Episode 32 University Challenge

APPLAUSE

'University Challenge - asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.'

Hello. Tonight's match is a particularly intriguing fixture,

because the two teams competing have already met in the first round

of the contest and were only five points apart at the gong.

The losers survived, however, being among the highest scoring losing teams from round one

and now the meet again in the quarterfinals.

Also, each team has already lost one quarterfinal match,

which means it's curtains for whoever comes second tonight,

while the winners earn one more chance to qualify for the semifinals.

Balliol College, Oxford won, the first time these two met.

Another very narrow victory followed

when they beat Merton College, Oxford,

and their first quarterfinal match was a defeat at the hands of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

With an average age of 22

and no doubt hoping history repeats itself tonight,

let's meet the Balliol team again.

Hello, I'm Liam Shaw, I'm from Shropshire and I study physics.

I'm Andrew Whitby, from Brisbane, Australia, I'm working towards

-a doctorate in economics.

-And their captain.

I'm Simon Wood, I'm from Surrey and I'm studying chemistry.

Hi, I'm James Kirby, I'm from Warwickshire

and I'm reading for a Masters in history.

APPLAUSE

And hoping to rewrite history are the team

from Homerton College, Cambridge.

After their defeat by Balliol, they

crushed the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

in the losers' play-offs, then Durham University in round two.

They held the lead for most of the first quarterfinal against Clare College, Cambridge,

but saw victory snatched away from them in the final minutes.

With an average age of 21, let's meet them again.

Hi, my name is Jack Euesden, I'm from Sheffield

and I'm reading natural sciences.

I'm Frances Conner, I'm from Downpatrick in County Down

and I'm studying for a PGCE in modern foreign languages.

And their captain.

My name is David Murray, I'm from Ripon in North Yorkshire

and I'm studying for an MPhil in European literature and culture.

Hi, I'm Thomas Grinyer, I'm from Southampton

and I'm reading chemical engineering.

APPLAUSE

OK, let's not waste any time reciting the rules.

Here's your first starter for 10.

What short name links the Foreign Secretary in August 1914,

the Prime Minister at the time of the Great Reform Act...

Grey.

Grey is correct, yes.

Your bonuses. The first set tonight are on medieval history.

The defeat of Philip VI of France at the Battle of Sluys

in 1340 was an early victory for which English king

in the Hundred Years' War?

THEY CONFER

-Henry IV?

-No, it was Edward III. At which battle

of 1356 did Edward the Black Prince defeat and capture

the French King John?

-OK. Crecy?

-No, it was Poitiers.

Defeat in the final battle of the Hundred Years' War at Castillon

in 1453 lost England its control of Guyenne

and which other French region, held for over 300 years?

-Normandy?

-Normandy.

No, it was Gascony. 10 points for this.

Which visual communications system formed the basis of Claude Chappe's invention in the 1790s

that enabled a message to be sent from Lille to Paris in less than an hour?

-Semaphore.

-Correct.

So, your first bonuses, Homerton College, are on porridge.

"He receives comfort like cold porridge."

In which play by Shakespeare does Alonso's brother Sebastian say those words?

< It's not Twelfth Night?

I think it's Sebastian in Twelfth Night.

Twelfth Night.

It was The Tempest. "There's sand in the porridge and sand in the bed,

"and if this is pleasure, we'd rather be dead." These words appear in The English Lido,

a song from 1928 revue by which dramatist, actor and songwriter?

Coward?

-Coward.

-Noel Coward is right. "We are not interested

"in the fact that the brain has the consistency of cold porridge."

Those are the words of which pioneer of artificial intelligence, who died in 1954?

Asimov?

Asimov?

No, that's Alan Turing. 10 points for this.

"His preoccupations with moral dilemma

"and his persistent choice of locations that were seedy,"

a word he was to regret popularising,

"give his work a highly distinctive quality."

These words refer to which novelist,

whose best-known early work is the 1932 Stamboul Train?

-Graham Greene.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on women's education in the 19th century.

