Episode 23 University Challenge

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

APPLAUSE

Hello. There are eight places in the quarter-final stage of this

competition, and six of them have already been taken.

The seventh will go to whichever team wins tonight.

But for the losers, it's the final curtain.

The team from Nottingham University won their first round match, albeit

in a somewhat low-scoring fixture against the University of Swansea,

and at the gong were ahead by 135 points to 110.

They were quick enough on the buzzer though to keep their opponents

away from the bonus questions for a good 15 minutes.

And they knew their stuff on HMS Beagle,

the Book of Proverbs, Mendelssohn, poitin and plum brandy.

With an average age of 23, let's meet the Nottingham team again.

Hi, I'm Michael Alexander from south London, and I'm studying medicine.

Hi, I'm Ben Scrafield from Sheffield,

and I'm studying chemistry.

This is their captain:

Hi, I'm Alice Lilly, I'm from Harrogate in North Yorkshire,

and I'm studying for an PhD in American Studies.

Hi, I'm Mark Dennis, I'm from Nottinghamshire,

and I'm studying for a PhD in mathematics.

APPLAUSE

The team from St Catherine's College Cambridge managed to put

themselves on -10 in the opening minutes of their first round

match against the University of Southampton, but they had the lead by

the halfway point and they were ahead at the gong by 165 points to 135.

Strengths proved to be the valkyries, the Turing machine,

European history and the squawk.

With an average age of 19, let's meet the St Cat's team again.

Hi, and Callum Watson, I'm from Stirlingshire

and I'm studying maths.

Hi, I'm Ellie Chan, I'm from Brighton

and I'm reading for a PhD in history of art.

And this is their captain:

Hello, I'm Calum Bungey, I'm from London, and I'm reading chemistry.

Hi, I'm Alex Cranston, I'm from London, I'm reading

biological natural sciences, and we're all here for the wheel.

APPLAUSE

Fingers on the buzzers, your first starter for ten:

Listen carefully, a country's two euro coin bears a portrait

of an early winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Bertha von Suttner.

Which composer appears on the same country's one euro coin?

Mahler?

No. St Catherine's?

-Mozart?

-Mozart. It's Austria, of course.

APPLAUSE

So you get a set of bonuses,

the first ones of tonight's competition,

on artists' muses, Cat's.

Olga Khokhlova, Dora Maar and Francoise Gilot

were amongst the muses and lovers of which Spanish artist?

-Spanish?

-Spanish...

Who did...? Picasso had a few, didn't he?

-Famously.

-Yeah, he was famously...

-Yeah.

-Picasso.

-Correct.

Much influenced by Picasso,

which surrealist artist often signed his works with his own name

and that of his wife, to whom he said,

"It's mostly with your blood, Gala, that I paint my pictures"?

Gala...?

-Sorry?

-It's just a guess, to be honest.

-Who are you guessing?

-I was going to say Dali, or something.

-Dali... Did he marry?

I can't remember for the life of me.

I don't think so.

-Dali?

-It is Salvador Dali, yes.

Dali's circle included which New York-born photographer and artist?

His works include many portraits of Alice Prin,

an artist's model also known as Kiki de Montparnasse,

of which Le Violon d'Ingres is perhaps the best-known.

-Try Man Ray.

-Pardon?

-Man Ray.

-Man Ray.

-Man Ray is right, yes.

Ten points for this:

Which three letters begin the names of the bay in which the

Andaman Islands are located, the English name of the island...?

-M, A, L?

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

The English name of the island between North and South Uist,

and the capital of Karnataka state in India,

a centre of high-technology industry?

-B-E-N.

-Correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

As in Bengal, Benbecula, and so on.

So we get to a set of bonuses for you Nottingham,

and they're on fields of economics.

From Greek roots meaning house, manage and measure,

what term denotes the study of formal methods

for drawing inferences from statistical evidence?

Something-metrics?

-House is...?

-I don't know.

Anything at all?

something-anthrometrics.

-Anthrometrics?

-Yeah, something like that.

-Anthrometrics?

-No, it's econometrics.

Secondly, which branch studies the emotional dimensions of economics?

An example of this type of study, the Allais paradox,

shows the impact of psychological factors on

consumer decision-making in conditions of risk.

Think that's behavioural.

-That makes sense.

-Yeah, go for it.

