Episode 32 University Challenge

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

APPLAUSE

Hello. So far, Peterhouse Cambridge and Liverpool University have

taken the first two places in the semifinal stage of this competition.

Both teams playing tonight still have some work to do to get there,

because they both lost their first quarterfinal match.

That means the winners will earn themselves one last chance to

qualify, but for the losers tonight, it's curtains.

The team from Nuffield College Oxford won their first-round

match against Queen Mary London,

and their second fixture against the University of Warwick.

Their first quarterfinal match, however,

saw them trip up against Imperial College London,

so tonight is an opportunity to redeem themselves.

They're here with an accumulated score of 410.

Let's meet them again.

Hello, I'm Spencer Smith, I'm from Holland, Michigan,

and I study economics.

Hello, my name is Alexander Gard-Murray,

I'm from Los Angeles, California, and I study politics.

And this is their captain.

Hello, my name is Mathias Ormestad Frendem, I'm from Oslo in Norway,

and I'm studying international relations.

Hi, I'm Daniel Kaliski, I'm from Cape Town, South Africa,

and I'm studying economics.

APPLAUSE

The team from Newcastle University beat the universities of Kent

and Glasgow in rounds one and two,

but their first quarterfinal saw them lose to Liverpool University.

So for them, too, this is an opportunity to pull their socks up

and show us what they're made of.

Their accumulated score is 485.

Let's meet them again.

Hello, I'm Alexander Kirkman, I'm from Guildford in Surrey,

and I'm studying biomedical sciences.

Hi, I'm Nick Smith, I'm originally from Chorley in Lancashire,

and I'm studying medicine.

And this is their captain.

Hello, I'm Tony Richardson, originally from County Durham,

studying for a Masters in international politics.

Hi, I'm Kate Bennett, I'm from Chichester,

and I'm studying for an MA in film theory and practice.

APPLAUSE

OK, on we go.

Fingers on the buzzers, here's your first starter for ten.

Spell the three-letter word whose meanings include, in French,

a member of the crow family, known binomially as pica pica,

in Spanish, the part of the leg below the ankle joint,

and in English...

-P-I-E.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

You get the first set of bonuses - they're on words that begin with the

same Latin prefix. In each case give the word from the definition.

Firstly, a term used by historians for the period of US history between

the ratification of the constitution and the start of the Civil War.

-Antebellum.

-Correct.

Specifically, anything before the events described in chapter six

of the book of Genesis, and, more generally,

and often in a derogatory sense,

something hopelessly ancient or primitive.

-Antediluvian.

-Correct.

What word might refer to the syllable

"lu" in the word antediluvian?

Or the 10th chapter of a 12-chapter book?

Antepenultimate?

-Antepenultimate?

-Correct.

Ten points for this.

In which Latin American country is Canaima National Park,

around the size of Belgium?

Brazil?

No, I'm afraid you lose five points.

The park contains many high, steep-sided plateaus, called tepuis,

one of which is the site of the Angel Falls.

-Venezuela.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on the human body, Newcastle.

Unguis is an alternate name for which keratinous, translucent

structures that consist of highly specialised epithelial cells?

Nails, is it? Fingernails and toenails.

-Nails? Fingernails, toenails?

-Correct.

What six-letter name is given to the whitish crescent-moon shaped

part of the nail which is not attached to the underlying nail bed?

-Cuticle.

-No, cuticle's seven letters.

-Lunula?

-Correct.

And finally, a diminutive for the Latin for skin, what term is

used for the dead skin at the base of a fingernail or toenail?

Cuticle.

-Cuticle.

-Correct.

Ten points for this.

What letter of the Roman alphabet designates the coolest class

of star, with photospheric temperatures below around 600 Kelvin,

including some examples cooler than the temperature of the human body?

The same letter stands for the SI prefix

for a factor of ten to the 24.

V?

Newcastle?

-M?

-No, it's Y.

Ten points for this.