First performed in 1884 and including a chorus of girl graduates who sing,

"Man's a ribald, man's a rake, man is nature's sole mistake," which work by Gilbert and Sullivan

is set partly in a women-only university?

-The Mikado?

-No, Princess Aida.

In the US, the Seven Sisters and the Women's Ivy League were names

traditionally given to seven prestigious colleges for women

founded in the 19th century. For five points, name three of them.

THEY CONFER

Cornell? No, not Cornell.

Shall we go Cornell... I don't know which ones.

-Cornell, Sarah Lawrence and...

-Sarah Lawrence?

-Yeah.

Cornell, Sarah Lawrence and Brown.

No, it's Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar and Wellesley.

And finally for a possible five, the verse about the two 19th-century educational pioneers

Dorothea Beale and Frances Buss accuse them of not feeling what conventional symbols of passion?

-Come on, let's have it, please.

-Pass.

-It's Cupid's darts.

10 points for this. Which 19th-century German mathematician

gives his name to the theorem which states that

a nine-point circle is tangent

internally to the in-circle of a triangle

and externally to its ex-circles?

-Gauss.

-No, anyone like to buzz from Balliol?

-Ryman.

No, it's Feuerbach's theorem. 10 points for this.

Give the two-word name of the sport introduced into the Olympics

in 1996 when the gold medals were won by the US and Brazil. It is played by...

-Beach volleyball.

-Correct.

You take the lead, your bonuses are on French writers' pseudonyms.

What pseudonym was adopted by Marie-Henri Beyle,

reputedly after the similar name of the German town which was the birthplace

of the archaeologist and art critic, Johann Winckelmann?

-Colette.

-No, Stendahl. Which writer's first works were published

under the pseudonym Willy, the nickname of her first husband

Henri Gauthier-Villars, although she later wrote under her own maiden surname?

-That is Colette.

-It is.

Thought to have been taken from a village of the same name in the Midi, the dramatist

Jean-Baptiste Pocquelin adopted what name in the 1640s?

-Moliere.

-That is right.

We are going to take a picture round now.

You will see a notable line from a play by Shakespeare.

10 points if you can give me the title of the play from which it is taken.

And as you will see, it has been rendered into phonetic English.

-Julius Caesar.

-Correct.

"Beware the Ides of March." There we are.

In case anyone was in doubt. Picture bonuses for you, Balliol College. They are on lines

from plays by Shakespeare, written in International Phonetic Association English.

In each case, I want the name of the play from which the lines are taken. Firstly, for five.

-It's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

-A Midsummer Night's Dream.

It is, let's see the whole thing. A bit of Oberon there. Yes.

And secondly.

-Henry IV, Part One.

-No, it's from King John,

as we can see, Philip Faulconbridge. Final lines of the play.

And finally.

-Richard III?

-Did you say Richard III?

-Yes, Richard III.

-No, that's from Henry V,

as we can see there. The chorus, the prologue. 10 points for this.

"His prism and silent face,

"the marble index of a mind forever voyaging..."

-Isaac Newton.

-Correct.

This set of bonuses are on a shape.

In Cartesian coordinates, what shape is the solution to the equation,

1 - x squared - y squared - z squared = 0?

-A sphere.

-A sphere? A sphere.

Sphere is right. Which British-born US physicist gives his name to a sphere that is

a vast arrangement of artificial habitats orbiting a star,

which he proposed as an observable signature of extraterrestrial civilisation?

-Dyson.

-Correct.

Being a planet's gravitational region of influence, what sphere

is named after a US astronomer, born in 1838?

-US astronomer? Anyone?

-Lovell?

-Lovell?

No, it's a Hill Sphere. 10 points for this. "Everything reminds him

"of the money supply. Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I keep it out of the paper."

These words are the US economist Robert Solo, referring to which...

-Milton Friedman?

-Correct.

Your bonuses, Balliol College, are on the colour blue.

In 1957, which artist registered the letters IKB

as a trademark for the distinctive ultramarine colour he had used

in nearly 200 of his blue monochrome paintings?

-Yves Klein.