-Behavioural economics?

-Correct.

Given its name by Thorstein Veblen in 1900,

which approach emphasises the way in which firms

and individuals maximise their objectives?

It serves as the basis for coordinating activities in the global market system.

I can only think of conspicuous consumption.

I don't know.

About maximising utility.

Anything?

Guess.

-Pass.

-That's neoclassical economics.

Ten points for this:

From the Greek meaning "equal part", what term in physics denotes atomic

nuclei with the same atomic and mass numbers, but different energy states?

In chemistry, the same term...

-Isomers.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

And your bonuses are on chemical elements, St Catherine's.

Which letter of the alphabet designates the block

of the periodic table that contains the lanthanide and actinide elements?

-F.

-Correct.

What name is given to the progressive shrinking of the ionic radii

of the elements of the lanthanide series caused by the weak shielding

of nuclear charge by electrons in the 4F orbital?

-Lanthanide contraction.

-Correct.

And finally, the first two group 3 metal elements are often

classified as rare earth metals as they have similar chemical properties

to the lanthanides, although they don't lie in the lanthanide series.

Can you name either of them, please?

-Hafnium.

-No, it's scandium and yttrium.

We're going to take a picture round now.

For your picture starter you will see the titles of selected works

by a Nobel prize-winning author, given in their original language.

For ten points, all you have to do is to identify the author.

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

-It is indeed.

Let's see the titles in English, there they are.

So your picture bonuses are the titles of works by three more

writers awarded the Nobel Prize in literature,

again given in the original language.

In each case, for five points, name the writer.

Firstly, for five:

Italian...

Oh, it's however many people in search of an author.

It's...Pirandello?

Luigi Pirandello. Is that right?

You can nominate.

-Nominate Alexander.

-Pirandello.

-Correct. Let's see them in English.

There they are.

Secondly:

-Can you read it?

-Gulag. So Solzhenitsyn.

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

-Correct, we'll see them in English now.

There we are.

And finally:

-This is Camus.

-Albert Camus.

That's correct, let's see them in English, there they are.

APPLAUSE

Well done.

Ten points for this starter question:

Which German state gives its name to a transuranic element with

the atomic number 108?

The generic term for German mercenaries...

-Hesse.

-Hesse is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses this time, Cat's, are on a composer.

Which leading German composer of the post-war era collaborated with

Chester Kallman and WH Auden on the opera Elegy For Young Lovers?

-Can't really think of many modern German composers.

-No.

I'm going to have to say Mahler.

Well, shall we...

-Let's go through some Germans!

-I...

-Come on, let's have an answer, please.

-Mahler.

-Mahler?!

No, it's Hans Werner Henze.

That's very interesting.

The second Kallman/Auden libretto for an opera by Henze was

The Bassarids, based on the Bacchae by which Greek dramatist?

Is that... It's Euripides.

-Euripides.

-Correct.

Based on Gericault's painting,

Henze composed the Raft Of The Medusa in 1968 as a requiem

for which revolutionary who'd been killed the previous year?

1968?

-Which year, sorry?

-1968.

-Is it Che?

-Yeah.

-Che Guevara?

-Correct.

Ten points for this:

A Muslim pilgrimage site near the city of Osh,

Sulayman II Sacred Mountain is a Unesco World Heritage Site

in which central Asian country?

It shares borders with Tajikistan, China and Kazakhstan.

-Kyrgyzstan.

-Kyrgyzstan is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses, St Catherine's, are on a flower.

According to Perdita in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale,

which flowers of the genus Narcissus,

"Come before the swallow dares and take the winds of March with beauty?"

Daffodil?

Yeah, go on.

-Daffodils.

-Correct.

"And then thy heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils."

This is the closing couplet of a poem by Wordsworth.

What is the first line?

-I wandered lonely...

-Yeah.

I wandered lonely as a cloud.

I wandered lonely as a cloud is correct.

"Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth."

Which poet says that in the 1983 prose collection, Required Writing?

-What...?

-I've heard the quote, but I can't remember who it is.

Can you remember anything else about them?

-Is it Larkin?

-Maybe...

It's SO Larkin!

-Philip Larkin?

-It is Philip Larkin, yes.

Ten points for this:

Listen carefully - what specific two-word term refers to a person who,

at a particular time, lies first in a line of royal succession,

but who may be superseded by the subsequent...?