What is the popular name of the Cathedral of the Virgin

of the Intercession on the Moat, built on the chief

marketplace of Moscow on the orders of Ivan the Terrible

to commemorate the capture of...

-St Basil's?

-St Basil's is correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on place names, Newcastle.

Bringing an end to the 30 Years' War,

the Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648 in Osnabruck,

and which other city in northwest Germany?

It had been the site of the execution of John of Leiden in 1536.

Northwest Germany.

Northwest Germany, we've got Aachen, Cologne, Bremen...

-Bremen?

-Bremen.

-Bremen?

-No, it was Munster.

The Irish province of Munster consists of six historic

counties - Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford are three.

Please name two of the others.

Cork and Kerry.

-Cork and Kerry.

-Correct, the other one is Clare.

And finally, the town of Munster in the Alsace region of France

is particular noted for the production of what foodstuff?

Munster...

-Could be quiche.

-Cheese?

-Yeah.

-Go for it.

Quiche?

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

Give both answers promptly if you buzz for this.

The names of which two forms of mathematical curve are

etymologically related to two rhetorical terms

for exaggeration and omission?

The two curves...

Hyperbole... Hyperbola and parabola.

No. You lose five points.

Exaggeration and omission.

The two curves characterise orbital paths in Newtonian mechanics.

I'll tell you, it's hyperbola and ellipse.

Ten points for this.

One of the most acclaimed sculptors working in Britain

in the 16th century,

Pietro Torrigiano was well-known in his native Italy for an incident

at art school in which he broke the nose of which fellow student?

-Michelangelo?

-Yes!

APPLAUSE

Who knows where you could go after reaching zero? LAUGHTER

Well done. Bonuses now on United States history for you, Nuffield.

Which president oversaw the ratification

of the 15th Amendment in 1870?

This said that the right to vote shall not be

denied on account of race, colour or previous condition of servitude.

-Ulysses Grant.

-Correct.

The acts passed under Grant to protect African American

suffrage rights are often known by what name,

after the organisation they helped to suppress?

The Ku Klux Klan?

Klan Acts?

-It was the act he asked for, right?

-Yeah.

-The Ku Klux Klan Act?

-Correct.

Which campaigner for so-called public morals gave his name

to the 1873 act that criminalised the publication, distribution

and possession of information about contraception or unlawful abortion?

Do you know? Any guesses?

It's not Volstead, because that's probation.

Erm... No.

-Sorry, we don't know.

-It was Anthony Comstock.

We're going to take a picture round.

For your picture starter, you're going to see

the opening line of a 20th-century novel.

For ten points, I want the title of the novel and its author.

Albert Camus, The Stranger?

Correct, L'Etranger, yes.

APPLAUSE

There it is, "Mother died today."

So, for your picture bonuses,

extracts from the openings of three more novels in the original French.

Again, in each case, I want the name of the novel and its author.

You may give the titles in French or in English.

Firstly, for five, this 19th-century work and its author?

Is it, maybe...

Is it maybe Les Miserables by Victor Hugo?

Do you agree?

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

No, you're nearly there, it's Notre-Dame De Paris,

or The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo.

Secondly, this 20th-century work and its author?

Whatever happens...

-Is it The Nausea by Sartre, maybe?

-OK, sure.

That sounds fine.

The Nausea by Sartre.

La Nausee is correct, yes.

And finally, another 20th-century work and its author, please.

20th-century?

Good hour?

-So then, Proust?

-Proust?

-Remembrance Of Things Past?

-OK.

Proust, Remembrance Of Things Past.

Yes, A La Recherche de Temps Perdu. APPLAUSE

About as far as most people get, the opening sentence.

Right, ten points for this.

What name is given to the series of more than 200 medieval

poems discovered at the Bavarian monastery of Benediktbeuern

and published in a collection of 1847 by JA Schmeller?

24 of the poems were later set to music in a cantata by Carl Orff.

-Tales From Hoffmann.

-No.

-Carmina Burana?

-Yes.

