Episode 1 University Challenge

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. Welcome to the first match of the 2013 series of University Challenge,

the show that offers an opportunity to marvel at the gorgeous minds of our young people

and to ask ourselves, "How on Earth do they know that?" or, "What does that question mean?!"

Over 130 student quiz teams applied to take part in the competition.

We've invited 28 of them to delight us over the coming weeks.

What's in it for them? Nothing at all. No money, not even a new toaster or a soft toy.

Nothing beyond a plate of chips in the studio canteen and a bit of fun. Let's meet the first two teams.

The University of Aberdeen was founded in 1495, the third oldest in Scotland

and fifth oldest in the UK. Its location on the north east coast of Scotland means that wind, rain

and marauding seagulls are defining characteristics of the student experience,

along with its impressive architecture, including the Marischal College,

regarded by many Aberdonians as the crowning glory of the Granite City.

Alumni include Alistair Darling and Tessa Jowell, and James Naughtie,

who apparently can be heard on the wireless.

Tonight's team have an average age of 20 and 13,000 fellow students are cheering them on. Let's meet them.

Hello. I'm Jonathan Bee. I'm from Aberdeen and studying Geography.

Hello there. My name is Ananyo Bagchi, I'm from India and I'm a medical student.

-And their captain...

-I'm Ben Conway, from Oxfordshire, studying Philosophy.

Hello. I'm Benedict Jones-Williams, from Peebles, reading English Literature.

Queen's University, Belfast, began life in 1845 as a non-denominational college to act as an alternative

to the Anglican Trinity College, Dublin, and received its Royal Charter under Edward VII in 1908.

Its architecture is dominated by the work of Charles Lanyon, a leading figure in Northern Ireland,

and his design for the main building includes a seated statue of Galileo.

Legend has it that stroking the statue's outstretched foot brings a student luck,

which is positively sophisticated by comparison with the belief in having a soft toy on your desk.

Nonetheless, alumni include Nobel Laureates Seamus Heaney and David Trimble

and former President of Ireland Mary McAleese. Let's meet tonight's team with an average age of 26.

Hi, my name's Suzanne Cobain, I'm from County Down, reading History.

Hello. I'm Gareth Gamble, from County Armagh, studying Medicine.

-And their captain...

-I'm Joseph Greenwood, from Manchester, studying for a PhD in Irish Theatre.

Hello, I'm Alexander Green, from Lytham, Lancashire, studying for a PhD in Plasma Physics.

OK, the rules are the same as ever. 10 points for starter questions, which are solo efforts,

15 points for bonus questions, which are team efforts, 5-point penalties for incorrect interruptions.

Fingers on the buzzers. Here's your first starter for 10.

Together with his friend Thomas Wyatt the Elder, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is credited

with introducing to English the Petrarchan pattern of which 14-line...

-Sonnet.

-The sonnet is correct, yes.

The first set of bonuses are on offices of state.

Combined with that of Secretary of State for Justice in 2007, which office was held by Thomas Becket,

Sir Thomas More, Francis Bacon and Judge Jeffreys?

-Lord Chancellor.

-Lord Chancellor.

-Correct. Archbishop Warham, Thomas Cromwell and Lord Denning

are among former holders of which office, originally responsible for the records of the Royal Chancery?

-Lord Chamberlain?

-Yeah, Lord Chamberlain.

No, Master of the Rolls. From 1812 to the late 1830s, Castlereagh, Canning and Palmerston

were among the holders of which office of state?

-Lord Lieutenant?

-Nominate Cobain.

-Lord Lieutenant of Ireland?

-No, Foreign Secretary. 10 points for this.

"Forasmuch as there is great noise in the city...from which many evils may arise, which God forbid,

"we command and forbid on behalf of the King, on pain of imprisonment,

"such game to be used in the city in future." Which sport was the subject of that royal...

-Football.

-Football is right, yes.

Aberdeen, your first bonuses are on motor manufacturers.

Which company was founded in Milan in 1910 and taken over by Fiat in the 1980s?

Giuseppe Farina won the first Formula 1 World Championship in 1951 driving for their team.

-Ferrari.

-No, it's Alfa. Which company was established in Tokyo in 1911

-and took its present name in 1934? Its cars include the Bluebird, launched in 1959.

-Honda?

-Honda?

-No, it's Nissan. Which company was formed in 1902 and later became part of General Motors?

It introduced synchromesh gears in 1928 and in the late 1940s pioneered chrome and tailfins

that became characteristic of American cars of the period.

-Chrysler?

