Episode 17 University Challenge

Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.

APPLAUSE

Hello. 28 teams qualified to compete in this series, ten of them

lasted no longer than mayflies.

But another two who also lost their first-round matches

survived by winning the losers' playoffs, and they join

the 14 winning teams in the second round, which starts tonight.

The winners of this match will take the first place

in the quarterfinals.

The losers will go home.

Strathclyde University had a somewhat diffident start to

their first-round match against Imperial College, London.

But they managed to win by 145 points to 125,

revealing on the way that they're good on prime numbers, the poetry of

John Donne, and mitochondria, and that they were paying rapt

attention during last year's European Football Championships.

Let's meet the Strathclyde team again.

Hello, my name's Ian Brown.

I'm from Oban in Argyll, and I'm training to be an English teacher.

Hi, I'm James Flannigan.

I'm originally from Glasgow, and I'm studying chemical engineering.

-And this is their captain.

-Hi, I'm Alistair Logan.

I'm from Motherwell in Lanarkshire, and I study mechanical engineering.

Hi, I'm Paul Dijkman. I'm from Port Glasgow, and I'm studying economics.

APPLAUSE

Emmanuel College, Cambridge beat St Hugh's College, Oxford

by 170 points to 155 in their first-round match.

Their strengths included classical music, rainbows,

Pyramus and Thisbe, and the domestic life of Socrates.

Let's meet them again.

Hi, I'm Ed Derby, I'm from Manchester, and I study physics.

Hello, I'm Kitty Chevallier.

I'm from Hampshire, and I'm reading Arabic and Hindi.

-And this is their captain.

-Hi, I'm Alex Mistlin.

I'm from Islington in North London, and I'm studying politics

and international relations.

Hi, I'm James Fraser. I'm from Bristol, and I'm reading medicine.

APPLAUSE

Usual rules, 10 points for starter questions, they're solo efforts

on the buzzer, and bonuses are worth 15, and they're team efforts.

Right, 10 points at stake for this, fingers on the buzzers,

your first starter.

Meanings of what five-letter word include

the singular of anatomical features that may be described as squamous,

a graded classification system, for example Glasgow Coma or Richter...?

-BUZZ

-Scale?

Scale is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

You get the first set of bonuses, then, Emmanuel.

They're on agricultural machinery.

Firstly for five points, its name derived from the Latin

for knife, a coulter is a component of what large implement?

-Combine harvester or something?

-Plough?

-Plough.

It's got blades, I don't know.

Plough?

Plough is correct, yes.

"Her fallow leas, the darnel, hemlock

"and rank fumitory doth root upon,

"while that the coulter rusts

"that should deracinate such savagery."

These words appear in which of Shakespeare's histories to

describe France in the grip of war?

-THEY CONFER

-Henry V?

Correct.

Referring to its blade-shaped bill, coulter-neb is a regional name

for which distinctive sea bird,

known binomially as Fratercula arctica?

-Puffin? Or like an...

-Albatross, maybe?

-Like a razorbill?

-Is that a thing?

-Arctic tern?

-It was a large thing, wasn't it?

-Do you want to go Arctic tern?

-No, just...

-If you want to go puffin...

-Puffin?

Correct.

APPLAUSE

Right, 10 points for this.

Mytiloida and Unionoida are respectively the marine

and the freshwater families of which bivalve mollusc?

The common... BELL RINGS

Oyster?

No, you lose five points.

The common edible marine species is cultivated commercially by a

variety of methods, including the French technique known as "bouchot".

BUZZ

Mussel?

Mussel is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

You get a set of bonuses on the philosopher Hannah Arendt.

Arendt's work was greatly influenced by which 20th-century German

philosopher's concept of phenomenology?

His works include Being And Time, first published in 1927.

Heidegger?

Heidegger is correct.

One of the main criticisms levelled against Arendt's work is her

reliance on a rigid distinction between the private

and the public spheres, or the oikos and the polis,

a delineation first made by which ancient Greek philosopher?

-Aristotle, yeah?

-If you say so.

-Aristotle?