APPLAUSE

You always look as if you're not really certain,

but actually you can't believe the question's so easy!

Right, 15 points for these bonuses.

They're on winners of the Royal Society's Copley Medal.

In each case, name the recipient of the medal from the words

taken from the citation.

Firstly, the German winner in 1929. Quote -

"For his contributions to theoretical physics,

"and especially as the originator of the quantum theory."

Planck, must be?

Einstein, but he was also...

Heisenberg wasn't around?

But he's not originator of quantum theory?

-I would maybe say Planck.

-OK, OK.

-Max Planck.

-Correct.

Secondly, the British winner in 1969 -

"In recognition of his distinguished studies of tissue transplantation

"and immunological tolerance."

I don't know.

-Oh, British?

-Yes.

Do you know who this is?

-Do you have any guesses?

-Johnson.

-Johnson.

-No, it was Sir Peter Medawar.

And finally, the American winner in 1993. Quote -

"In recognition of his tireless pursuit of DNA,

"from the elucidation of its structure, to the social

"and medical implications of the sequencing of the human genome."

So it's Watson and Crick. Who was the American one?

James Watson.

-James Watson.

-It was, yes.

Ten points for this.

A few treatises on botany are the only extant

works of the polymath Theophrastus.

He succeeded which Greek philosopher of the fourth century BC

as the head of the peripatetic school?

-Aristotle.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

15 points if you can get them on glaciology now.

Meaning "mountain cleft," what German term denotes the type of

crevasse that forms between the top of a glacier and the snowpack above?

-No, don't know.

-Don't know.

It's a bergschrund.

Originally the name of a cheese,

which French-derived term denotes towers of ice

formed on glaciers at the intersection of crevasses?

Towers of ice?

French cheese?

I'm at a bit of a loss on this one.

Name a French cheese.

Chaume?

It's a serac.

And finally, what French term is used to describe a natural

amphitheatre at the head of a valley formed by glacial action?

-Cirque?

-Correct.

Ten points for this.

What word of Persian origin is given to a collection of quatrains,

or verses of four lines, and appears in the title of a prominent

work of translation by Edward FitzGerald?

-Rubaiyat.

-Rubaiyat is right.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses, Newcastle, are on physical chemistry.

In physical chemistry,

what single-word term denotes the state function equal to the sum

of internal energy of a system,

and the product of its pressure and volume?

-Come on.

-Don't know.

-Density?

-No, it's enthalpy.

Named after a chemist born in Switzerland in 1802, what law states

that enthalpy change of a process is the same regardless of whether

the process occurs in a single step or in two or more sequential steps?

Gay-Lussac?

No, it is Hess' law.

And finally, what adjective is applied to a process that

occurs without heat entering or leaving the system?

If such a process takes place at constant pressure,

the enthalpy change is zero.

It's just closed.

He said adjective.

-Closed.

-No, it's adiabatic.

Right, we're going to take a music round now.

For your music starter, you'll hear an excerpt from a film score.

Ten points if you can give me both the title of the film for which it

was originally composed, and the name of the composer, please.

TENSE MUSIC

-Psycho, Bernard Herrmann.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

Bernard Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations

with Hitchcock, but for your music bonuses you're going to hear

excerpts from three of his scores for other directors.

In each case, I want the title of the film for which the music

was originally composed. Firstly, for five -

for a film released in 1941.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

-Henry V.

-No, it was Citizen Kane.

Secondly, for a film of 1962.

SINISTER MUSIC

-No, we don't have an answer.

-That's Cape Fear.

And finally, a film released in 1976.

SEEDY MUSIC

-Taxi Driver.

-Well done.

Right, ten points for this.

With mean radii of 11.2 and 6.2km,

which two irregular rocky objects were discovered...

Phobos and Deimos.

Yes.

APPLAUSE

You get another set of bonuses now on minor

characters in Shakespeare's plays, Newcastle.

Set mainly in a forest, which play features the shepherds

Corin and Silvius, the shepherdess Phoebe and the goatherd Audrey,

who is betrothed to a jester?

