Episode 33 University Challenge

THEME TUNE

APPLAUSE

University Challenge. Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

APPLAUSE

Hello. Complicated though we try to make things,

there are but four places in the semifinals of this contest.

Two of them have already gone to Trinity College, Cambridge

and Somerville College, Oxford.

Whichever team wins tonight will join them,

and we'll be saying goodbye to the losers.

The team from Manchester University beat Brasenose College, Oxford,

in Round One, then Queens College, Cambridge, in Round Two.

Their dalliance in the devil's playground of the quarterfinals

saw them lose to Trinity College, Cambridge.

But they then beat Cardiff University by a margin

of 90 points to arrive here to play for a semifinal place.

Let's meet them again.

Hi, my name's Edward Woudhuysen. I'm from London and I'm studying history.

Hi, I'm Joe Day.

I'm from Bideford in Devon and I'm studying physics and astrophysics.

-This is their captain.

-Hi, I'm Elizabeth Mitchell.

I'm from Birmingham and I'm studying politics, philosophy and economics.

Hello. I'm Jonathan Collings.

I'm from Manchester and I'm studying geography.

APPLAUSE

Now, the long and winding road taken by the University of Southampton

team to tonight's match has seen them

lose to SOAS in their first round, return as one of the four

highest-scoring losing teams to beat Loughborough.

In the second round, they humbled Bangor University and in their

first quarterfinal, they beat Queen's University, Belfast.

But the last time we saw them, they lost to Somerville College, Oxford.

So it's all or nothing for them tonight. Let's meet them again.

Hello. I'm David Bishop. I'm from Reading and I'm studying physics.

Hello. I'm Richard Evans.

I'm from Frimley in Surrey and I'm reading chemistry.

And here's their captain.

Hi, I'm Bob De Caux, I'm originally from West Sussex

and I'm studying for a PhD in complex system simulation.

Hello. I'm Matt Loxham.

I'm from Preston in Lancashire

and I'm studying for a PhD in respiratory toxicology.

APPLAUSE

Right, straight down to business. Fingers on the buzzers.

Here's your first starter for ten. What is this?

Dating to 1930, it was expanded during the Second World War

and turned over to civilian use by the RAF in 1946.

It was connected to the London Underground network...

-Heathrow Airport.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, Manchester, are on the collection of the British Library.

Firstly for five points.

Made in 868 and described by the British Library as the earliest

complete survival of a dated, printed book,

the Diamond Sutra was discovered in a sealed cave in which country?

-Any ideas?

-Sutra, you'd think India.

-I was thinking India. India?

No, it's China. Secondly, for five points.

Surviving in a single Medieval manuscript in the collection

of the British Library, what is the oldest epic poem in Old English?

-Beowulf.

-Beowulf.

-Correct.

And finally, produced in the middle of the fourth century,

the Codex Sinaiticus is one of the two earliest Christian Bibles

and is handwritten in which language?

Do you think Greek or Aramaic?

Or is it going to be...

Are we going to be looking at Hebrew instead, maybe?

THEY CONFER

Greek.

-Ancient Greek?

-Greek is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Right, another starter question now.

Equal to one on the real line, two on the plane,

and three in classical physical space,

which invariant describes the minimal number of linearly

independent vectors that generate a vector space?

-Four?

-Anyone like to buzz from Southampton?

-Is it an orthogonal set?

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

What structure appears in the names of the birthplace of the sculptor

Henry Moore in Yorkshire, the country town of Mayo in Ireland,

the Foreign Secretary from 1812 to 1822...

-Castle.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Right, your bonuses this time are on philosophy,

science and religion, Southampton. Firstly for five.

Which US philosopher examined religion from the perspective

of biology in the 2006 work, Breaking The Spell?

His other works include Consciousness Explained.

THEY CONFER

-Gould?

-No, it's Daniel Dennett.

What is the four-word title of the 2007 work

by Christopher Hitchins that puts forward the case against religion?

THEY CONFER

-God Is Not Great.

-Correct.

Who has described himself as a "tooth fairy agnostic",

meaning that he thinks the existence of God is about as likely

as that of the tooth fairy?

His recent works include The Magic Of Reality.

THEY CONFER

-Dawkins.

-Richard Dawkins is right. Ten points for this.

"There is in our hands as citizens as instrument to mould

"the minds of the young, to create good and great

"and noble citizens for the future."

These were the words of Edward Short, who served as president

of what regulatory organisation from 1929 to 1935?