Correct. Arendt used the phrase "the banality of evil" to characterise

the actions of which prominent Nazi, executed in Tel Aviv in 1962?

-Eichmann?

-Is it...? Oh, yeah, probably.

Eichmann?

Adolf Eichmann is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Another starter question now.

Which three initial letters link words meaning a lanthanide element

named after a village in Sweden,

an unsaturated hydrocarbon with the formula C10H16,

and the metric prefix that denotes 10 to the power 12?

BUZZ

T-E-R?

Correct.

APPLAUSE

Right, your bonuses are on astronomy this time, Emmanuel College.

What two-word term refers specifically to the

brightness of a celestial body, as it is seen by an observer on Earth?

It is often denoted by a lower case letter M.

-It's like apparent magnitude or something.

-Magnitude, could be.

-It's two-word, try apparent magnitude.

-Apparent magnitude?

That's correct.

The absolute magnitude of a star is equal to the value of its apparent

magnitude as viewed by an observer at a distance of how many parsecs?

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

-Could be, it could be. I don't know.

-One?

No, it's ten.

Magnitude is a logarithmic scale.

A star whose apparent magnitude is one

is how many times brighter than one whose apparent magnitude is six?

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

-Can I nominate you? Nominate Fraser.

-100,000?

No, it's 100 times as bright.

Another starter question. According to the historian AJP Taylor,

until which year could a sensible law-abiding Englishman pass

through life and hardly notice the existence of the state

beyond the post office and the...? BUZZ

1914?

1914 is correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses are on historical figures this time, Emmanuel College.

In each case, give the person from the description.

All three answers share the same first letter and the same

final letter, for example, Cameron, Callaghan and Clinton.

Firstly, one of the most radical voices of the French Revolution.

He was murdered in his bath in an event later

depicted in a work by Jacques-Louis David.

-Marat.

-Maret.

-Maret?

-Er...

Marat.

Yes, exactly.

Secondly, a 20th-century minister of war who gave his name to

a string of concrete fortifications

and obstacles along France's eastern borders.

-Maginot.

-Yes.

-Maginot?

Correct. Finally, a painter born in 1832,

noted for works including Olympia and Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe.

-Manet.

-Manet?

Manet is right.

We're going to take a picture round.

You're going to see a sequence of flags.

What in a sporting context does the sequence represent?

BUZZ

Is it the Six Nations?

Very odd Six Nations. No.

Come on, Strathclyde, one of you buzz.

You can't work it out?

I'll tell you, then - they're the nationalities of Premier League

winning managers, so we'll take the picture bonuses in a moment or two.

Another starter question in the meantime.

Which country opened the Centenario Stadium in its capital city

in July 1930 to commemorate the 100th anniversary

of the approval of its first constitution?

It hosted the first final of the Fifa...

BUZZ

Uruguay?

Uruguay is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

So, we follow that sequence of flags with more flag sequences,

each representing the nationalities of recent winners of specific

individual sporting competitions.

Five points for each competition you can identify. Firstly...

Formula 1?

Like, Vettel, Hamilton, and then Rosberg?

Formula 1 World Champion?

The Drivers' Championship, yes.

Secondly, what's this?

Is that Northern Ireland?

-It's golf.

-Golf, I think.

-The Open or the Masters, I reckon.

No, no, it's not the Masters. The Open? Say the Open?

Winner of the Open golfing?

Indeed it is, it's the Open Golf Championship. And finally...

-What's that...?

-Is it Wimbledon? Wimbledon?

Yeah, Wimbledon.

Wimbledon. Er, Men's Singles Champion.

That's correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

Right, 10 points for this. Identify the poet who wrote these lines.

The mountains look on Marathon - and Marathon looks on the sea

And musing there an hour alone

I dreamed that Greece might yet be free.

-BELL RINGS

-Byron?

Byron is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

You get a set of bonuses, Strathclyde, on a peninsula.

Firstly, about 15 miles long, which peninsula is situated between

two estuaries in the north-west of the historical county of Cheshire?

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

Er, the Wirral?

The Wirral is right.

Secondly, which eponymous figure of a 14th-century poem travels to

"the wilds of the Wirral, whose wayward people

"both God and good men have quite given up on"?