Midsummer Night's Dream?

-Could be Midsummer Night's Dream, yeah.

-No, no it's not.

As You Like It, is it?

-As You Like It.

-Possibly.

-As You Like It.

-Correct.

The clown Feste ends which play with a song which has the refrain,

"For the rain, it raineth every day"?

-No.

-No, it wouldn't be.

Twelfth Night? Something with a storm?

-The Tempest?

-No.

-Twelfth Night.

-Correct.

And finally, a foolish gentleman called Froth,

Mistress Overdone - described as a baud -

and Pompey, her clownish servant, appear in which play set in Vienna?

Measure For Measure. Go for it.

-Measure For Measure.

-Correct.

Ten points for this.

In Britain and Ireland, which decade saw the massacre of Glencoe,

the foundation of the Bank of England, the appointment...?

-1690s?

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

You get a set of bonuses, Nuffield, on Africa.

Firstly, named after the 19th-century German Chancellor

who succeeded Bismarck, the Caprivi Strip is a long,

narrow, eastward extension of which African country?

-Is Congo Zaire?

-Oh, he has.

-DRC?

-He said that.

-Namibia.

-Correct.

Britain seceded the Caprivi Strip to Germany in 1890 to

give the German colony access to which major river?

The Zambezi is on the other side.

Cos it's Zambia and Zimbabwe.

-The Zambezi?

-I think it is the most likely.

-Zambezi.

-It is the Zambezi, yes.

Britain agreed to secede the Caprivi Strip

and the island of Heligoland in exchange for Germany giving

up its interest in which island which is now part of Tanzania?

-It must be Zanzibar.

-Yes, Zanzibar.

-Zanzibar.

-Zanzibar is correct.

Ten points for this.

Sea lice, water fleas, tadpole shrimps, barnacles, crayfish,

lobsters and woodlice are all members of which subphylum

of the arthropods?

-Crustaceans.

-Correct.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on continuity in mathematics, Nuffield.

In mathematical analysis,

a real function of a real variable is continuous at a point a

if the limit f(x), as x tends to a, is equal to what?

f(a).

-f(a).

-Correct.

The Dirichlet Function is defined to equal one at rational

values of x, and is equal to zero at irrational values of x.

What is the set of x of which this function is continuous?

That's the empty set.

-The empty set.

-The empty set is correct.

And finally, in set theory, the word continuum refers to which

familiar set of numbers, and is so used to denote their cardinality?

The real numbers.

-The real numbers.

-The real numbers is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

Right, a picture round now.

For your picture starter, you're going to see

a photograph of a building in London.

Ten points if you can identify it.

The National Gallery.

No.

The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden?

It is the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, yes.

APPLAUSE

So for your picture bonuses, Newcastle, you're going to see

three more world-renowned opera venues.

In each case I want their names for five points each.

Firstly.

I'm thinking named ones, like La Scala.

It's not that, though, is it?

Let's have it, please.

-No, we don't know.

-That's the Bolshoi in Moscow.

Secondly.

Haven't got anything, sorry.

No, we don't have anything, sorry.

That's the Bayreuth Festival Theatre. And finally.

-La Scala.

-La Scala in Milan is correct.

Ten points for this.

In medicine, imaginary planes are used to divide what

part of the human body into nine regions, including the right...?

-Abdomen.

-Abdomen is right.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses, Newcastle, are on a painter.

In 1970, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art paid a then

world record of 5.5 million at auction for a portrait

of the painter Juan De Pareja, by which Spanish artist?

-Goya.

-Goya.

Picasso.

No, it's by Velazquez.

In a work popularly known as The Lances, Velazquez depicted

the Spanish takeover of which Dutch town on June the 5th, 1625?

I've seen pictures of this.

Utrecht.

Utrecht.

No, it was Breda. The Surrender Of Breda.

In a work in the Scottish National Gallery

painted by Velazquez at around the age of 19,

an old woman is cooking what?