-Heir presumptive.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses, Cat's, are an on accidental inventions.

Firstly, while working on refrigerants in 1938,

the US chemist, Roy Plunkett, discovered which polymer

when a gas solidified on the sides of a canister, creating a slick surface?

Presumably Teflon, I'd have thought. It would be so lubricated...

-Pardon?

-PTFE.

-Yeah.

-PTFE.

-Teflon, yes, that's correct.

In 1856, the British chemist William Perkin discovered the first

synthetic dye while trying to synthesise quinine.

Originally known as aniline purple or Tyrian purple,

by what five-letter name is it usually known today?

-Mauve.

-Correct.

While researching synthetic substitutes for rubber

in the 1940s, the Scottish-born engineer James Wright combined

boric acid and silicon oil and discovered a malleable substance

later marketed as a toy under what name?

-Silly putty.

-Is that...?

No, is it called silly putty?

-Silly putty?

-Silly putty, or nutty potty, or potty putty.

Ten points for this, answer as soon as your name is called.

If three resistors of resistance two, three and four ohms respectively

are connected in parallel,

what fraction denotes the total resistance of the configuration?

A half.

No. Nottingham?

1/24th?

No, it's 12/13.

So another starter question coming up now, ten points for this, fingers on the buzzers.

In 1900, John Redmond became the leader of which political party?

After the elections of 1910,

his party held the balance of power in the Commons, and the Liberals

introduced the legislation for which he had long campaigned.

The Independent Labour Party?

No, anybody like to buzz from Nottingham?

Unionist Party?

No, it's quite the opposite, it's the Irish Parliamentary Party.

Another starter question:

In 2014, Microsoft paid 2.5 billion for the Swedish firm Mojang.

Its products include which videogame?

-Minecraft.

-Yes!

APPLAUSE

No area of a misspent youth is ever wasted.

Here are your bonuses,

they're on syncretic religions and beliefs, St Catherine's.

Drawing practices from Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism

and Catholicism, the Cao Dai religious movement was

officially established in 1926 in which Asian country?

-Pardon?

-Vietnam, he says.

-Sorry, can't hear.

Vietnam he says.

-Vietnam.

-Correct.

Blending Nigeria's Yoruba religion with Roman Catholicism

and native Indian traditions,

Santeria originally developed on which Caribbean island?

Yeah, I was thinking Haiti.

-Haiti.

-No, it's Cuba.

The Rastafarian movement believes that which Emperor of Ethiopia

was the incarnation of the second coming of Christ?

-Haile Selassie.

-Correct.

Right, with the scores on 40 and 130, but still plenty of time for you

guys in Nottingham to come back, we're go into take a music round.

For your music starter, you'll hear a piece of classical music.

Ten points if you can identify the composer.

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Tchaikovsky.

No, anyone like to buzz from St Catherine's?

MUSIC RESUMES

-Mussorgsky?

-No, it's Beethoven.

It's part of the overture for Egmont.

So music bonuses in a moment or two.

Ten points at stake for this starter question, fingers on the buzzers.

In astronomy, what Greek-derived term denotes the visible

surface of the sun, that is, the area from which light is radiated?

Heliosphere.

No, anyone like to buzz from Nottingham?

-Perihelion.

-No, it's the photosphere.

Another starter question, fingers on the buzzers.

Quote, "A writer must refuse to allow himself to be

"transformed into an institution."

These are the words, in translation, of which writer, in 1964,

on refusing the Nobel...?

-Jean-Paul Sartre.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

So, Nottingham, you get the music bonuses.

That piece by Beethoven was written as incidental

music for Goethe's play, Egmont.

For your music bonuses, three more examples of classical composers

writing incidental music for drama.

This time, in each case, I want the name of the composer

and the play for which the piece was written.

Firstly, for five:

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Pass.

Is that the name of a composer or...?

It was part of Mendelssohn's overture for A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Secondly:

CLASSICAL MUSIC

If we don't know, we need to pass. We need to get through it.

Come on.

-Pass.

-That was Henry Purcell,

part of the incidental music for Abdelazer.

And finally:

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Prokofiev and Romeo and Juliet.

No, it's part of Grieg's music for Peer Gynt.