Recent presidents include Andreas Whittam Smith...

-The British Film Council.

-No. You lose five points.

Andreas Whittam Smith, Quentin Thomas and Patrick Swaffer.

-The BBFC.

-Yes, the British Board of Film Censors, yes.

Right, so you get a set of bonuses, then,

Manchester, on the city of Dundee.

Captained by Robert Falcon Scott on his Antarctic expedition

of 1901-1904, which ship was built in Dundee

and returned there in 1926 to become a tourist attraction?

THEY WHISPER

Endeavour?

Sorry, what was...? Whose was Discover...?

-Yeah, go.

-Endeavour.

No, it's the Discovery.

Secondly, for five points, economically speaking,

Dundee is traditionally known as the city of the three Js.

One of these was the jute industry, what are the other two Js,

primarily associated with James Keiller and DC Thompson?

Well, they're comics, aren't they?

Joviality?

Don't know. We don't know, sorry.

It's jam and journalism.

Caird Hall on Dundee City Square is named after the jute manufacturer

who financed which Irish-born explorer's

ill-fated British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition?

-Is that Shackleton?

-Yeah.

-Shackleton.

-Correct.

We're going to take a picture round. You'll see the location

of a 20th-century diplomatic agreement

marked on a map of that era.

For ten points, give me the name of the city that

gives its name to the agreement and the decade in which it took place.

Munich and the 1930s?

Correct.

APPLAUSE

For your bonuses, you'll see, on a modern map,

three more locations that give their names

to 20th-century international agreements or treaties.

Again, in each case, I want the location

and the decade in which the agreement was signed.

Firstly, for five, the treaty signed here and the decade.

Is that Geneva?

I think Geneva's nearer to France.

CERN, maybe? I don't know.

League of Nations, when was that?

Locarno, and that was 1920s.

Locarno, 1920s.

Indeed it is, the post-World War One treaty normalising European borders.

Secondly, this treaty and decade.

-Oh, what was the...?

-Kiev?

-No, it's not Kiev.

No, where was the Nazi-Soviet pact signed?

I don't know what that would be.

I think it's...

-Minsk.

-Minsk, 19...?

-Oh, no!

-Just go for Minks and '40s.

Minks, 1940s?

Minks?

LAUGHTER

No, it's Brest-Litovsk in the 1910s, the treaty by which Germany

and Russia agreed not to fight any more in World War I.

And finally, the location of a conference

and the decade in which the subsequent agreement was signed.

-Is that Potsdam? 1940s?

-Yeah.

Potsdam, 1940s.

Indeed, the post-World War Two deal.

Right, let's have another starter question.

The common or trivial names of the anthracyclene antibiotic agents

Alcindoromycin, Rudolphomycin and Mimimycin are all

derived from characters in which late 19th-century opera?

La Boheme?

Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses, Manchester, are on the sciences.

Given the symbol CZ,

what two-word term denotes an artificial diamond simulant

ultimately derived from a Group Four element

used as a structural material in nuclear reactors?

Cubic...?

Cubic zirconia, cubic zirconia.

Cubic...

-Nominate Day.

-Cubic zir...?

Cubic zirconia?

Correct.

Secondly, the SI unit of volume, the cubic metre, is equivalent

to how many litres?

-(1,000.)

-1,000.

Correct. In crystallography, cubic is an alternative name

for what system, in which the three axis are equal

and mutually at right angles?

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

-Orthogonal?

-No, it's isometric.

Ten points for this.

Which stock figure is the title character

of a novella by John Polidori

first published in 1819 and attributed falsely to Lord Byron?

The work is often said to be the progenitor of a sub-genre

of Gothic...

The Vampyre.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses, Manchester, are on opera.

Best known for its lively overture,

which opera by Glinka is based on a poem of 1820 by Pushkin?

Its title characters are a knight

and the daughter of the Great Prince of Kiev.

Is that Eugene Onegin? But I don't know if it is, actually.

Eugene Onegin?

No, it's Ruslan And Lyudmila.

Secondly, a landmark in opera history for its dramatic unity

and increased emphasis on dance, which couple from Greek mythology

are the title characters of a work of 1762 by Gluck?

I was going to say, erm,

Dido and Aeneas, but it's not, is it?

-That's Purcell, I think.

-Yeah.

-Any ideas?

-I don't know. Yeah, go.

Dido and Aeneas?

No, it's Orpheus and Eurydice.

