Episode 29 University Challenge

University Challenge.

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

APPLAUSE

Hello. By the end of tonight's match,

we'll know the first of the four teams

who'll be competing in the semifinals of this competition.

Both teams playing for that place already have one quarterfinal

victory behind them so whoever wins tonight will go through,

while the losers will get one last chance to stay in the contest.

The team from St John's College, Oxford

came out of round one with 255 points to Bristol's 125.

And then in the second round they defeated Queens, Belfast

by 180 points to 100.

Things were going swimmingly in their first quarterfinal against

St Catharine's College, Cambridge

until around the halfway mark but then they seemed to doze off a bit

and secured victory by only a five-point margin

with 175 points to 170.

With an accumulated score of 610, let's meet them for the fourth time.

Hi, my name is Alex Harries.

I come from South Wales and I'm reading history.

Hello, my name is Charlie Clegg.

I'm from Glasgow and I'm reading theology.

And this is their captain.

Hi, my name's Angus Russell.

I'm from Mill Hill in North London and I study history and Russian.

Hi, I'm Dan Sowood.

I'm from Uxbridge in Middlesex and I'm reading chemistry.

APPLAUSE

Now, the team from Peterhouse, Cambridge

beat Glasgow University by 185 points to 155 in round one,

and the medics of St George's, London in the second round

by a stronger margin of 195 to 90.

They met the University of York in their first quarterfinal match

and were trailing for the first ten minutes

but then managed to take the lead

and were ahead at the gong by 185 points to 165.

So, with an accumulated score of 565 points,

let's meet the Peterhouse team for the fourth time.

Hello, I'm Thomas Langley.

I'm from Newcastle upon Tyne and I'm reading history.

Hello, I'm Oscar Powell.

I'm from York and I'm reading geological sciences.

-And this is their captain.

-Hello, I'm Hannah Woods.

I'm originally from Manchester and I'm studying for a PhD in history.

Hello, my name's Julian Sutcliffe.

I'm from Reading in Berkshire and I'm also reading history.

APPLAUSE

So, you all know the rules. Fingers on the buzzers.

Here's your first starter for ten.

Meanings of what five-letter word include a commemorative coin with

values since 1990 of £5,

an artificial replacement for the external part of a...

Crown.

Correct.

So, you get the first set of bonuses, St John's.

They're on the opening lines of three essays.

Name the author in each case, please.

Firstly for five,

"I was often, when a boy, wonderfully concerned to see

"in the Italian farces,

"a pedant always brought in for the fool of the play."

This line in translation opens an essay in which writer's collection

of the late 16th century?

Ooh, what's the French guy?

-Mont...

-Not Montague...

-Montaigne. Montaigne.

-Montaigne.

Montaigne.

Correct. His essay, Of Pedantry.

From a long work of 1689, secondly.

"Since it is the understanding that sets man above the rest

"of sensible beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion

"which he has over them."

Possibly Montesquieu but I'm not sure.

I think that's a little early for Montesquieu.

It might be Locke's second Treatises On Government.

-It could be Locke.

-Locke.

It is Locke, correct. Well done, yes.

And thirdly, from an essay of 1941.

"As I write, highly civilised human beings are flying overhead,

"trying to kill me."

-Ooh. Might be JB Priestley.

-Priestley?

Possibly Priestley, possibly HG Wells.

-Possibly even Orwell.

-Yeah.

-I thought it might be Orwell.

-Do you want to go for Orwell? He wrote a lot of essays.

-Orwell.

Orwell.

It is George Orwell. He did indeed write a lot of essays.

APPLAUSE

Ten points for this.

What was Rossini's last operatic composition?

Although rarely performed on stage, its overtures gained worldwide...

William Tell.

Well done, yes.

APPLAUSE

Right, a set of bonuses on physics.

Named after a German physicist,

which law is a special case of Planck's law of radiation

and states that for a black body,

the wavelength corresponding to maximum radiation of energy

is inversely proportional to the temperature of the body?

Oh, right... So...

-Black body radiation. I can't think.

-It's not, it's not...