-Correct.

In which Moroccan city is the Majorelle Garden, formerly owned by

Yves St Laurent and named after the French artist whose design for it

used a distinctive shade of cobalt, now named after him?

-Marrakesh?

-Marrakesh.

-Marrakesh.

-Correct.

In 1999, the colour-matching company Pantone chose which

shade of blue as its official colour of the millennium,

describing it as "the colour of the sky on a serene, crystal clear day"?

Azure?

No, cerulean blue. 10 points for this. Largely untranslated,

the Liber Linteus, a text written on a roll of linen that had been used to wrap a mummy

is the longest extant inscription in which ancient language?

-The Emperor Claudius is said to...

-Hieroglyphics.

No, I'm afraid you lose five points. The Emperor Claudius is said to have been

one of the last people able to read it.

-Sumerian.

-No, it's Etruscan. 10 points for this. Listen carefully.

The heaviest oarsman in the Oxford-Cambridge boat race was Thorsten Engelmann,

the stroke man of the 2007 Cambridge crew, who weighed in at 110.8 kilograms.

To the nearest whole number, what multiple is this

of the weight of the 1862 Cambridge cox, Francis Archer, who weighed in at 5st 2lb?

-20.

-Anyone like to buzz from Balliol?

-Two.

-No, it's three. 10 points for this.

A teenage high school dropout from Moscow, Andrei Ternovski,

in 2009 created which controversial social networking website

that pairs random strangers together for webcam...

-Chatroulette.

-Correct, yes.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

We will enquire no further! Right, your bonuses

this time are on place names. Which English city

is the birthplace of the author of Rasselas,

and shares its name with a society photographer?

What's the name of that...

-Lin... Lind...

-Lindeman?

-Come on.

-I can't guess it.

-Linnet.

-No, it's Lichfield.

Which city in Massachusetts is the birthplace of the painter of An Arrangement In Grey And Black

and shares its name with the author of the poem The Quaker Graveyard In Nantucket?

-Worcester?

-No, Whitman.

-Whitman?

-No, it's Lowell. Which town in Northern England is

the birthplace of the composer of Belshazaar's Feast and Facade

and shares its name with a former manager of the Rolling Stones?

Any ideas?

-Leeds?

-Try it?

-Leeds?

-No, it's Oldham.

We're going to take a music round now. For your music starter,

you'll hear a piece of classical music.

10 points if you can give me the composer.

Beethoven?

No. Homerton, you can hear a little more.

-Chopin?

-No, it's Mendelssohn's 2nd Piano Concerto.

Music bonuses shortly, 10 points for this in the meantime.

The widow of the Roman senator Gaius Claudius Marcellus

underwent a political marriage in 40 BC to which general and politician,

aiming to cement the alliance between him and her brother Octavian?

-Julius Caesar?

-No. Anyone like to buzz from Homerton?

-Marcus Agrippa?

No. It's Mark Antony. 10 points for this starter.

The summit of which mountain is the location of telescopes

including the Gemini North, the Subaru,

the James Clerk Maxwell and the Canada France Hawaii telescope?

-Mauna Kea?

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

So that piece of Mendelssohn you heard was commissioned by the

Birmingham Triennial Music Festival, which ran from 1768 to 1912.

Your bonuses are excerpts from three pieces of music

that were commissioned for and premiered at that festival.

In each case, I want the name of the composer,

firstly the composer of this opera, which premiered in 1885.

What was around 1885?

THEY CONFER

What do you reckon? Sullivan?

-It's German, isn't it?

-Strauss?

-Strauss?

-No, that's Dvorak. It's from his opera The Spectre's Bride.

Secondly, the composer of this ballet,

which also premiered at the 1885 festival.

That's Tchaikovsky, I reckon.

-Tchaikovsky?

-No, that's Charles Gounod.

And finally, the composer of this piece that premiered at

the last festival, which was held in 1912.

Elgar?

-Elgar?

-It was Elgar, yes. Very distinctive.

-APPLAUSE

-Right, 10 points for this.