-No, Cadillac. 10 points for this. What object is being described if an example

with a mass of 6.7 times 10 to the power 20kgm would have a radius of 1/1,000th of a millimetre?

An atom.

No.

-The Earth?

-No, it's a black hole. Very odd idea of the shape of the Earth!

10 points for this. The theatre critic Martin Esslin coined which four-word...

-Theatre of the Absurd.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on orders of insects.

Sometimes referred to as beetles and with more than 100,000 species, what is the largest order of insects?

-Colidaptera...?

-No, coleoptera.

What order of insects includes bees and wasps

and has a name that comes from the Greek for "membrane" and "winged"?

-Em...apeoptera?

-No, they're hymenoptera.

-And, finally, which order of insects includes butterflies and moths?

-Lepidoptera.

-Em, leptidoptera.

-It's lepidoptera. You were thinking along the right lines, but it's not right.

We'll take a picture round now. You'll see a diagram showing the ingredients of a popular cocktail.

10 points if you can name it.

-Martini?

-It is a Martini, yes.

It's often the choice of Roger Sterling, a character in the award-winning TV drama Mad Men.

Coming up, three more cocktails from Mad Men.

5 points for each you can identify as described by the International Bartenders Association.

Firstly, as ordered by Peggy Olson.

THEY CONFER

-Come on.

-Nominate Jones-Williams.

-Harvey Wallbanger. But it's not.

Quite right - it's not. Brandy Alexander. Secondly, as enjoyed by Betty Draper.

-Cosmopolitan?

-No, that's a Tom Collins. And, finally, associated with Don Draper.

-Whisky sour?

-No, that's an Old-Fashioned.

What sweet creatures you are. 10 points for this.

Then in the Spanish Netherlands, which sea port came under English control in 1658

after the Battle of the Dunes? In 1662, Charles II sold it to France

and it's now a sub-prefecture of the Nord Department.

-Calais?

-No. Anyone want to buzz from Queen's?

-Dunkirk?

-Dunkirk is correct, yes!

Your bonuses are on the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

The Peasants' Revolt was led by Wat Tyler and which itinerant preacher, who advocated a classless society?

He was celebrated in a story by William Morris in the 1880s.

Jack Straw was one of them, wasn't he?

-Jack Straw?

-No, it was John Ball.

John Ball's sermon at Blackheath in 1381 is noted for a rhetorical couplet beginning,

"When Adam delved and Eve span..." What is the second line?

-The world began?

-No. "..who was then the gentleman?"

Ball referred to which character, created by William Langland

in an allegorical poem of the late 14th century, to attack political and ecclesiastical corruption?

-No, no idea.

-Piers Plowman. 10 points for this.

"Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life." These words of Robert Southey appear in a letter

of 1837 to which aspiring author, then aged 20...

-Jane Austen?

-No, lose 5 points.

..then aged 20, who had sent him a selection of her poems?

Come on, Aberdeen. One of you buzz.

-Emily Barrett?

-Emily Barrett? No, it was Charlotte Bronte. 10 points for this.

In probability theory, what name is given to the theorem that the mean value of a sequence of trials

approaches the expected value, as the number of trials increases?

-Bayes' theorem?

-Nope.

Anyone like to buzz from Queen's?

-Central theorem?

-No, the Law of Large Numbers. The poet Tristan Tzara and the artist Jean Arp

were two of the founders of which artistic movement, formed in Zurich in 1916,

with a name thought to have been picked at random from a dictionary?

-Dadaism?

-Dadaism is correct, yes.

Get these bonuses and take the lead. They're on Sussex towns.

In an Oscar Wilde play, a character found at Victoria Station was named after which Sussex seaside resort

by his adoptive father who had a ticket to that town in his pocket at the time?

THEY CONFER

-Brighton.

-No, it's Jack Worthing. In different spellings, what name links the children

in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with the town where William the Conqueror landed in 1066?

Pevensies.

-Pevensies.

-Pevensies?

-Correct. A Medieval cinque port,

which Sussex town shares its name with the narrator of many Hercule Poirot stories by Agatha Christie?

-Hastings.

-Correct. 10 points for this.

The High Price of Bullion and Principles of Political Economy and Taxation are works

by which stock trader, often called the second great classical economist after Adam Smith?

John Maynard Keynes?

Nope.

-Ricardo?

-Ricardo is correct, yes.

Bonuses on British puddings. Which pudding was popularised by a public school tuck shop,

when it may have contained bananas? Now it is made with strawberries

and the Wholesome Cook website recommends adding pansies.

-Eton Mess?