Is it something like Helmholt, maybe? Or Humboldt.

-It's not Boltzmann.

-It's not Boltzmann?

I don't know if there is a physicist called Humb...

-Is it definitely not Boltzmann?

-I don't think it is.

I'd go for Helmholt. I don't know but...

Helmholt.

-What? Wien's law.

-No idea.

Secondly, whose law states that the energy per unit surface area

radiated by a black body per unit of time

is directly proportional to the fourth power of its temperature?

I've used that to calculate insulation in exams

but I don't know what it's called.

You don't learn what they're called.

I have no idea. Go for...

-Helmholtz does exist.

-Helmholtz.

-CHUCKLING

-Does Helmholtz definitely exist?

Humboldt also exists but I think he's a zoologist,

so go for Helmholtz.

We're going to go for Helmholtz again.

No, it's... Have you thought of a career in stand-up, Oscar?

-It's Stefan-Boltzmann law.

-Oh!

-Stefan's law.

The intensity, finally, or power per unit area

arriving at a given location from a black body is proportional

to the distance from the location to the source raised to what exponent?

Oh, deary me. OK, let's go squared. Or is it cubed, though?

It sounds like one of those inverse-squared laws.

-I have no...

-Squared?

-Just go squared.

-Power of two.

Power of two.

-No, it's minus 2. The inverse square.

-Oh, it's an inverse square.

Right, ten points for this.

What is the common name of members of the family Petromyzontidae?

They are jawless vertebrates with bodies resembling eels...

Lampreys.

Correct, yes. APPLAUSE

Right, these bonuses are on Katherine Chidley,

the 17th-century agitator and religious controversialist.

Firstly, in a tract of 1641,

Chidley compared officeholders in which national organisation to,

quote, "Those locusts which ascended out of the bottomless pit"?

Might be Houses of Parliament. Or Church of England maybe.

-Oh, yeah.

-Church of England?

-Yes.

Church of England.

Correct.

Chidley is generally identified as a leading member

of which reformist grouping?

Active from the 1640s,

its publicists included Richard Overton and William Walwyn.

-Levellers.

-Is it the Levellers?

-Yes.

-The Levellers.

Correct. In 1653, Chidley organised a petition to Parliament that

reportedly garnered over 6,000 female signatures but was refused,

quote, "For they being women and many of them wives, so that the law

"took no notice of them."

The petition was in defence of which leading Leveller?

-I've no idea.

-I can't think of any. It's not Walwyn. Can you...?

My 17th century is poor.

-Maybe it is Walwyn.

-I've no idea.

-Walwyn.

-Walwyn?

Walwyn.

-No, it's John Lilburne.

-Oh.

Time for a picture round.

For your picture starter, you're going to see

an example of a particular form

of poetic stanza annotated to show

the paradigmatic rhyme scheme

and meter.

For ten points I want you to give me

the name of this type of stanza.

Epic hexameter but...

Would any of you like to buzz from St John's?

Iambic pentameter.

No, that's rhyme royal.

The first of Chaucer's Troilus And Criseyde.

We'll take the picture bonuses in a moment or two,

a starter question in the meantime.

Give the nine-letter name of the trigonometric function,

the abbreviation of which begins

the name of one of the highest active volcanoes in the world,

the French name for the country between Ghana and Liberia...

Cotangent.

Correct.

Both teams failed to identify rhyme royal for the picture starter

which was introduced into English poetry by Chaucer.

Nonetheless, you, Peterhouse, have got the picture bonuses

because you got a starter right.

Three more stanzaic forms, again, annotated with the paradigmatic

rhyme scheme and/or meter.

In each case, I want the name of the form you see.

Firstly for five...

That is Italian. Is it something

to do with Petrarch maybe?

-What's Italian?

-Petrarchan sonnet.

That's the only thing I can think.

But is it a sonnet though?

there's, like, six lines?

Do we have anything we can guess

-that's sensible?

-No.

Shall we just go for Petrarch?

We're going to guess Petrarchan sonnet.

No, it's terza rima, invented by Dante for the Divine Comedy.