And finally, based on the poem by Chaucer

rather than the play by Shakespeare,

which opera by William Walton on the theme of the Trojan War

-premiered at Covent Garden in 1954?

-It's Troilus And Cressida.

Troilus And Cressida.

Correct.

Ten points for this, listen carefully. In the 2011 Census,

7.7% reported a main language that was not English or Welsh.

Which language was the most common other main...?

Urdu.

No, you lose five points...

..other main language with 546,000 respondents?

Polish.

Polish is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses, Southampton, are on 19th-century American presidents.

The first president to have been born in the 19th century,

who was the victor in the 1852 presidential election,

a heavy drinker,

described by some opponents as "a hero of many a well-fought bottle"?

That's about the time of James K Polk. Who came after him, possibly?

-Was it Millard Fillmore?

-I'll try it.

Er, Fillmore.

No, it's Pierce.

Secondly, who was the first president from New York

and the first of non-English descent, his family being Dutch?

He was successively both the eighth vice president

-and the eighth president.

-Martin Van Buren.

Correct. Often ranked by historians

as one of the weakest and most ineffectual presidents

for his role in the events immediately before the Civil War,

who to date is the only president never to have married?

Just before the Civil War, who's that? James Buchanan?

-Who were you going to say?

-Polk? No.

-James K Polk...

All right. Buchanan.

Buchanan is right, yes.

Right, ten points for this. Variants of what given name

link the author of the 7th-century Welsh poem known as Y Gododdin

and the Labour politician who was

the principle architect of the National Health...?

Aneirin?

Aneirin is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

Right, Manchester, these bonuses are on a family.

The Blessed Damozel and The Prince's Progress are 19th-century poems

written by a brother and sister, respectively, with what surname?

Rossetti.

Correct. Dante Gabriel Rossetti married which of his models in 1860,

less than two years before her death from an overdose of laudanum?

Lizzie Siddall?

Correct. "Figs to fill your mouth Citrons from the south

"Sweet to tongue and sound to eye Come by, come by."

These are lines from which narrative poem by Christina Rossetti

illustrated by her brother in its 1862 edition?

Goblin Market.

Correct.

A music round now.

For your music starter, in a departure from our normal

procedure, you will first hear the excerpt and then the question.

If you buzz in incorrectly during the excerpt,

you will lose five points in this instance. Listen very carefully.

Remember, you may not confer.

# Five, four, three, two, one

# Five, four, three, two, one

# Five, four, three, two, one

# Five, four, three, two, one

# Five, four, three, two, one... #

Right, answer as soon as your name is called.

Give me the sum total of the numbers mentioned in the lyrics.

15.

No.

14.

No, it's 75.

Right, we'll take the sound bonuses in a moment or two.

Here is another starter question.

A former mining engineer in both Australia and China, which

US president gives his name to a major dam on the Colorado River...?

-Hoover.

-Hoover is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

OK, you heard 5-4-3-2-1 by Manfred Mann.

Your bonuses are three more songs with numbers in the lyrics.

In each case, I want you to give me

the sum total of all the numbers in the excerpt.

Obviously, you need to listen until the excerpt ends.

Firstly, for five, the total number here, please.

# And it's a two, four, six, eight Ain't never too late

# Me and my radio truckin' on through the night

# Three, five, seven, nine On a double white line

# Motorway sun comin' up with the morning light

# Whizz kid sitting pretty on your two-wheel stallion

# This old 10-tonne lorry got a bead on you... #

44.

No, it's 56, you missed out "two-wheel stallion"

-and "10-tonne lorry".

-It's nice to know!

2-4-6-8 Motorway, Tom Robinson.

Let's hear the next one now and you can give me the same thing.

# Tell you what

# Why don't we cross the city limit

# And head on down the M62?

# It's only 39 miles and 45 minutes to Manchester

# And that's my birthplace, you know

# Driving away from home

# 30 miles or more... #

-176.

-I've got 177.

Oh, is there an extra 1?

-I think I heard an extra 1.

-Was there an extra 1?

177?

Bad luck, it was 176! Good effort, though.

Finally, the total of the numbers mentioned in this track, please.

# I was your sorry ever after

# 74, 75

# Given me more and I'll do fine

# Cos you're really only after

# 74, 75... #

-298.

-Yeah. 298.

Correct!

APPLAUSE

Well done. OK, another starter question now.

Which novel by Charles Dickens ends thus?

Gride is murdered, Ralph hangs himself, Sir Mulberry...

Barnaby Rudge?

