tornadoes, who have seen recent success, and Puddlemere United, who signed Oliver Wood. Name this sport played on broomsticks by Cedric Diggory, Cho Chang, and Harry Potter.

10. This author published the collection Home and Exile containing the essays My Home Under Imperial Fire, The Empire Fights Back, and Today, the Balance of Stories, while one of his stories is about Emenike who promises to put a girl through school, collected in his Girls at War. That collection has 3 stories set during the Biafran war, and other characters include the priest of Ulu named Ezeulu in Arrow of God and Obi, a British educated official in Lagos who left Ufuoma, the land of his grandfather who commited suicide after killing a British official. Name this creator of Okonkwo, the Nigerian author of Things Fall Apart.