Those are the first lines of it.

Secondly...

So, that's, "St Agnes' Eve

"Ah, bitter chill it was!"

Da-da-da-da-da-da...

-Is that pentameter?

-Maybe.

There are five feet.

So what's the foot then?

-Da-da, da-da...

-Iambic pentameter.

-No...

-It's the rhyme scheme.

-No.

-It's about the rhyme scheme.

-Yeah, I know but what's...

-I don't know rhyme schemes.

-OK, sorry, yes.

Heroic couplets, that's a thing.

-OK.

-They're not couplets though.

-I don't know.

-We don't know!

That's a Spenserian stanza, invented for The Faerie Queene,

adopted there by Keats for The Eve Of St Agnes.

Finally...

So, OK. Coleridge.

"It is an ancient Mariner..."

They've all been named after them.

RHYTHMIC TAPPING

Coleridgian quatrain?

OK, let's guess that! Coleridgian quatrain.

Well, of course it is Coleridge, yes.

It's the start of The Ancient Mariner, isn't it?

But it's a ballad stanza, that form.

Right, ten points for this.

Now commonly referring to the Acme paragon or peak of perfection,

which three-word Latin phrase was the supposed inscription

on the Pillars of Hercules...

Ne plus ultra.

Correct. APPLAUSE

These bonuses could give you the lead again.

For them, you will hear a clue to the three-letter abbreviation

of the name of a constellation

but the answer is going to be its full name.

So, if the clue were a river that flows through Cambridge,

from CAM you would get the answer Camelopardalis. Perhaps.

First, an abbreviation of the physical quantity that has

dimensions of length cubed.

-That's volume so it would be VOL.

-Vol, vol...

Vol. Constellations?

Um...

Don't know vol. No idea. Voltipex.

No, you've got VOL correctly but it's Volans,

the flying fish in the southern sky.

Next, a defunct electron positron an particle accelerator

whose 27km tunnel is now occupied by the Large Hadron Collider.

-Oh, that's...

-Is that not just LH...?

No, it's the one that went before it.

-But is it CMS?

-Possibly.

-That's...

-Something with CMS.

-Cassiopeia?

-OK, let's try.

Cassiopeia.

No, it's Lepus, from LEP for hare.

And finally, the Greek character that represents optical depth

and proper time and names the heaviest lepton.

-Is it...

-Heaviest lepton. That's the tau neutrino.

-TAU.

-TAU, Taurus.

-Oh, yes.

-Taurus.

Taurus is correct from TAU. Yes, well done.

Right, ten points for this.

"By his cruelty and lack of character

"he has shown himself incorrigible without hope of amendment."

These words are from Parliament's Articles Of Accusation

against which English king?

He was forced to abdicate...

Charles I.

No. You lose five points.

He was forced to abdicate in favour of his 14-year-old son.

James II.

Neither of you got it then. It's Edward II.

Right, we're going to take another starter question.

Ten points for this.

What single-word term is defined as

the angular distance in degrees of an astronomical body

from the celestial equator measured positively northwards

along the hour circle, passing through the body?

Declination.

Declination is correct. APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on an Italian family, Peterhouse.

The Popes Callixtus III and Alexander VI were members

of which family that was prominent in political and church affairs

in Italy during the Renaissance?

The Borgias.

Correct. Which son of Alexander VI attempted to establish his own

principality in Central Italy?

Machiavelli cited him as an example of the new prince.

-Um, nominate Langley.

-Cesare Borgia.

Correct. Cesare's sister Lucrezia

married into three prominent Italian families.

Her first husband, Giovanni,

belonged to which family that ruled Milan for almost a century?

-It's...

-It's Sforza or Visconti....

I think it's Sforza by now, by Machiavelli.

I mean, Gian Galeazzo Visconti's family... Yeah, that's Sforzas.

Sforza? Sforza.

Sforza, yes, correct. Ten points for this.

For what do the letters T-E-L stand

when representing a chemical compound that for much of

the 20th century was the chief anti-knock agent for petrol?

Tetraethyl lead.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on mythology, St John's.

