BOB 2007
Brown/Maryland(Charles Meigs, Eric Mukherjee, Jerry Vinokurov, Jonathan Magin)
Edited by Andrew Uzzell
Tossups:
1. A dispute in one sect of this faith involves the disputation of a crown located in Rumthek. Hemis Gompa Mela is a local festival for this faith near Leh. The Russian city of Ivolginsk is home to a major center of this faith and the Putuozongshen in northeastern China is reminiscent of a more famous building. One important influencer of this faith, Atisha, traveled to Sumatra, and a man who founded another sect in this faith wrote “The Great Gradual Path.” Most American adherents ascribe to a sect to whom “The Jewel Ornament of Liberation” of Milaraspa is important, the Kagyupa. The least common is the Saskyapa and the most common is the Gelugspa, whose leader sits in exile in Dharmsala, India. FTP, name this type of Buddhism which includes the Black Hat, Red Hat, and Yellow Hat sects.
ANSWER: Tibetan Buddhism (prompt on Buddhism; accept Lamaism; accept Black Hat or Kagyupa before the end of the first sentence)
2. After one defeat, this ruler crossed to his capital from the city of Hieria on a ship whose deck was covered with foliage and sand due to his hydrophobia. He destroyed a temple at Ganzak, and his brother Theodore defeated Shahin after the general Sharbaraz was forced to retreat. After this man’s occupation of Dastagerd, Kavadh-Siroe’s son became this ruler’s ward, and later in life declared his sons Heraclonas and Constantine co-heirs to the throne. Originally supported by Cyrus, patriarch of Egypt, the Ecthesis, drafted by the patriarch Sergius, affirmed this monarch’s belief in monothelitism. He successfully beat off an Avar siege of Constantinople and stopped emperor Chosroes II at the Battle of Nineveh. However, his reign saw the rise of Islam, and his forces were defeated by the Arabs at the Battle of Yarmouk. FTP, name this Byzantine Emperor who ruled from 610-641.
ANSWER: Heraclius
3. This state’s colonization is described in George Bryce’s “The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists” after settlers were forced to winter at Pembina after the “grasshopper scourge.” Elwyn B. Robinson wrote a history of this state, and the Fort Berthold Reservation in this state is home to Indian tribes sometimes linked to the 12th century Welsh traveler Prince Madoc. Wild Bill Langer of this state declared its secession after he was convicted of fraud. The “Enchanted Highway” begins at this state’s CannonballRiver, and the “MagicCity” lies on the SourisRiver here. This state is home to DevilsLake and Lake Sakakawea, and important cities include Rugby, Dickinson, and Williston. FTP, name this state home to Grand Forks and Fargo.
ANSWER: North Dakota
4. Carl Herrera was the only NBA player in history to be born in this country, and this country’s national hockey team was routed 9-2 by the American national team coached by Gordon Bombay. Notable cricket players from this country include Daren Ganga and Dwayne Bravo, who play on a team captained by Ramnaresh Sarwan. Its soccer team, nicknamed the Soca Warriors, and its highest finish in the Gold Cup was a 2000 semifinals loss to Canada. Notable players for this side have included Stern John and Dwight Yorke, and they held Sweden to a draw in their only World Cup appearance, gained after defeating Bahrain in a qualifier. FTP, name this Caribbean nation, which qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 2006.
ANSWER: Trinidad & Tobago
5. In one work in this collection, a homosexual officer attempts to seduce his subordinate, Pinin. In addition to “A Simple Enquiry,” this collection contains a work about Manuel Garcia, recently released from the hospital, who engages in a clandestine contest, only to be injured again, and it also includes the story of the boxing match between Walcott and Jack Brennan, in which Brennan bets the titular sum on himself to lose. The American and Jig are drinking Anis del Toro when Jig mentions the titular resemblance that lends its name to another story in this collection, about a woman who is thinking about whether to have an abortion. Containing such works as “The Undefeated,” “Fifty Grand,” “Hills Like White Elephants,” and a story about the murder of Ole Anderson, “The Killers,” for ten points, identify this collection of stories by Ernest Hemingway, whose title refers to one group that lacks another.
Answer: Men Without Women
6. The generating function for them is one divided by the polynomial one minus x minus x squared, and Zeckendorf’s theorem states that every positive integer can be written as the sum of some unique sequence of them. One formula for them is named for Binet, while the Lucas numbers satisfy a similar recurrence relation. The ratio between two successive elements of this sequence approaches 1.618, a number known as the golden ratio. FTP, name this sequence discovered by an Italian mathematician in which each number is the sum of the previous two, and which begins 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, etc.
