Episode 25 University Challenge

APPLAUSE

University Challenge. Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. At the beginning of the year around 120 universities and university colleges

put forward teams to compete in this contest.

28 qualified to do so.

Now, as we begin the quarter-finals, only eight remain. They are:

From now on, those teams must work harder to progress in the competition.

Not only will the questions be more difficult,

but they must win two matches to go through to the semi-final.

A team that loses two matches leaves the contest

and a team which wins one and loses another

must then play and win again to qualify.

Now, in their first round match,

Manchester University had pretty much a walkover against Selwyn, Cambridge.

But their second-round match was a much closer affair against Christchurch Oxford

when they were neck-and-neck most of the way.

They pulled ahead in the closing minutes and were 215 points to Christchurch's 155 at the gong

despite being baffled by Baffin, Newspeak and near-Earth objects.

With an accumulated score of 470 points,

let's meet the team for the third time.

Hi. I'm Luke Kelly, from Ashford in Kent, and I'm studying history.

I'm Michael McKenna from St Anne's in Lancashire, studying bio-chemistry.

-And their captain.

-I'm Tristan Burke from Ilkley, Yorkshire, studying English literature.

I'm Paul Joyce from Chorley in Lincolnshire,

studying for a Masters in Social Research Methods and Statistics.

APPLAUSE

Their opponents tonight, University College London,

beat York convincingly in the first round.

They had a tougher time against Warwick,

but still managed to be ahead by 220 points to 150 at the gong.

What's impressive about this time is when they're right, they're right.

When they're wrong, they're very, very wrong.

They'd no doubt like to offer an apology to the current poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy

for suggesting she was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer prize in 1982!

With an accumulated score of 405, let's meet the UCL team again.

I'm Hywel Carver from east Devon, doing a PhD in the simulation of blood flow.

I'm Patrick Cook from Texas and I'm reading history.

-And their captain.

-I'm Jamie Karran from London and I'm studying medicine.

Hi, I'm Tom Andrews from north Somerset, studying genetics.

APPLAUSE

Rules are the same as ever. Fingers on buzzers. Your first starter for 10.

"When I sit down to write a book, I don't say to myself I'm going to produce a work of art.

"I write it because there is some lie I want to expose..."

-George Orwell.

-George Orwell is correct. Yes.

First set of bonuses are for UCL on acronyms.

For major investigations, UK police forces began in 1986 to employ a Home Office system

known by what possibly appropriate acronym?

-If it's appropriate, corpse or body or something.

-OK. BODY.

No, it's HOLMES, Home Office Large Major Enquiry System.

VICAP, standing for Violent Criminal Apprehension Programme,

was established in the mid-1980s by which organisation?

Interpol?

-Interpol.

-No, it's the FBI. Finally,

established by the Los Angeles police department in 1968,

for what does the acronym SWAT stand when denoting US paramilitary law enforcement units?

-Special Weapons and Tactics.

-Correct.

Another starter question. Which year saw Volta's invention of the first electric cell,

the premiere of Beethoven's First Symphony,

the establishment of the US Library of Congress

and the passing of the Acts of Union that created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland?

1801.

Anyone like to buzz from UCL?

1707.

No, it's 1800. Ten points for this.

"It's the first time Arabs have toppled one of their dictators

"so you'll understand why, despite reports of chaos, looting and a musical chairs

"of caretaker leaders, I'm still celebrating."

These words of columnist Mona Eltahawy refer to the popular protests in which country...

-Egypt.

-No, I'm afraid you lose five points.

..in which country that overthrew President Ben Ali...

-Tunisia.

-Correct.

So your bonuses, Manchester, are on a civilisation.

Uaxactun and Copan were principal cities of which civilisation

which flourished from around AD 250 to 900?

Mayans?

-OK, then.

-What were you going to say?

-Go for Mayans.

-Mayans.

-Correct.

Abandoned in about the year 900 for reasons not fully understood,

the Maya ceremonial centre of Tikal lies in which present-day country?

-It's in Honduras, isn't it?

-Honduras?