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

Mulberry Hawk dies in a debtors' prison, Kate marries Frank,

the hero marries Madeline, and Squeers is transported.

Nicholas Nickleby.

Yes.

APPLAUSE

Right, Manchester, these bonuses are on the psychology of emotion.

Firstly, for five points, in 1872,

which English naturalist published the study entitled

The Expression Of The Emotions In Man And Animals,

the first scientific examination of the phenomenon?

-Do we have any idea?

-No.

Darwin would be a guess...

Huxley, maybe?

Huxley?

No, it was Darwin.

The Laws Of Emotion is a work of 2006 by which Dutch psychologist,

who claims that emotion is an essentially unconscious process?

-Do we know?

-No idea.

-No idea, sorry.

That's by Nico Frijda.

And finally, born 1842, the brother of an eminent novelist,

which US psychologist proposed the theory that

emotions are caused by physiological responses rather than vice versa?

-I'm guessing William James.

-William James?

Correct. Ten points for this,

what links the King of the Belgians

during World War I,

the constituency represented by William Hague, an event celebrated,

possibly erroneously...?

Richmond?

No, you lose five points...

..possibly erroneously, in the year 2000,

a metonym for the UK parliament, a decisive battle of 1815

and the capital of Jamaica?

They're all named after kings?

No, they're all bridges over the River Thames. Ten points for this.

In food technology, E508 is used as an alternative to common

table salt in low-sodium diets.

What is the two-word name of this inorganic chemical?

Potassium chloride.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on landlocked countries, Southampton.

Which South American country lost its coastline as a result

-of the War of the Pacific from 1879-83?

-Bolivia.

Correct. The breakup of the former Yugoslavia

has left three countries that don't have a coastline.

One's Kosovo, what are the other two?

Serbia and Macedonia hasn't got a coastline, has it?

Serbia and Macedonia.

Correct. Which African country lost its coastline

when Eritrea gained its independence in 1993?

Ethiopia.

Correct. Ten points for this starter question.

In 1843,

John Ruskin published the first part of Modern Painters

to demonstrate the superiority of which English artist...?

Erm, Holman Hunt?

I'm sorry, no, you're wrong, but next time you buzz, you must answer

straightaway, and I'm going to have to fine you five points...

..the superiority of which English artist

to all previous landscape painters?

-Turner.

-JMW Turner is right.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on physics and space exploration, Manchester.

A spacecraft's solar panel is maintained face onto the sun,

and its output varies linearly with incident radiation.

If its output is 1 kilowatt when the spacecraft is close to Earth,

what is the output to the nearest watt when it reaches Neptune?

Erm, Neptune is about...

I would say...

I would say...

-About 40.

-40, 40 watts?

-40 kilowatts.

40 kilowatts.

No, it's 1 watt.

Oh, damn, no!

Because of this fall-off in solar energy, missions to the outer

solar system usually employ RTGs instead of solar cells.

For what do the letters RTG stand?

G could be "generate", maybe? Real-time generator?

-Shall we give it a go?

-Say maybe radiation. Radiation...

Yeah, erm...

I don't know.

Real-time generator.

No, it's radio-isotope thermoelectric generator.

And finally, Voyager 1, the most distant of all space probes,

is powered by three RTGs containing an isotope of which element?

-Uranium.

-Uranium?

Uranium?

No, it's plutonium. We're going to take a picture round.

For your picture starter,

you'll see a caricature of an historical philanthropist.

For ten points, I simply want his name, please.

Andrew Carnegie?

It is indeed, yes.

APPLAUSE

A perhaps somewhat stereotyped depiction of Carnegie.

For your bonuses, three more caricatures of influential figures

in American society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Firstly, for five, who's this industrialist?

-That's got to be Rockefeller.

-Rockefeller.

It is JD Rockefeller.

Secondly, this political activist?

So, would it be someone asking for female...?

It's not someone like...

The woman who dared, it's not Eleanor Roosevelt, is it?

Shall we go for it? Eleanor Roosevelt?

No, it's Susan B Anthony, you know, the Suffragist.

And finally, this political figure?

-Is that, that'll be Roosevelt.

-That kind of looks like FDR.

-No, not FDR.

-Oh, Teddy Roosevelt.

-Yeah, Teddy Roosevelt.

-Teddy Roosevelt?

It is, yes. Right, ten points for this.

Which decade saw British defeat in the First Boer War,

the death of Gordon of Khartoum...?

The 1890s?