So, ten points at stake for this starter question:

In anatomy, what seven-letter term denotes the hollow muscular tube

that descends from the oral and nasal cavities in the head

down to the oesophagus, larynx and trachea?

-The pharynx.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Nottingham, these are a set of bonuses

on computing terminology for you.

In each case give the term in full, or the abbreviation.

Firstly, at the 1968 Joint Computer Conference,

the US internet pioneer Douglas Engelbart demonstrated

a virtual desktop incorporating windows, menus, icons and folders -

a visual method of computer interaction known as what?

-It's a Gui, isn't it? Graphical user interface.

-Yeah.

-Graphical user interface.

-Correct.

Commonly used, despite supporting only 256 colours,

which file format for pictures on the World Wide Web

was developed by CompuServe in 1987?

JPEG.

-JPEG.

-No, it's graphics interchange format, G-IF.

And finally, established in 1992,

which compression format is now the most commonly used for storing

and sharing photographic images on the web?

Is this JPEG?

-That's probably JPEG, yeah.

-JPEG?

-Yeah.

-JPEG.

-It is JPEG, yes.

Ten points for this starter question:

In a conjecture now believed to be broadly correct,

which German philosopher proposed that the solar system condensed

out of a disc of primordial material in a work first published in 1755?

Leibniz.

No, anyone like to buzz from St Catherine's?

Kepler.

No, it's Immanuel Kant. Ten points for this:

Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Nazca, Scotia, Caribbean, African

and Eurasian are all examples of what...?

-Tectonic plates.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Nottingham, these bonuses are on art historians.

Following the development of modern art from the impressionists onward,

the 1980 television series, The Shock Of The New was written

and presented by which Australian art historian and critic?

I was going to say John Berger, but I don't know if he was Australian?

Just say it.

-John Berger?

-No, he's English, I think.

It was Robert Hughes.

Part of the so-called Monuments Men division of the

Allied forces in World War II, which US academic's works include

the 1969 History Of Italian Renaissance Art?

-I can't think of any American art historians.

-I can't. Pass.

-Pass.

-That's Frederick Hartt.

And finally, the international bestseller, The Story Of Art,

was written by which art historian, born in Vienna 1909?

-EH Gombrich.

-That is correct.

We're going to take another picture round now.

For your picture starter you'll see a photograph of a former

professional footballer who spent his entire playing career at one club.

For ten points, I want the name of the player

and the club he played for?

-Matt Le Tissier, Southampton.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Following on from Matt Le Tissier, you're now going to see

three more former professional football players, all of whom

spent their English league careers at one club.

In each case, I want the name of the player and the club they played for.

Firstly:

-Is that Tom Finney?

-I'm not sure.

-Unless it's one of the Charltons.

-OK.

-Go for Tom Finney.

Tom Finney and Preston North End?

No, it's very old photograph of Jack Charlton,

who played for Leeds United.

Secondly, this player

and club he spent his entire English league career with?

Is that Tom Finney, or am I going mad?

Just try it again, because I've no idea.

Is THAT Tom Finney and Preston North End?

It is indeed, yes.

And finally:

-Is that Martin Keown?

-I'm not sure.

-Go for it.

-I'm not sure it is.

-I don't think it is, but I can't think who else...

-What club?

-It was Arsenal.

-Shall we go with that?

Martin Keown and Arsenal?

It was Arsenal, but that's Tony Adams. Ten points for this:

Which city gives its name to a plating technique

invented in around 1742 by Thomas Boulsover

in which a furnace is used to fuse

a sterling silver coating to copper sheets?

Pinchbeck.

No, anyone like to buzz from Saint Catherine's?

-Vienna?

-No, it's Sheffield. Ten points for this:

New Dana and Nickel-Strunz are major classification systems for what

substances in the field of Earth science?

Soils.

No, anyone like to buzz...?

-Minerals.

-Minerals is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on botany, Saint Catherine's.

From the Greek for "pressed together,"

what term describes plant responses that are caused by

external stimuli, but are unrelated to the direction of the stimulus?

Trophic. It's not trophic, and it is not atrophic?

Pardon?

-Is it not isotrophic, which means...?

-Isotropic or atrophic?

Isotropic?

No, they're nastic or nasty responses.

Giving rise to one of the common names of Mimosa pudica,

what stimulus brings about a haptonastic response?

-Touching?

-Touching or vibration will do, yes.