Are you sure? Honduras.

No, Guatemala.

A fundamental part of the Mayan calendar was the period of 584 days

derived from the observation of a complete cycle of which planet?

Jupiter?

-Do you reckon?

-Yeah.

-Jupiter.

-No, it's Venus. Ten points for this.

The family name of the Dukes of Northumberland and of the seventh president of the US

combine to give the name of which fictional teenager

who at Camp Half-Blood discovers that he is the son of the Greek god Poseidon?

-Percy Jackson.

-Yes.

Your bonuses are on fools, UCL.

Who noted in his diary entry for May 29th 1871

"It's a fine thing to be out on the hills alone.

"A man can hardly be a beast or a fool alone on a great mountain."

QUIET CONFERRING

-John Muir?

-No,

it was the Reverend Francis Kilvert.

Which English art critic bemoaned the destruction of the landscape

caused by the railway age in Praeterita, in the 1880s,

"Now every fool in Buxton can be in Bakewell in half an hour

"and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton."

An art critic of that period. Ruskin, maybe?

-Say Ruskin.

-OK.

-Ruskin.

-Correct. To whom is attributed the observation

that whilst fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement,

"angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string

"with a worm at one end and a fool at the other."

-OK. Pass.

-That was Dr Johnson.

Now a picture round. The starter is the frontispiece to a book by a French philosopher.

Ten points if you can name him.

-Descartes?

-Anyone like to buzz from UCL?

-Voltaire.

-It is Voltaire, yes.

We follow on from the Voltaire frontispiece

with three more frontispieces of works of philosophy.

This time all by English philosophers.

Five points for each work and author that you can name.

Firstly, this work of 1516.

-Thomas More, Utopia.

-Yes, I knew that obviously.

-Thomas More's Utopia.

-It is indeed.

Secondly this from 1620.

QUIET CONFERRING

-Did Jeremy Bentham write anything?

-Not in 1620!

Something by John Locke.

No, it's nothing by John Locke. It's the Novum Organum of Francis Bacon.

Finally, this from 1651.

-Hobbes' Leviathan.

-Correct. Ten points for this.

"A state in which normal sense experience is suspended

"and the subject becomes conscious of higher things

"although what the subject is aware of is not typically communicable."

These words from the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy

describe what concept, its name derived from the Greek for standing outside oneself.

-..Ecstatic. No.

-Yes, I'll accept that. The state is ecstasy.

Next time, please answer straightaway.

A set of bonuses on gases. In 1996, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California

created the metallic form of which gas originally discovered in 1766 by Henry Cavendish?

-Chlorine?

-Chlorine.

-Yeah.

-Chlorine.

-No, it's hydrogen.

Which gas was discovered in 1898 by Sir William Ramsay and M.W.Travers

in the residue of distilled liquid air?

It's used in light bulbs, lasers and in arc lamps for cinema projection.

Go for Argon.

-Argon.

-Argon.

No, Xenon. Pierre Janssen and Norman Lockyear are jointly credited with the detection in 1868

of which gas as an unexpected line in the sun's spectrum?

It was discovered on Earth in 1895 in the Uranium mineral Clevite.

-Helium.

-Helium?

Radon.

Yes.

Radon? Radon.

No, it's helium. Ten points for this.

According to a standard work on the subject,

what form of artistic expression is "usually and conveniently thought to have begun in 1600,

the date of Jacopo Peri's Eurydice?

-Theatre.

-No. Manchester, one of you buzz.

-Opera.

-Opera is correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on language, Manchester.

For which novel written in Paris over a period of 17 years and published in 1939

did its author invent an idioglossia drawing on around 40 different languages?

-Finnegan's Wake.

-Correct. The US physicist Murray Gell-Man

took the spelling of the particle he called the quark

from the line in Finnegan's Wake, "Three quarks for Muster Mark."

What, in the context of the novel, is the immediate meaning of quark?

Try and have a guess.

INDISTINCT CONFERRING

-A pint of beer.