Meanings of what short word include "a type of fine linen resembling cambric",

and in biology "a layer of bacteria uniformly distributed..."

-Lawn.

-Lawn is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on medicine and literature.

Known as the White Death, which disease contributed to the early

deaths of DH Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and Heinrich Heine?

Tuberculosis?

-Tuberculosis?

-Correct.

Which figure in German literature retired at the age of 39

from his job at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute as a result of TB?

He died two years later in 1924.

-Kafka.

-Correct. The heroine of which novel of 1848

was based on the real-life Parisian courtesan Marie Duplessis, who died of TB the previous year?

-Nana.

-No, it's La Dame Aux Camelias. 10 points for this.

In physics, point sources that

spread their influence equally

in all directions without a range limit obey what general form of law?

Inverse-square law.

-Correct.

-APPLAUSE

Balliol, your bonuses are on astronomy.

To the nearest ten million, what is the mean distance in kilometres from the earth to the sun,

that is one astronomical unit?

INDISTINCT CONFERRING

-So it's 150 million?

-Yeah.

150 million?

Correct.

To the nearest ten, how many astronomical units is the mean distance

from the sun to the outermost undisputed planet Neptune?

So it's 150 million to earth?

INDISTINCT CONFERRING

-Er, 20?

-No, it's 30.

And now more than 110 astronomical units from earth,

what was the first man-made object to leave the solar system?

INDISTINCT CONFERRING

...Pioneer probe.

Pioneer Probe?

It was the Voyager space probe.

10 points for this.

Marianne Faithful, Helena Bonham Carter, Kate Winslet and Mariah Gale

are among those who've played which of Shakespeare's characters?

Ophelia?

Ophelia's right, yes.

Right, your bonuses this time are on philosophy.

Also used in mathematics and biochemistry,

what term is often used in logic for any inference whose

premises do not entail its conclusions?

INDISTINCT CONFERRING

Let's have an answer, please.

Inference?

No, it's induction.

Challenging the rational basis of any such inference,

which 18th-century Scottish philosopher's argument

is often credited with raising the problem of induction in its modern form?

-Hume?

-Correct.

Which English philosopher advocated an eponymous method of induction in the Novum Organum

as a means of studying and interpreting natural phenomena?

-Erm, Bacon?

-It was Francis Bacon. Right.

We're going to take in the second picture round now.

For your picture starter, you'll see a portrait of an historical figure.

10 points if you can name her.

Maria Teresa.

No, anyone like to buzz from Balliol?

Marie Antoinette?

No, it's Madame de Pompadour.

So picture bonuses shortly, another starter question in the meantime.

10 points for this.

Give the three rhyming words that mean

author of The Rape Of The Loch,

run away secretly to marry,

and astrological forecast of a person's future.

Elope, Pope and horoscope.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

So you get the picture bonuses, then,

Madame de Pompadour was the mistress of Louis XV of France.

Your bonus is three more paintings,

this time of women romantically linked

to members of the British Royal Family.

Firstly for five, who's this?

INDISTINCT CONFERRING

Lillie Langtry?

It is Lillie Langtry, yes, Edward VII's squeeze.

And secondly...

INDISTINCT CONFERRING

Come on!

-Mrs Fitzherbert?

-It is Maria Fitzherbert, yes,

who actually married George IV before he was king, of course. And finally...

INDISTINCT CONFERRING

Yes, it is. Er, Nell Gwyn.

It is Nell Gwyn.

Yes, five minutes to go for this.

From the Italian meaning "someone else" what term was coined

by the French philosopher Auguste Comte for a disinterested

concern in the welfare of others as an end in itself?

Altruism?

Correct.

Your bonuses are on a central Asian city this time, Balliol College.

Thought to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world,

which city on the historical silk road is the second largest city of Uzbekistan?

-Samarkand?

-Correct.

Subtitled - The British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance Of Tyranny And The War On Terror,

Murder In Samarkand is a 2006 work by which former diplomat?

INDISTINCT CONFERRING

I don't know. Pass.