-Correct. Described by Nigel Slater as our national tart,

which pudding's filling has a name deriving from a Greek word meaning "antidote against a venomous bite"?

Spotted Dick?

-Panna cotta.

-That's our national tart?!

Panna cotta.

Panna cotta?!

It's treacle tart. Finally, boiled condensed milk is a major ingredient of which English dessert pie?

Given a portmanteau name, it first appeared in an East Sussex restaurant in 1972.

Bread and butter pudding.

-Bread and butter pudding.

-No, banoffee pie.

Right, for your music starter, you'll hear a piece of popular music based on a classical work.

For 10 points, I want the Italian composer of the original piece.

HEAVY ROCK MUSIC

-Vivaldi.

-Nope. You can hear more, Aberdeen.

MUSIC RESUMES

Come on.

The original is by... You don't know. Boccherini.

10 points for this. Answer as soon as your name is called.

Expressed in centimetres, what is the focal length of a lens with an optical power of five dioptres?

50.

Nope. Anyone like to buzz from Queen's?

-20 centimetres?

-20 is correct, yes.

Right. So we go back to the music round. That was Spinal Tap's rendering of Boccherini's Minuet.

Three other pieces of classical music given a 20th-century pop reimagining.

5 points for each original composer you can identify. Firstly...

FRANTIC, UPTEMPO MUSIC

-Er...the work's by Rimsky-Korsakov.

-No, it's by Khachaturian.

That was Love Sculpture's interpretation of Sabre Dance. Secondly...

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS

-Haydn.

-No, the original was by Modest Mussorgsky.

That was Night On Disco Mountain by David Shire. Finally...

PIANO MUSIC

-I think this is Rimsky-Korsakov.

-No, it isn't! It's by Tchaikovsky!

Surely it's unmistakeable! 10 points for this. After a European peninsula that underwent division

in the late 19th and early 20th century, which term describes the fragmentation of a...

-Balkanisation?

-Correct.

These bonuses are on ecology.

What term describes the final stage of ecological succession,

-when a community of species in an area reaches a stable equilibrium with the environment?

-Climax.

-Climax?

-Correct. Give any term that describes an ecological community

when it fails to develop to full climatic climax due to outside factors, such as human activity.

It's gone, sorry.

-Don't know.

-Interrupted?

-No, it's biotic climax.

Finally, what term describes a biotic climax community, dominated by dwarf ericaceous shrubs,

on acidic free-draining soils? An example of such a community is the Breckland in Norfolk.

Marsh?

Acerbic? Cos it's acidic.

Why don't you try acerbic?

It's Latin for acidic. Acerbic.

Come on, let's have it, please.

-Acerbic?

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

Danica May Camacho, a girl born in Manila in October 2011,

was chosen by the UN to mark which milestone in terms of...

-Was it seven billion...?

-It was. The Earth's population reaching seven billion people.

Right, your bonuses are on novels whose titles contain a word from the NATO spelling alphabet.

For example, A Passage To India. Give the titles.

A book of short stories by Anais Nin described as "a glittering cascade of sexual encounters",

published posthumously in 1978?

Something with Romeo or Juliet...?

Em...

-We need the title.

-Romeo Is Dying?

-No, Delta of Venus.

Secondly, a novel of 1988 by Peter Carey in which the title characters attempt to transport a glass church

across New South Wales. It won the Booker Prize in 1988.

-Oscar and Lucinda.

-Correct. An 1889 novel by Mark Twain

in which a New Englander is sent back in time to early Medieval Britain?

-It's...A Connecticut Yankee In The Court of King Arthur.

-In King Arthur's Court, yes.

Right, another picture round now.

For your starter, you'll see a painting of a well-known British bridge. 10 points if you name it.

-Forth Rail Bridge.

-Indeed it is.

That was painted in 1914. Your bonuses are three more paintings of British bridges.

In each case, I want the name of the bridge. Firstly, this bridge in a painting from 1831.

-Nominate Bee.

-Menai Suspension Bridge?

No, the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Secondly...

-Come on.

-The Bridge Over The River Kwai?

-LAUGHTER

Very funny(!)

That IS the Menai Bridge.

And, finally, this bridge, depicted in 1928 in a state of construction.

-It's in Newcastle.

-What's it called?

-The Newcastle Bridge?

-Humber?

-Tyne?

Come on, chaps.

-Tyne Bridge.

-It IS the Tyne Bridge, yes!

10 points for this starter question.

Meaning "instrument of thought" in Sanskrit, what six-letter term is used in Hinduism and Buddhism

to describe a word or sound repeated as an aid to concentration...