And finally, a dramatic haptonastic response is seen in

Dionaea muscipula, a subtropical plant with what three-word name?

Venus fly trap.

-Venus fly trap.

-Well done. Ten points for this:

A groundbreaking piece of travel writing, the 1879 work,

Travels With A Donkey, was an early published work by which...?

-Robert Louis Stevenson.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, St Catherine's,

this time are on pairs of years with reordered digits.

For example, 1066 and 1660.

In each case, give the two years in which the following occurred:

Firstly, the accession of Henry II of England and the Battle of Agincourt.

1415.

-1415, and...

-1415 and is 1154.

-1415 and 1154.

-Correct.

Secondly, the union of the Parliaments of England and Scotland,

and Captain Cook's landing at Botany Bay.

1707 and 1770.

-1707 and 1770.

-That's correct.

And finally, the start of Charles I's 11-year personal rule

and the UK's ten-day general strike.

Is it 16...?

General strike...

1629, surely too...?

1926? 1926 and...

1629.

That's correct, yes.

About 3.5 minutes to go, ten points for this:

Born in 1931, which British mathematician gives his name

to any of a finite number of shapes that are components

of a spatially non-periodic...?

-Penrose.

-Penrose is correct, yes.

Your bonuses this time are on literary characters, Nottingham.

In George Eliot's The Mill On The Floss,

what is the name of Maggie Tulliver's brother,

with whom she drowns in the novel's final chapter?

-Don't remember.

-Come on!

-Pass.

-It's Tom.

In which novel does the narrator say of the character Tom Buchanan that,

"There were men at New Haven who hated his guts."

-The Great Gatsby.

-Correct.

Finally, the high-living conman and murderer Tom Ripley

is the central character in a series of five novels by which US author?

-Nominate Alexander.

-Patricia Highsmith.

-Correct, ten points for this:

Cheeses, including Fourme d'Ambert, Saint-Nectaire, Salers and Cantal

are among noted produce of which region of South Central France?

Its capital city is Clermont-Ferrand.

-The Auvergne.

-Correct.

You get a set of bonuses this time

on London architecture, St Catherine's.

Which architect was responsible for the design of many London

churches commissioned after the 50 New Churches Act of 1711?

They include Christchurch in Spitalfields

and St George's in Bloomsbury.

17-something?

Let's have it, please.

It's not Wren...

-Hawksmoor?

-Correct.

Employed by the same commission, which Scottish architect designed

the churches of St Mary le Strand and St Martin-in-the-Fields?

-It's not Wren...

-Come on, please.

-Nominate Watson.

-Alexander Thomson.

No, it was James Gibbs.

In 1719, Gibbs added a spire to the church of St Clement Danes,

designed by which architect almost 40 years earlier?

-What did you say?

-I think it is Wren.

-Wren.

-It was Sir Christopher Wren, yes.

Ten points for this: In botany, the term culm, that's C-U-L-M,

refers to what part of a grass or sedge?

Tip.

No, anyone like to buzz from St Catherine's?

-Blade.

-No, it's the stem or the stalk. Ten points for this:

When applied to a computer system, the acronym Bios, B-I-O-S,

stands for what four words?

-Basic input/output system.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on human physiology.

Underactivity of which endocrine gland causes myxoedema?

It's symptoms include dry and swollen skin around the limbs.

It's not thyroid...

-What else do we have? What other glands?

-Lymph.

Lymph? No, no.

-That's not a gland, that's...

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

-Is not thyroid, but, thyroid?

-Correct.

The activity of the thyroid gland, secondly,

is regulated by a thyroid-stimulating hormone.

Which specific part of the pituitary gland secretes this hormone?

GONG

And at the Gong, Nottingham have 120, St Catherine's have 210.

APPLAUSE

Well, I think you were probably unlucky in the questions you got,

although you do need to brush up on classical music.

You're absolutely hopeless on that, Nottingham.

But thank you for joining us, you're an entertaining team to watch.

St Catherine's, we'll look forward to seeing you in the quarter-finals, congratulations to you.

I hope you can join us next time for the last of the second-round matches,

-but until then, it's goodbye from Nottingham University.

-Goodbye.

-It's goodbye from St Catherine's College Cambridge.

-Goodbye.

And it's goodbye from me, goodbye.

APPLAUSE