These lines appear in Simon Armitage's

translation from Middle English.

I think it's either Piers Plowman or, er...

Yeah, I think it's...

Er, Piers Plowman?

No, it's Sir Gawain, as in him and the Green Knight.

And born on the Wirral, finally, in 1961,

Steven Hough is a leading classical performer on which instrument?

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

The violin?

No, he's a pianist.

Ten points for this.

In a paper of 1965, the German zoologists Friedrich Merkel

and Wolfgang Wiltschko demonstrated that the European robin

could be manipulated into changing its migratory orientation

by being exposed under experimental conditions to what?

BELL RINGS

A magnetic field?

That's correct.

APPLAUSE

Your bonuses this time, Strathclyde, are on physics.

In a synchotron particle accelerator, such as the Lawrence

Berkeley Laboratory's 1954 Bevatron,

what geometrical figure approximates the path that particles follow?

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

A figure of eight?

No, it's a circle.

And what path do particles follow in a cyclotron accelerator,

invented by the US physicist Ernest Lawrence?

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

Is that a figure of eight?

No, that's a spiral.

Finally, what geometrical figure do particles trace out in a linac?

Probably the straight line.

Linear.

THEY CONFER QUIETLY

-Geometric shapes.

-A line? A straight line?

A straight line is correct, yes.

APPLAUSE

OK, ten points for this, I need a two-word answer.

According to Carl Friedrich Gauss,

mathematics is the queen of the sciences.

What did he say was the queen of mathematics?

BELL RINGS

Er, sorry, I don't know.

Anyone like to buzz from Emmanuel College?

-BUZZ

-Number theory?

Number theory's right, yes.

APPLAUSE

You get three questions on diseases and their symptoms, Emmanuel.

An abnormal grin caused by facial spasms, Risus sardonicus is

a sign of which acute bacterial disease also known as lockjaw?

Is it tetanus?

-Oh, yeah.

-Tetanus?

Tetanus is right.

Appearing inside the mouth,

Koplik spots indicate what infectious viral disease?

A dose of the MMR vaccine is more than 90% effective in preventing it.

-What did that stop? Was it measles, mumps or rubella?

-Rubella, yeah.

Which one, is rubella the virus?

I should know this.

-But it might not even be...

-Is it measles?

-Measles might be it.

-I don't know.

-Just go measles.

-Measles?

Measles is right.

TOFI are crystalline deposits under the skin characteristic of

what disease caused by the deposition of uric acid salts?

-Gout?

-Yeah, I think so.

-Gout.

Gout is right.

We're going to take a music round now.

For your music starter you'll hear

a piece of classical music by a German composer.

Ten points if you can identify the composer.

SWIRLING ELECTRONIC SOUNDS

BUZZ

Stockhausen?

Stockhausen is right, yes.

APPLAUSE

He was criticised by the British composer and communist activist

Cornelius Cardew in the 1974 book, Stockhausen Serves Imperialism.

For your music bonuses, works by three more composers reviewed

unfavourably by Cardew in that book. Five points for each you can name.

Firstly, which composer wrote this?

Cardew stated that virtually everything

written and said about him and his music is

"extremely boring and irrelevant to the present time."

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

Bernstein?

No, that's Richard Wagner's Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin.

Secondly, name this French composer.

He's accused by Cardew of converting his fragmented material

"into a semblance of musical form,

"just as a mass of string can be shaped into the

"semblance of a human being."

PIANO AND FLUTE

THEY CONFER

Messiaen?

No, it was Pierre Boulez. And finally, identify this composer.

In Cardew's opinion, his music was

"abstract, authoritarian, definitely elitist,

"uncompromisingly bourgeois and anti-people."

PIANO MUSIC PLAYS

THEY CONFER

Berg?

No, that's Schoenberg.

Ten points for this.

What first name links the inventor in 1884 of the compound steam

turbine, the Scottish chemist who gave his surname to

a waterproof garment, and the English...?

BUZZ

Macintosh?

No, you lose five points.

And the English mathematician who developed the difference engine.

-BELL RINGS

-Rankine?