No, you lose five points.

..and the failure of the first Home Rule Bill?

1870s.

No, it's the 1880s. Ten points for this.

Meanings of what eight-letter verb include

"decrease in size or range", "shorten a word by elision...?"

Diminish.

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

..and "enter into a formal agreement".

Contract.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

Bonuses this time on two-letter words

said to be familiar to serious Scrabble players.

In each case, spell the word from its definition.

Firstly, from the Hawaiian language and worth two points,

a word denoting a basaltic lava forming very rough jagged masses

with a light frothy texture.

If it's worth two points, it's got to be made up of vowels

or with an S, hasn't it?

Or Ts.

-Does AI sound right?

-A-I, shall we try it?

A-I?

No, it's A-A, "aa".

Also worth two points, a Chinese unit of distance,

equal to about 600 metres.

We're just making it up as we go along.

-A-I again?

-No, it's L-I.

And finally, worth 11 points,

the circulating life force whose existence and properties

form a basis for Chinese philosophy and medicine.

X-I.

No, it's Q-I, "qi", Ten points for this.

Commissioned by Pope Damasus in 382,

and largely translated by Saint Jerome,

what is the standard Latin version of the Bible used by...?

-The Vulgate.

-The Vulgate is right.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses this time, Manchester, are on the later Ottoman Empire.

Under the 1878 Treaty of Berlin,

parts of the Danube Vilayet or Province became which

de facto independent principality under Ottoman Suzerainty?

-The Danube... Do you think Romania or...?

-Romania.

-I'm thinking Romania or Bulgaria.

-Romania or Bulgaria.

-Bulgaria?

-Bulgaria? Bulgaria?

-Correct.

The Treaty of Berlin also created which autonomous province

with its capital at Plovdiv? It was annexed by Bulgaria in 1885.

Is that Transnistria? Well, I...

-Transnistria.

-That sounds about right.

-Transnistria?

No, that was Eastern Rumelia.

And finally, the southern part of which historical region

was ruled by the Ottoman Turks until the early 20th century?

In 1923, the region east of the Maritsa River

was restored to Turkey.

Oh, erm, this was taken away by the Treaty of Versailles,

-and they gave it back to it.

-Do you think it would be...?

-Is it Smyrna?

Could it be Smyrna? Smyrna.

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

Which town in Virginia was the British Army forced

to surrender after a siege of 1781?

Yorktown?

Yorktown is correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, Manchester, are on a plant family.

The plant family Ericaceae includes which evergreen shrub,

Calluna vulgaris, commonly found on moorlands in Britain?

-Is that heather?

-Yeah, I think so.

Heather.

Correct. What is the common name of Vaccinium oxycoccos,

a plant of the Ericaceae family with red berries

that are cultivated for their juice and for use in sauces?

-Cranberry.

-Cranberry? Cranberry?

Correct. Ericaceae's compost is often made from what substance,

formed by the partial decomposition of organic matter

and traditionally used as fuel?

Peat?

I'll go for peat.

-Peat?

-Peat is right.

APPLAUSE

Ten points for this.

In Greek mythology, which god is ordered by Zeus

to mould Pandora, the first human...?

-Hephaestus.

-Correct. You get a set of bonuses now

on the subjunctive in Romance languages.

The first person singular present subjunctive of the verb "to be"

in Latin spells which three-letter acronym used in mobile telephony?

-SIM?

-S-I-M.

-Er, S-I-M, SIM.

Correct. The third person plural present subjunctive

of the verb "ser", S-E-R, in Spanish,

spells what given name of Irish origin?

-Sean.

-Sean.

Correct. What is the third person singular present subjunctive

of the verb "to be" in French?

It appears on the cover of United Kingdom passports.

Honi soit...

-Soit.

-Is it soit?

-Yeah, that sounds right.

Er, soit.

Correct. Ten points for this.

-In zoology...

-CLOSING GONG

And at the gong, Southampton University have 80,

Manchester have 200.

APPLAUSE

Well, you were great fun in the music round in particular,

and I'm very sorry we're saying goodbye to you, Southampton,

but someone's got to go.

Manchester, 200, another terrific performance from you.

We shall look forward to seeing you in the semifinals.

Many congratulations to you.

I hope you can join us for the last of the quarterfinals next time.

-But until then, it's goodbye from Southampton University.

-Goodbye.

-It's goodbye from Manchester University.

-Goodbye.

And it's goodbye from me, goodbye.

APPLAUSE