ANSWER: Fibonacci numbers or sequence
7. One essay by this name warns against the “coronation of King Average” and advises Latin American countries not to imitate the utilitarianism of the United States. That essay uses the title character to represent “the spirituality of civilization,” and was written by Jose Enrique Rodó. A poetry collection with this name begins with “Morning Song,” contains many poems about bees such as “Stings” and “The Bee Meeting,” and includes a poem whose speaker warns that she will rise “out of the ash” with her red hair and “eat men like air.” Another character of this name was imprisoned in a cloven pine for twelve years by Sycorax, and brings Ferdinand to meet Miranda. FTP, identify this word which names a poetry collection by Sylvia Plath and a spirit that serves Prospero in The Tempest.
ANSWER: Ariel
8. In the ongoing “Messiah Complex” storyline, this character is currently in possession of a child hunted by the Marauders and the Purifiers. Previously, he created the airborne city of Providence from his old ship the Graymalkin, and struck up an odd partnership with the mercenary Deadpool. A clone of him named Stryfe was created by Nathaniel Essex, and the techno-organic virus that previously afflicted him necessitated his use of bionic limbs and the suppression of his psionic powers. Raised by the Clan Askani in a future timeline ruled by Apocalypse, FTP, name this on-and-off member of the X-men, the son of Cyclops and Jean Grey with real name Nathaniel Summers.
ANSWER: Cable or Nathan Christoper Charles Summers before mention or Askani’son
9. One algorithm for avoiding this situation is known as the banker's algorithm, and the Coffman conditions, including mutual exclusion and “no preemption,” give the four conditions necessary for it to occur. The converse of this condition is sometimes known as starvation, and a scenario sometimes used to illustrate this situation is known as the sleeping barber problem, supposedly formulated by the same man who invented the idea of semaphores to prevent this condition, Edgar Dijkstra. This condition can be detected by comparing the current allocation matrix with the request matrix, or through a cycle detection algorithm, and one may recover from this condition by killing one of the processes in the cycle. For ten points, identify this condition which occurs when multiple processes are waiting for an event that only another waiting process can cause.
Answer: deadlock
10. In one of his speeches, he claimed that he could understand communism but not socialism, and in another, given on Staten Island, paralleled the invasion of his nation with a potential march to Washington by Santa Anna. Although this man's first post in a provisional government was as Minister of Finance, his achievements during that brief time include the creation of the Honved. In response to this man's March 3 speech, the Pressburg Diet issued a set of so-called “March Laws,” which included a repeal of forced labor, after which this man led an uprising that began by killing Count Lamberg. This man's chief general, Arthur Gorgey, would eventually surrender to Windischgraetz, after which this man fled his native country, while many of his accomplices, such as Lajos Batthyany were executed. For ten points, identify this man who led an 1848 uprising against Hapsburg rule and was elected the first Governor of a temporarily independent Hungary.
Answer: Kossuth Lajos
11. This man attempted a refutation of Cartesian skepticism in several of his later works, including “Four Forms of Skepticism” and “Certainty,” though in the end he admitted that he could not be sure he wasn't dreaming. Much of that work built upon his earlier lecture, “A Proof of the External World,” and he expounded on his theories of sense-data in a collection of lectures published as Some Main Problems of Philosophy. This man asserted that we all intuitively know certain truths, such as those about our body, and separated mental from physical facts in his essay “A Defence of Common Sense,” and disputed Berkeley's “to be is to be perceived” in his “The Refutation of Idealism.” For ten points, identify this British philosopher who famously identified the naturalistic fallacy of defining “good” in his most famous work, Principia Ethica.
Answer: George Edward Moore
12. At the end of this work, stage directions call for soft music to be played while Bocklin's The Isle of the Dead is to be seen in the distance. An examination of the playbills by one character in this play reveals that The Valkyrie is being performed, which means that the Colonel will be present, and the main character reveals himself to be the son of Arkenholtz to an Old Man. In its second scene, a mummy named Amelia famously makes an appearance before Jakob Hummel, while its last scene contains a conversation between the main character and the Girl in the Hyacinth Room. Originally titled Kama-Loka, reflecting the influence of Theosophy on the author, and written for his Intimate Theater, for ten points, identify this “chamber play” whose main character is the Student, written by August Strindberg.
Answer: The Ghost Sonata or Spoksonnaten
13. Morton Paglin modified it to account for life-cycle effects, without which, he argued, the effect it measures would be overstated, and its namesake asymmetry coefficient* can be used to find which groups contribute most to that effect. The Pareto distribution is frequently used to obtain examples of it, and if the variables used to produce it cannot be negative, then this function is increasing and convex. In integral form, this function of y be written as "integral from zero to y of x times d F of x, divided by the average," where "F of x" is the cumulative distribution function, and an important economic indicator is the area between this curve and the perfect equality line. The source of the Gini coefficient, for ten points, identify this economic curve which depicts the distribution of wealth in a nation.