No, it's Charles. Parsons, Macintosh and Babbage.

So, 10 points at stake for this starter question.

Which of Shakespeare's plays includes the song that begins,

"Take, oh take those lips away, that so sweetly were foresworn"?

Its title alludes to a line found in St Matthew's version of

Christ's Sermon on the Mount.

BELL RINGS

Measure For Measure.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

Right, these bonuses are on cities in California, Strathclyde.

Built on the site of the Mexican settlement of Yerba Buena,

which city is named after a saint who was born in central

Italy in around 1181?

San Francisco?

Correct.

The first capital of the state of California,

which city is named after the saint who is variously

described as the son of Heli in St Luke's Gospel,

and as the son of Jacob in St Matthew's Gospel?

San...Diego?

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-San Diego?

No, it's San Jose.

And finally, which city in Orange County, California,

derives its two-word name from the saint named in the apocryphal

first Gospel of James as the mother of the Virgin Mary?

Santa Ana.

-Sure?

-Yes.

-Santa Ana?

Santa Ana is correct, yes.

10 points for this.

The People's Crusade, led by Peter the Hermit,

was an impatient vanguard of which specific expedition,

proclaimed at the Council of Clermont by Pope Urban...?

-BELL RINGS

-The First Crusade.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

Strathclyde, these bonuses are on calculus.

In calculus, what term is used for the rate of change of one

variable compared to another?

-Differential.

-Differential?

No, it's derivative.

Differentiation is the process of finding

the derivative of a function.

What is the reverse process called?

-Integrating.

-Integration?

Correct. Calculus always uses which unit of plain angle measurement?

This makes it possible to relate a linear measure and an angle measure?

The radian?

Correct. 10 points for this.

Does the set of all those sets that do not contain themselves

contain itself?

This is a formulation of a paradox

or antinomy named after which English philosopher...?

-BUZZ

-Bertrand Russell.

Correct.

APPLAUSE

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

With a combined area somewhat smaller than that of Scotland,

which two neighbouring countries have the highest population

density in sub-Saharan Africa?

THEY CONFER

Small countries...

-Togo, or...?

-Do you reckon?

-Equatorial Guinea...

-Are they next to each other?

Yeah, they are. But which one?

Come on.

Equatorial Guinea and Gabon?

No, it's Rwanda and Burundi.

Secondly, what cash crop is the main agricultural export of both

Rwanda and Burundi?

THEY CONFER

Cassava?

Cassava?

No, it's coffee.

Rwanda and Burundi both gained independence on the same day.

Give the decade and the colonial power that granted independence.

Britain...

I thought Britain might have done.

'50s, '60s?

'60s, '70s? '60s?

THEY CONFER

Maybe France... What do you think?

France, '60s? Don't know.

France, 1960s?

No, it was Belgium in the 1960s,

so you don't get the points. We're going to take another

picture round. For your picture starter, you're going to see

a painting of a person playing a musical instrument

popular in the Renaissance and early Baroque period.

For 10 points, simply give me the name of the instrument

they are playing, as mentioned in the painting's title.

Clavichord?

No, anyone want to buzz from Emmanuel?

Harpsichord?

No, it's a virginal.

It's Young Woman Seated At A Virginal, by Vermeer.

So, picture bonuses in a moment or two,

we're going to take another starter question in the meantime.

10 points for this.

During the mid-fifth century BC, Kallikrates and Iktinos

were the architects of which prominent Doric temple?

Um, the, um, Parthenon?

That is correct, yes.

OK, you'll recall a moment ago,

we saw a virginal in the painting of Vermeer, it's one of many

instruments that might be played in early music ensembles.

Your music bonuses are three more images of musical instruments,

this time popular in the Renaissance era and earlier.

Five points for each you can name.

Firstly, what's this?

THEY CONFER

Nominate Brown.

A drone?

A drone?! LAUGHTER

No, it's a hurdy-gurdy. Sounds a bit drone-like!

Secondly, what's this?

Any ideas?

THEY CONFER

Is it a...

a curved flute?

Er, well, in a manner of speaking,

I suppose it is, but that's not what I wanted.