Erm...Richard...someone. No, pass, sorry.

Richard Someone? No, it's Craig Murray.

Samarkand was the capital of which Turkic conqueror born in 1336?

Tamerlane?

Tamerlane is correct.

10 points for this.

What initial two letters link

an upland region of Arkansas and Missouri,

Shelley's King Of Kings and an allotropic pungent...

-O-Z.

-O-Z is correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on probability distributions, Homerton.

In each case I want the name of the distribution being described.

The discreet distribution taking the value 1 with

probability p and taking the value 0 with probability 1 - p.

-Binomial.

-No, it's Bernoulli.

And secondly, the discreet distribution that

results from summing n independent Bernoulli random variables?

I think it's Poisson.

-Poisson.

-No, that is binomial.

And thirdly, the continuous distribution obtained

as a limit of binomial distributions as n tends to infinity,

but p doesn't tend to 0?

Nominate Grinyer.

Gaussian or normal.

That's correct, yes. 10 points for this.

In chemistry, how many electrons are lost

when a stannous ion is oxidised to a stannic ion?

Four?

Anyone like to buzz from Homerton?

One?

No, it's two. 10 points for this -

from a late Latin word meaning "womb",

what term denotes a rectangular array of elements,

or the rock material in which fossils are embedded?

Matrix?

Matrix is right, yes.

Your bonuses, Balliol College, are on a US government department.

What two-word title is given to the head of the

US Department of Justice?

-Is it Attorney General?

-Attorney General?

Correct. The Department of Justice headquarters in Washington DC are

named after which former Attorney General incumbent from 1961 to '64?

He later became a US senator.

INDISTINCT CONFERRING

Let's have it, please.

Robert Kennedy?

Correct.

Which other agency within the Department of Justice is

charged with implementing laws that cover trafficking in controlled substances?

It's often referred to as the DEA.

Drug Enforcement Agency?

Drug Enforcement Administration. 10 points for this.

In a trilogy published from 1962,

the historian Eric Hobsbawm defined a long 19th century

that began in 1789 and ended in what year?

1917?

No, Homerton, one of you may buzz.

1914.

1914 is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, Homerton are on homonyms in French.

Which French word can mean both "raw" and "vintage"?

-Cru and cru.

-Cru is correct.

Which French word can mean both "wave" and "imprecise"?

-Vague and vague.

-Correct.

Which French word can mean both "ice cream" and "mirror"?

Glace?

Glace and glace.

10 points for this. The Okavango is the only permanent river

in which desert covering most...?

Kalahari.

Kalahari's right. Your bonuses this time are on words beginning with the letters K-I-E.

In each case give me the word from the definition.

Firstly, the surname of a Polish film director

whose works include Decalogue and Three Colours.

-Kieslowski.

-Correct.

From German words meaning "gravel" and "yeast", a variety of

diatomaceous earth that has been used to make cat litter and dynamite.

Come on!

-Kieser.

-It's Kieselguhr.

The capital of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein that gives its name to a canal

-connecting the Baltic and the North sea.

-Kiel.

-Right.

Once used to describe the mark

burned into the skin of a criminal or slave, which word...

Brand?

No, I'm afraid you lose five points.

..From the Greek for tattoo mark can mean a stain on one's reputation?

-Blemish.

-No, it's stigma.

10 points for this.

What generic term for supposed paranormal processes such as telepathy

and clairvoyance is also the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet?

Psi.

Psi is right, your bonuses this time are on types of nutrition.

Meaning "self-feeding", what term describes those organisms...

GONG SOUNDS

And at the gong, Homerton College, Cambridge have 145,

Balliol College, Oxford have 170.

Well, you left your comeback a little too late, I'm afraid, Homerton.

We've got to say goodbye to you, you've now lost two quarterfinals.

So Balliol, you get the opportunity to play again.

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

-but until then it's goodbye from Homerton College, Cambridge.

-ALL: Goodbye.

-Goodbye from Balliol College, Oxford.

-ALL: Bye.

And it's goodbye from me.

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