-No, it's a gull's cry. Finally,

what term did the US anthropologist Joseph Campbell borrow from Finnegan's Wake

to denote the concept of the hero's journey common to the epic works and folk tales of many cultures?

Anyone have any ideas?

Odyssey?

-Odyssey.

-No, it's monomyth. Ten points for this.

Kepler's third law of planetary motion

states that the square of the sidereal period of any planet

is directly proportional to its mean distance from the sun, raised to what power?

-Power of two.

-No.

-Power of three.

-That's correct, yes. Cubed.

Your bonuses, Manchester, are on Italian terms used in art.

What word meaning softness implies soft transitions from one colour or tone to another

and is applied particularly to the depiction of flesh

by artists such as Correggio?

INDISTINCT

Chiaroscuro.

No. Morbidezza. What Italian word meaning shaded off

denotes the technique used by Leonardo da Vinci to soften the transition

from dark shadow to bright highlight?

-That might be chiaroscuro.

-How do you say it?

-Chiaroscuro.

-Nominate Joyce.

-Chiaroscuro.

-No, it's sfumato. Finally,

Leonardo used sfumato to counteract the problem of harshness

when employing what arrangement of extreme contrasts,

it's name meaning light dark?

-That's it. Chiaroscuro.

-It is Chiaroscuro, yes.

Its name meaning "the practice of the wheel of the law",

which spiritual movement was founded in north-eastern China in 1992?

Banned by the government...

-Falun Gong.

-Falun Gong is correct.

You're on level pegging. You can take the lead with these bonuses

on deaths with a shared location.

What four-word name was given to the case of the bigamist George Joseph Smith

who in 1915 was convicted of murdering his three wives?

They were found in different parts of the country but in the same part of each house.

Did he say a four-word name?

-Acid baths.

-OK.

-Acid bath murderer. That's only three.

-The.

-Four letters.

Four letters, not four words.

-Bath.

-If that's your answer. I asked for four words. It's the Brides in the Bath.

Charlotte Corday, who killed French revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat

in his bath in 1793 was a member of which Republican party named after a region of France?

The Marseillaise?

No, it's the Girondins, or Girondist.

The son of Marcus Aurelius, which Roman emperor was strangled in his bath

by his wrestling partner Narcissus

after his mistress's attempt to poison him failed?

-Commodus.

-Correct. A music round now.

For your starter, a piece of music named after a figure from the Old Testament.

Ten points if you can name him.

-Zadok the Priest.

-Yes.

One of Handel's coronation anthems. Your bonuses are excerpts from works by Handel.

In each case from an oratorio named after a figure in the Old Testament,

five points for each you identify. Firstly...

MUSIC DROWNS SPEECH

-Say Sampson.

-Sampson.

-Sampson is correct, yes. Secondly...

Did he write The Dream of Gerontius?

-No, that's Elgar.

-Whatever!

-Wrong century.

If no-one has anything better, I'll say it.

-OK. Elijah.

-No, it's Esther.

Not the title of the oratorio, but the figure represented by this piece.

Queen of Sheba.

-The Queen of Sheba.

-Yes, well done.

The term phonetics refers to the study of speech production and pronunciation in general.

What similar term denotes the study of the sound systems of a particular language...

-Phonology.

-Phonology is right.

Your bonuses, UCL, are on metabolic pathways.

Which pathway converts glucose to pyruvate

with the production of two molecules of A.T.P and two molecules of N.A.D.H

for each glucose molecule processed?

Glycolysis.

Yes, I'll accept that. Lots of other names for it.

Which pathway proceeds via five carbon intermediates and generates most cellular N.A.D.P.H?

That is the Kreb cycle, yes? The Kreb cycle.

No, that's the Pentose Phosphate Pathway.

Finally, which acid is produced in muscles during heavy exercise

-by the anaerobic...

-Lactic acid.

-Lactic acid is correct. Another starter.

Elastic in texture, often grey in colour and absent from barley, oats and maize,

what is the main protein substance contained in wheat flour?

-Gluten.

-Gluten is correct. Here are your bonuses.

They're on Economics, Manchester.