No, it's a crumhorn.

And finally...

THEY CONFER

-No idea?

-No, nothing.

Pass.

That's a dulcimer.

Right, 10 points for this.

Which Whig Prime Minister

did David Starkey describe as "charming, worldly wise

"and with the faint whiff of the danger of an ex-roue -

"he was the perfect mentor for the inexperienced young Queen"?

Disraeli.

No.

One of you buzz, Emmanuel?

Palmerston.

No, it's Melbourne, who was Prime Minister

when she acceded to the throne.

OK, we'll take another starter question.

What is the correct botanical term for the pips on the outside

of the swollen receptacle of a strawberry plant?

They are achenes.

10 points for this.

The Minch and the Little Minch are bodies of water that separate...

Skye and the Outer Hebrides.

Yes, it's the Outer Hebrides and the Western Isles.

So, you get a set of bonuses, Strathclyde, on questions in poetry.

In each case, identify the poet who wrote the following.

First - "Shall I part my hair behind?

"Do I dare to eat a peach?"

THEY CONFER

Emily Dickinson?

No, that's TS Eliot in The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.

"Was he free, was he happy? The question is absurd.

"Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard."

THEY CONFER

Edward Lear?

No, that's Auden, The Unknown Citizen.

And finally - "In what distant deeps or skies

"Burnt the fire of thine eyes?"

Browning?

No, that's William Blake,

in The Tyger. Three minutes to go, 10 points for this.

Which Mediterranean country

is the world's largest producer of apricots,

ahead of Algeria, Uzbekistan and Iran?

It shares a border with the latter country.

Turkey.

Turkey is correct, yes.

You're going to be pleased - you've got bonuses on kings of Scotland.

Described as "a masterful ruler who consolidated his power

"throughout the kingdom", which king

died at the siege of Roxburgh in 1460?

James the...

..the fourth?

Was it the fourth? James IV? I don't know.

Go for the fourth.

James IV.

No, it was James II.

Described as having established "the first strong monarchy

"the Scots had known in nearly a century",

which king was assassinated by a group of conspirators in 1437?

THEY CONFER

James I.

That was James I, yes.

Described as having "aspired to the ideal of the Renaissance prince",

which king died at the Battle of Flodden in Northumberland in 1513?

-That was James IV.

-James IV.

Correct.

10 points for this.

"It was love at first sight."

These words begin which 1961 novel,

the object of the love being the chaplain and the lover in...

Catch-22.

Catch-22 is right.

Right, your bonuses this time, Emmanuel College,

are on overland explorers. In each case,

give the two surnames that match the following given names.

Firstly, Robert O'Hara and William John, both of whom died

while attempting a North-South crossing of Australia in 1861.

-Do they want one surname?

-It was two surnames, wasn't it?

Smith and Brown?

I just don't know.

Smith and Brown.

No, it's Burke and Wills.

Secondly, John Hanning and James Augustus,

who explored the source of the Nile in the early 1860s.

I did this the other day!

Um...

Pass.

That was Speke and Grant.

And finally, Meriwether and William,

who led an expedition to explore the lands west of the Mississippi

from 1804 to 1806.

-Um, Lewis and...

-Lewis and Clark?

Yes. Lewis and Clark.

Correct. 10 points for this.

In chemistry, Nessler's reagent

is used in the analysis of water to detect the presence

of what soluble gas?

I'll tell you...

Carbon dioxide.

No, anyone want to buzz from Emmanuel, quickly?

Sulphur dioxide?

No, it's ammonia.

GONG 10 points for this...

And at the gong,

Strathclyde have 105,

Emmanuel College, Cambridge have 170.

Well, you started badly, Strathclyde,

then you started coming back, then you faded a bit.

I don't quite know what happened there,

maybe you were just unlucky with the way the questions fell.

Emmanuel College, congratulations,

we look forward to seeing you in the quarterfinals, well done.

I hope you can join us next time for another second-round match,

but until then, it's goodbye from Strathclyde University...

-ALL:

-Bye-bye.

..it's goodbye from Emmanuel College, Cambridge...

-ALL:

-Goodbye.

..and it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.