I don't know, stew?

-Paella.

-LAUGHTER

Good guess, but... Actually, it's not a good guess,

it's a terrible guess. She's cooking eggs.

Ten points for this.

What five words complete these lines by the US poet Thomas McGrath?

"Stars shine clearest in darkest night, I summon..."

The words in question form the title of a prominent piece

of British public art.

-The Angel of the North?

-Yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on Quakers, Newcastle.

Which state of the US is named after an English Quaker who

founded a government there in the 1680s,

based on principles of religious tolerance?

-Pennsylvania.

-Correct.

Born in Norwich in 1780,

which Quaker was a minister in the Society Of Friends and became

one of the chief promoters of prison reform in Europe?

-Elizabeth Fry.

-Correct.

Which engraver and printer was involved in organising Quaker

peace congresses in Europe,

although is better known for the series of railway guides

he published in the 1840s?

-Bradshaw.

-Bradshaw is correct.

Four minutes to go, ten points for this.

To the nearest kilogram, how much water at boiling point

could be converted into steam using the amount of heat that

would warm one metric tonne of water by one Kelvin?

One.

-Ten.

-No, it's two.

Ten points for this.

In immunology, which structure on the surface of an antigen

is recognised by, and can bind to, a specific antibody?

-Epitope.

-Epitope is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

These bonuses are on sonnets, Newcastle.

Which poet's sonnet number 18 begins with the lines,

"I never gave a lock of hair away to a man, dearest

"Except this to thee."

They wouldn't start with Shakespeare?

Which poets wrote sonnets? Can you think of any?

Did any of the romantics write any sonnets?

-Shakespeare.

-No, it was Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

"With what sharp checks I, in myself, am shent

"When into Reason's audit I did go."

These lines begin sonnet number 18

in the Astrophil and Stella sequence by which poet?

-Coleridge.

-No, it's by Sir Philip Sidney.

And finally, Shakespeare's sonnet number 18 begins with what line?

I need the precise words.

Come on.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Correct!

APPLAUSE

Right, fewer than two minutes to go, and ten points at stake for this.

Which poet wrote the lines, "Water, water everywhere...?"

-Coleridge.

-Coleridge is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on battles, Nuffield.

The English victory over the Scots at Neville's Cross

near Durham took place a few weeks after which victory

over the French during the early part of the Hundred Years' War?

-Agincourt?

-No, that's the later part. So it's...

-Crecy?

-Yeah.

-Crecy.

-Crecy is correct.

Which future King of England defeated a force under

Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke,

at the Battle of Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire?

-I think that's Henry V.

-OK.

-Henry V?

-No, it was Edward IV.

And finally, the Battle of Cross Keys took place during which war?

It was part of a series of actions known as Jackson's Valley campaign.

The French and Indian War?

French and Indian Wars?

No, it's the American Civil War, it was Stonewall Jackson.

Ten points for this.

Name any one of the kings who were on the English

throne during the reign of William the Lion of Scotland.

Edward III.

No, anyone like to buzz from Nuffield?

Henry III.

No, Henry II, Richard I would have done.

Or John, indeed.

Ten points for this.

What short word denotes a topological

entity of which the trefoil is this simplest nontrivial example?

It also indicates a unit of speed.

Fractal.

No.

-Knot.

-Knot is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on...

GONG

And at the gong, Nuffield College Oxford have 115, Newcastle have 205.

APPLAUSE

Well, Nuffield, I'm afraid we're going to be saying goodbye to you.

It's been a pleasure having you with us.

You have certainly been the most international team in this year's competition.

Thank you for playing with us.

And, Newcastle, congratulations, you get to have one more try to see

if you can get through to the semifinals, having won tonight.

You need two victories. So good luck to you.

And thank you for playing tonight.

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

-but, until then, it's goodbye from Nuffield College Oxford.

-Goodbye.

-And it's goodbye from Newcastle University.

-Goodbye.

And it's goodbye from me, goodbye.

APPLAUSE