In Greek mythology, what collective name is given to the giant offspring

of Gaia and Uranus,

a group that includes Hyperion and Iapetus?

Titans.

Correct.

The title character of a play by Aeschylus.

Which son of Iapetus is associated with a myth in which Zeus punishes

him by removing fire from the earth?

Prometheus. No.

Prometheus stole the fire.

Oh, is it the guy who's the equivalent of Loki

in Norse mythology? Like the...

-Trickster god.

-Trickster god, yeah.

-Try Hermes.

-Hermes.

No, it's Prometheus.

Another son of Iapetus appears

in the title of which 1957 work by Ayn Rand?

Described by one critic as,

"Longer than life and twice as preposterous."

-Is it Atlas Shrugged?

-Atlas Shrugged.

Oh, Atlas Shrugged.

Atlas Shrugged is correct. Ten points for this.

What two-word name denotes

the upland region of south-central France,

bounded by the lowlands of Aquitaine...

Massif Central.

Correct. APPLAUSE

You get a set of bonuses on the Baltic Sea, Peterhouse.

Slightly larger than the total area of the Outer Hebrides,

what is the largest island in the Baltic Sea?

Around 80km east of mainland Sweden,

it has its administrative centre at Visby.

Gotland.

Gotland is correct.

Secondly, the town of Bergen and the port of Sassnitz

are situated on which island in the southern Baltic,

the largest island of Germany?

Where did the Goths come from?

-Um...

-I don't know.

-I can't remember. I'll know it, no doubt.

Pass.

It's Rugen or Rugia.

Part of the Muhu Archipelago, the island of Saaremaa

is the largest in the territory of which country?

I think it is the one at the very top. What's at the very top?

-Is it Latvia?

-Estonia.

-Estonia.

-Is it Estonia?

-Is a Estonia on the top? I think it's Estonia.

-Yeah.

-Estonia.

Estonia is correct.

We're going to take a music round now.

For your music starter question you're going to hear

a piece of classical music by a German-born composer.

Ten points if you can identify the composer.

FEMALE OPERATIC SINGING

Offenbach.

Correct. APPLAUSE

That piece from Offenbach's Tales Of Hoffmann is a barcarole -

a form based on the songs of Venetian gondoliers.

Your music bonuses are three more examples of classical barcaroles.

I simply want you to identify the composer of each.

Firstly, for five, this German composer.

CLASSICAL PIANO MUSIC PLAYS

Schumann possibly. It's a piano piece.

-Schumann?

-Let's go with Schumann.

-Schumann.

No, that's by Mendelssohn, the Gondolier's Song.

Secondly, this French composer.

CLASSICAL PIANO MUSIC PLAYS

-Possibly Faure.

-Faure.

-It's not Chopin.

-Is it definitely not Chopin?

-I don't think so.

-It doesn't sound... Faure?

-Faure.

Faure.

It is Faure, yes. His Barcarole No.4 In A Flat Major.

And finally, this Central European composer.

PIANO MUSIC PLAYS

Dvorak?

Yeah, it's possible.

Yeah, probably Dvorak.

Dvorak.

No, it's Chopin.

Right, ten points for this.

Which novel of 1886 includes Michael Henchard and Donald Farfrae

among its characters?

The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on artistic techniques, St John's.

What term of French origin is used for the technique of inlaying

individual pieces of enamel or other decorative material

in a pattern separated by fine metal wires or strips?

-Veneer could be French origin.

-Yeah.

Veneer.

No, it's cloisonne.

Name after an Anglo-Saxon king of the ninth century,

which item of jewellery in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum

is one of the earliest examples of intricate cloisonne work,

consisting of enamel and quartz secured in a gold frame?

Alfred.

The Alfred Jewel is right.

Cloisonnism -

a style of painting based on the appearance of cloisonne -

is particularly associated with which French artist

in works of the 1880s, such as

The Vision After The Sermon and Yellow Christ?

-Gauguin.

-Yes.

-Gauguin.

Correct. That gives you the lead.

With another ten points at stake, all of you on this starter question.