-Mantra.

-Mantra is right, yes.

Bonuses are on thermodynamics. Which French engineer gives his name to the heat engine cycle

that converts heat into work at the maximum efficiency possible?

Hugoniot?

-I'll nominate Green.

-Hugoniot?

-No, it's Carnot. For a closed system at constant pressure

and temperature, which thermodynamic function of the system is a minimum at equilibrium?

-Nominate Green.

-Pressure?

-No, it's Gibbs function, Gibbs energy.

Indicated by the symbol S, what thermodynamic quantity increases for all spontaneous processes?

-Entropy.

-Entropy.

-Correct. 10 points for this. The Spanish term El Clasico denotes...

-Real Madrid and Barcelona.

-Correct.

These bonuses, if you get them, you'll take the lead.

They're on literary trilogies. Who is the author of the New York Trilogy, written in the 1980s?

It comprises the novels City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room.

Any idea?

Um...Gore Vidal.

No, it's Paul Auster. Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street make up the Cairo Trilogy

by which Egyptian Nobel Laureate?

Any idea? No.

They're by Naguib Mahfouz. Which Irish novelist wrote

The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van - the Barrytown Trilogy?

-Roddy Doyle.

-Correct. 10 points for this. The official residence of the holder of which political office

is Bute House, located...

-First Minister for Scotland.

-Correct. You retake the lead.

Your bonuses are on "false friends" in other languages,

words that resemble English words, but have different meanings.

What is the meaning of the Italian adjective "caldo"?

-Yeah.

-Hot?

-Indeed. What is the meaning of the French noun "librairie"?

L-I-B-R-A-I-R-I-E.

- Bookshop? - It's a verb, right?

No, it's a noun. What's the opposite of a library?

-A bookshop?

-Correct.

Finally, what is the meaning of the German noun "Gift"? G-I-F-T.

Fine?

-Try that.

-Fine?

-No, it's poison. Five minutes to go.

By weight, what is the third largest elemental constituent of seawater, after oxygen and hydrogen?

-Sodium?

-No. Anyone like to buzz from Queen's, Belfast?

-Carbon?

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

The winner of the 1999 Turner Prize, which British artist made his debut as a film director with Hunger...

-Steve McQueen.

-Correct.

Your bonuses are on US Presidents. "America is the only idealistic nation in the world."

Which President said those words in 1919?

-Woodrow Wilson?

-Correct. "The chief business of the American people is business."

The words of which US President in a speech of 1925?

-Hoover?

-Yeah.

Hoover? Shall we go for Hoover?

-Hoover?

-No, Calvin Coolidge. What did his successor, Herbert Hoover,

describe as "a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose"?

-Prohibition?

-Correct.

Gives you the lead. You all now get a starter question.

Pontus Euxinus is a name given by the ancients to which inland body of water?

-Black Sea?

-The Black Sea is correct.

Bonuses this time are on nicknames. What two-word nickname was given to the 1st American Volunteer Group,

an air unit formed in 1941 to support China against Japan?

-Come on.

-Em, nominate Gamble.

-Panda Brigade?

-No, the Flying Tigers.

The Tiger of Mysore was a byname of which ruler,

who resisted British dominance of southern India in the 18th century?

A mechanical tiger built for him is a popular attraction at the V&A.

-Any idea?

-No.

-No, no idea.

-That's Tippu Sultan. Finally, Tiger was a nickname of which French Prime Minister?

He helped frame the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

-Clemenceau.

-Correct. 10 points for this. In January 2013, the world's highest rating in what activity

was awarded to the 22-year-old Norwegian Magnus Carlsen?

-Chess.

-Chess is correct.

Your bonuses are on carbon. How many carbon atoms are there in a molecule of Buckminster Fullerene?

-60.

-Nominate Gamble.

-60.

-Correct. What's the hybridisation of the valence orbitals of the carbon atom in methane?

-Nominate Gamble.

-Pi?

-No, it's sp3.

To within one degree, what is the hydrogen-carbon-hydrogen bond angle in methane?

-Nominate.

-104.5?

-No, 109.5. 10 points for this...

GONG

Well, it was very level-pegging in much of that contest and could have gone either way

until the last two or three minutes. Aberdeen, thanks for coming.

Queen's, Belfast, 140. You'll be back in the next round. We'll look forward to seeing you.

I hope you can join us next time for another first round match.

Until then, it's goodbye from Aberdeen University, it's goodbye from Queen's University, Belfast,

and it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.

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