What single word denotes the concept which can be defined either as a position of balance in the economy

or as a situation in which no agent has an incentive to modify their chosen strategy?

-Equilibrium.

-Correct. Named after a US mathematician,

what equilibrium concept is constituted if no player has an incentive to change their strategy

-given those chosen by the other players?

-No-one?

-Von Neumann?

-What is he... Yeah? Von Neumann.

-No, that's Nash equilibrium.

Finally, the point at which both sellers and buyers are happy with the price and quantity,

price equilibrium is found when which two factors are equal?

-Supply and demand.

-Supply and demand.

-Correct.

Which decade saw the foundation of the Greenwich Observatory,

the publication of Huygens Treatise on Light, Spinoza's Ethics, Bunyan's Pilgrims' Progress

and Milton's Paradise Regained?

-1670s.

-Correct.

Your bonuses, Manchester, are on 20th-century fashion firsts.

Dating to antiquity and used by women in the US from the late 19th century

as a sign of social non-conformity,

what product was marketed for the first time in 1915

in the now familiar containers devised by the US cosmetician Maurice Levy?

-Lipstick?

-Lipstick.

-Correct.

Commissioned by a French couturier,

which enduring product was created in 1921 by Ernest Beaux?

-Antiperspirant?

-Yeah.

-Antiperspirant.

No, Chanel No.5. In 1960, the Warner Lingerie Company introduced the Little Godiva step-in girdle,

believed to be the first garment made of which synthetic polyurethane fibre

-with the elastic qualities of rubber?

-Lycra?

-Yeah. Lycra.

-Lycra is correct.

Another starter question. Munchausen Syndrome, Munchies and Mung Bean

appear in the dictionary close to which Latin-derived word meaning dull or ordinary?

-Mundane.

-Mundane is right, yes.

Your bonuses are on an African country.

Which African country encloses Gambia on three sides and shares its name

with the river that runs along its northern border?

-Niger.

-No, Senegal. Dakar, the capital of Senegal, is situated at the tip of which peninsula,

the westernmost point of Africa?

-Horn of Africa?

-That's on the other side.

-Don't care. The Horn of Africa.

-No, the other side. Cape Verde.

Prior to independence in 1960,

Senegal formed a short-lived federation with French Sudan.

By what name is the latter country now known?

-Mali. Mali.

-Yeah?

-Mali.

-Correct. A second picture round.

For your starter you'll see a photo of a war memorial

commemorating the missing of which battle of the First World War?

-The Somme.

-The Somme is right. The Thiepval Memorial.

We follow on with photographs of well-known memorials of the Great War.

In each case name the battle or series of battles

with which each one is associated.

Firstly.

It could by Ypres, I suppose.

-Yeah?

-Can't think of anything else.

-OK. Ypres.

No, that's Verdun. Secondly.

Passchendaele sounds like a good shout.

-Passchendaele.

-No, that's Vimy Ridge. And finally...

-Ypres.

-It is. The Menin Gate.

After a French physicist born in 1841,

what term denotes a dimensionless measure of gas density in terms of...

-Amagat.

-Yes.

Your bonuses are on German philosophers, UCL.

One of the most systematic of the post-Kantian idealists,

which philosopher wrote his first major work The Phenomenology of Spirit in 1807?

1807.

INDISTINCT

-Nominate Cook.

-Is it Herschel?

No, Hegel. Which idealist philosopher's first work

was published anonymously in 1792 and mistakenly attributed to Kant?

His works also include The Vocation of Man in 1800.

-Is Herschel definitely someone?

-Yes.

-Let's have an answer.

-Herschel.

No, Fighte. And finally,

-noted for his pessimism, which philosopher's major work The World as Will and Idea...

-Schopenhauer.

Correct. Another starter question.

B-C-E, E-K-T, E-K-P, E-Z-B and E-C-B

are combinations of letters that appear on what items,

being variants in different languages of the initials of the issuing authority?

Coins.

-No.

-Currency.

-Stamps.

-No, they're euro banknotes. Ten points for this.