In mathematics, Apery's theorem

has searched the irrationality of the Riemann zeta function

when evaluated at which integer argument?

One.

Anyone like to buzz?

Pi.

No, it's three. Ten points for this. Listen carefully,

giving two answers in French or English.

From 1364 to 1793, Charles and Louis were two of the four regnal names

born by French kings.

What were the other two?

Francis and Henry.

Correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

You retake the lead and the bonuses

this time are on biology, Peterhouse.

All three answers begin with the same Greek prefix.

Firstly, what name is given to the final period of mitosis,

the reconstruction of the nuclei which follows the anaphase?

-Telophase.

-Telo?

-Yes, telophase.

-Telophase.

Correct.

Meaning end germ or bud, what term denotes a large cell

that produces lines of smaller cells at the growing end of embryos

in segmented animals?

It's not cholemia. What was...?

-Telo something.

-I don't know any other telo words.

-Telosome?

Yeah, or telocyte.

Telosome might be better if you think you've heard of it.

-Shall I try it?

-I think telocyte

might be a bit simple just because... Cyte just means cell.

Telosome.

No, it's teloblast.

And finally, what name is given to the compound structure

found at the end of a chromosome in eukaryotes?

Telomere.

Correct. Another starter question now and it's going to be

a picture one.

For your picture starter you're going to see a painting.

For ten points, I want the name of

the artist and the subject depicted.

The Martyrdom Of Saint Sebastian and El Greco.

That is correct, yes.

Your picture bonuses are three more depictions

of the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, all by Italian artists.

For five points each, I want the name of the artist.

-Firstly, whose this by?

-Hmm.

It's High Renaissance so possibly Raphael.

-Yeah.

-Yeah?

-Go Raphael.

Raphael.

No, that's by Titian. Secondly.

-It looks like Caravaggio.

-Yeah.

-It may not be but, yeah.

-Caravaggio.

No, that's by Guido Reni. And finally...

I'd go for Botticelli.

It's certainly...

It's Botticelli or Leonardo.

No, I think it's Botticelli.

-Botticelli, OK.

-One of those two.

-Shall we go...?

-Botticelli.

It is Botticelli, yes.

Right, level pegging. Ten points for this.

Giving views across to Wales, Blackdown is the highest point

in which range of limestone hills?

They lie close to the cathedral city of Wells and include caves,

such as those at Wookey Hole.

Wenlock. Wenlock Hills.

Anyone like to buzz from St John's? Quickly.

The Cotswolds.

No, they're the Mendips. Ten points for this.

What mammal did Ted Hughes describe as, "Four-legged yet

"water-gifted to outfish fish, with webbed feet and long..."

Otter.

Correct. APPLAUSE

You retake the lead and your bonuses are on the 18th-century engineer

James Brindley.

Firstly for five, from the late 1750s,

Brindley played a prominent part in the construction of which canal?

It links coal mines at Worsley with Manchester and Salford

and its named after the duke who commissioned it.

The Bridgwater Canal.

Correct. Brindley designed the Harecastle Tunnel

at Kidsgrove in Staffordshire.

More than 1.5 miles long,

it forms part of which canal, named after two major rivers?

Can we make an educated guess?

-In Staffordshire.

-Staffordshire, so...

I don't know any rivers in Staffordshire.

-The Tyne.

-The Tyne?

-I don't know where the Tyne is.

-I don't know, just pass.

-Pass.

That's the Trent and Mersey Canal.

And finally, a museum dedicated to Brindley's life and work is in

which North Staffordshire town, where he worked as a millwright?

It's now sometimes known as the Queen of the Moorlands.

Places in Staffordshire.

-Bodmin?

-I'll just guess something.

Leek.

Leek is correct. About four and a quarter minutes to go

and ten points at stake for this.

"Something went wrong in the lab today. Very wrong."

That is the tag line of which 1986 film by David...

The Fly.

The Fly is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

You get a set of bonuses on British rodents, Peterhouse.

What short word follows common, field and bank

in the popular names of small rodents of the genera Microtus

and Myodes?

-I thing that is vole.

-Vole.

Correct.

Often depicted with its prehensile tail wrapped around an ear of grain,

Britain's smallest rodent, Micromys minutus,

has what common two-word name?

Harvest mouse. I think so. Harvest mouse.

Correct. The common or hazel is the only British member

of the family Gliridae.

By what eight-letter name is it known?

Wait a minute, is it spelt...?

-Oh, yes, sorry, dormouse.

-Dormouse.

Correct. Ten points for this.

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape,

"than one innocent suffer."

Who wrote those words in the 1765 work,

Commentaries On The Laws Of England?

Blackstone.

Correct. APPLAUSE

Your bonuses on European languages, St John's.

I need you to spell the answer in each case.

What is the past participle of the French verb boire, meaning to drink?

-BU.

-B-U.

Correct.

What is the past participle

of the German verb essen, meaning to eat?

Gegessen. G-E-G-E-S-S-E-N.

Correct.

Finally, what is the past participle

of the Spanish verb dormir, meaning to sleep?

Dormo, I think. D-O-R-M-O, I think.

OK, D-O-R-M-O.

No, it's D-O-R-M-I-D-O. Dormido.

Right, ten points for this.

What three-letter prefix begins

words meaning a clever, pithy saying,

an inscription on a tomb and a...

Epi.

Epi is correct.

These bonuses are on vector calculus, St John's.

Which vector operator is obtained

as the dot product of the del operator with a vector field?

-Any idea?

-Um...

-Di...di...Divergence.

-Nominate Sowood.

-Divergence.

Divergence.

Correct. Which vector operator is obtained as the cross product of

the del operator with a vector field?

-That's curl.

-Nominate Sowood.

-Curl.

Correct.

Represented by the symbol del squared, which operator is...

-Laplacian.

-Nominate Sowood.

-Laplacian.

Correct. That gets us level pegging. Ten points for this.

A research institution serving the University of Wisconsin

gives its name to which anticoagulant drug,

originally introduced as a pesticide?

Warfarin.

Correct. Your bonuses this time are on a Christian sacrament.

From the Greek for thanksgiving,

what term denotes the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,

-also known as the Communion?

-Eucharist.

Correct. Meaning remembrance,

what literary term denotes the recollection of things past and also

refers to the part of the Eucharist that recalls Christ's sacrifice?

-I don't know.

-It's not Communion.

-Commemoration.

Come on, let's have it, please.

Commemoration.

No, it's anamnesis.

And finally, in Roman Catholic doctrine, what name is given

to the conversion of the bread and wine in the Eucharist

into Christ's body and blood?

Transubstantiation.

Correct. Ten points for this.

Emi Koussi in the Tibesti Mountains

is the highest point in which desert?

Its lowest point is in the

Qattara Depression in north-western Egypt.

Sahara.

Correct. You get a set of bonuses, this time on an historical figure.

Count Palatinate of the Rhine and the Duke of Cumberland

were two of the titles of a royalist commander during the Civil Wars.

-By what name is he better known?

-Prince Rupert.

Correct. After the Restoration, Rupert became the first governor

of which North American commercial entity?

Still in existence, it's known by the initials HBC.

The Hudson's Bay Company.

Correct. 100km from the border with Alaska, Prince Rupert is a port

and railway terminus in which Canadian province?

-Alaska, so Columbia?

-Come on.

-British Columbia.

Correct. Ten points for this.

GONG Sometimes paranoia...

And at the gong, St John's College, Oxford have 150.

Peterhouse, though, have 195.

APPLAUSE

Well, St John's, you're going to have to go through all this again

if you're going to get to the semifinals.

You need to win, remember, two. You've won one, now you've lost one

but it was a very close match.

Thank you very much for playing. We look forward to seeing you again.

Peterhouse, many congratulations to you.

You like living a bit dangerously

but you're through to the semifinals. Congratulations to you.

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

but until then it's goodbye from St John's College, Oxford.

-ALL:

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye from Peterhouse, Cambridge. ALL:

-Goodbye.

It's goodbye from me. Goodbye.