The second-most-visited cemetery in the US after Arlington,

Oakridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois was dedicated in 1860

and contains the tomb of which American president?

Um...

I'm so sorry. If you buzz, you must answer. UCL, one of you buzz.

-Lincoln.

-Lincoln is correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on the classification of birds.

To which order of birds do owls belong?

-I need an answer.

-Buntings.

Strigiformes.

Which bird having only one species belongs to the order Struthioniformes?

-Could be ostrich.

-Ostrich?

(INDISTINCT CONFERRING)

-Ostrich.

-Correct.

Within the order Columbiforme, the family Columbidae comprises birds known generally by two common names.

-Give either of them.

-Dove or pigeon.

-Doves. Or pigeons.

That's correct. Pigeon and doves. Correct. Four minutes to go.

Answer as soon as you buzz. In terms of atomic number, what letter comes next in the sequence?

F, O, N, C.

-B.

-B is correct, yes.

Bonuses are on a French moralist. "The height of cleverness is being able to conceal it."

This is one of the maxims of which 17th-century French moralist

noted for his insights into the part that self-interest plays in human motivation?

Pascal?

-Pascal.

-No, it's De La Rochefoucauld.

What did De La Rochefoucauld describe as "a tribute that vice pays to virtue"?

-Happiness.

-No, hypocrisy.

"Her novels are the maxims of La Rochefoucauld set in motion."

These words of the Italian novelist Di Lampedusa refer to which English author born in 1775?

-Jane Austen.

-Correct.

Three minutes to go. Ten points for this. Who wrote these lines?

"Had we but world enough, and time...

-Lovelace.

-No. You lose five points. "..and time, this coyness, lady..."

-Andrew Marvel.

-It is, to his coy mistress.

Your bonuses are on US history. In each case, name the president who was in office

when the following constitutional amendments were ratified.

The 22nd amendment, which set a term limit for the US president.

-Roosevelt.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt.

-No, it was Truman.

The 21st amendment, which repealed prohibition?

-That was Roosevelt.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Correct. And the 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote in state and federal elections.

-Try Coolidge.

-Coolidge.

-No, Woodrow Wilson. Ten points for this. Listen carefully.

Which letter of the alphabet begins and ends words meaning defamation by written words,

faithful to another person...

-L.

-L is correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on European royalty. Which country's royal family

lives in the Chateau de Laeken, a palace built in 1772?

-Let's have it, please.

-Belgium.

-Correct.

Grasten Palace in summer, and Fredensborg in spring and autumn

are the residences of which country's royal family?

-Austria?

-No, Denmark.

-OK. Denmark.

-Correct.

Drottningholm in the capital and Solliden on the island of Oland

are among the residences of which country's royal family?

-Norway.

-No, Sweden. Ten points for this.

Fred Noonan was navigator to which US aviator when their aircraft disappeared over the Pacific...

-Amelia Earhart.

-Correct. Your bonuses are on measuring instruments

especially useful at airports. A ceilometer uses an intense beam of light

to measure the height of what?

-Ciel means sky in French.

-The clouds, then.

-Clouds.

Cloud bases is correct.

A bourdon gauge is used widely for measuring the pressure of liquids and gases

and is therefore a type of which instrument deriving its name from the Greek for thin.

-What's Greek for thin?

-Come on!

-Thinometer.

-No, it's a manometer.

Used in astigmatism, a keratometer tests the degree of abnormal curvature

-of which part of the eye?

-The back of the eye?

-Come on!

-The lens.

-No, the cornea. Ten points for this.

In compound nouns, what word of five letters...

-GONG

-At the gong, Manchester have 125. UCL have 195.

Bad luck, Manchester. We will be seeing you again, though,

in a couple of weeks' time, when you must win to stay in the competition.

Well done, UCL. You're one step closer to the semifinals.

One more victory means you'll definitely go through.

I hope you can join us next time for another quarterfinal.

-So it's goodbye from the University of Manchester.

-Bye!

-Goodbye from University College London.

-Bye.

-And it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.

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