Answer: Lorenz curve (accept Gini coefficient until *)
14. One leader of this place’s deeds were recorded by the poet Prapanca (pruh-pawn-chuh) in the Nagarakertagama, and that leader ordered Tancha to kill Jayanagara, thus bringing the queen Tribhuvana to the throne. Kertanagara was the greatest leader of the Singisari dynasty here, and minor Muslim states here included Cheribon, Preanger, Padjang, and Bantam. King Erlangga was a powerful ruler, and after him the Kediri kingdom gained ascendance. The Shailendra dynasty here eventually accepted Mahayana Buddhism and built temples at Mendut and Borobudur. Gajah Mada was a famous leader of the Majapahit kingdom based here, and other kingdoms included the Srivijaya and Mataram. FTP, name this island, ruled by the Dutch from Batavia, now modern Jakarta.
ANSWER: Java
15. The Babylonian god of pestilence and destruction, Nergal, was often depicted as one of these creatures. The Japanese god of love, Aizen-Myoo, wears the head of one of these creatures in his hair, and Apollo fell in love with Cyrene upon watching her wrestle one of them. The demon king Hiranyakasipu was slain by a hybrid of a man and one of these animals, the fourth avatar of Vishnu Narasinha. After catching Hippomenes and Atalanta having sex in her temple, Cybele transformed them into these animals and yoked them to her chariot. The first task ordered by King Eurystheus was for an invulnerable one to be killed. Manticores and griffins both have the bodies of, FTP, what animal that Hercules strangled in Nemea to complete his first labor?
ANSWER: lions
16. This composer’s piano music includes “In Mournful Mood” and “The Village Church,” part of his Five Characteristic Impressions, as well as a “Flower” suite and “Tree” suite. His fifth symphony, in E flat major, contains variations on a “Swan Hymn,” while his seventh symphony concludes with a “Hellenic rondo,” and consists of only one movement. His symphonic poems include The Oceanides and one about a “daughter of nature,” Luonnotar, and he stopped composing after finishing Tapiola in 1926. Another of his works was composed in response to the “February Manifesto,” and many of his compositions, like The Swan of Tuonela, were inspired by an epic compiled by Elias Lönnrot. FTP, name this composer of Kullervo, the Lemminkäinen Suite, and Finlandia.
ANSWER: Johan Christian Julius “Jean” Sibelius
17. In its matrix formulation, the partition function can be reduced to the largest eigenvalue of the matrix, and the log of that eigenvalue is proportional to the free energy. Generalized by the Potts formalism, The Kramers-Wannier duality applies to its free energy in two dimensions, and Sorin Istrail has shown that its three dimensional variety is computationally intractable. Notably solved analytically in two dimensions by Lars Onsager, it was first conceived in order to study ferromagnetism by its namesake, who discovered that its solution does not show a phase transition in one dimension. For ten points, identify this statistical model consisting of adjacent spins and named for its German formulator.
Answer: Ising model
18. The architect of this building was chosen after a recommendation by Frederick Gookin, and during its construction, its architect was also commissioned to design a theatre for Aline Barnsdall. Geometric designs in this building included hexagonal chairs in its dining room and intersecting planes in the ceiling of its Peacock Room, and it included a long pool outside its entrance designed for putting out potential fires. Inspired by Mayan architecture, this building was constructed using soft lava stone, or oya, and was built on a floating cantilever system, which enabled it to survive the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. FTP, name this Tokyo structure rebuilt by Frank Lloyd Wright.
ANSWER: the Imperial Hotel
19. After the murder of a sheriff during this event, William Cullen Bryant's Evening Post favorably compared its instigators to the South Carolina nullifiers, and much of the propaganda in favor of it was penned by Thomas Devyr. Opinions regarding this event split the Whig party, with the more liberal Seward wing and Horace Greely's Tribune supporting the side that eventually formed the National Reform Association. As a result of this conflict, Silas Wright declared the state to be in a state of emergency and ordered the legislature not to accept any of the aggressors demands until the farmers involved in the uprising that began in DelawareCounty surrendered their arms. Occurring after the death of Stephen Van Rensselaer, for ten points, identify this conflict which arose from the attempts of New York patroons to evict tenants from their land.
Answer: Anti-Rent War (or the Helderberg War)
20. This work includes a section where the speaker remembers a “piece of sun” burning like a coin in his hands. The eighth section repeats the line, “Ah you who are silent!” and the fifth section ends with the speaker building an “endless necklace” out of his words for white hands “smooth as grapes.” In the thirteenth section, the speaker remembers marking the atlas of its addressee’s body with “crosses of fire,” while the first section discusses the “body of a woman, white hills, white thighs.” The final section of this work describes the fall of the speaker’s longing, while another section begins “Tonight I can write the saddest lines.” FTP, name this poetry collection that, when published in 1924, established the reputation of Pablo Neruda.
ANSWER: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair [or Viente Poemas de Amor y una Cancion Desperada]
Extras:
The rise of Jonker Afrikaner, a chief of the Oorlam (ohr-lahm) peoples, was a precursor to difficulties in this territory. Curt von François occupied the former seat of Jonker Afrikaner, and fought a series of wars against Hendrik Witbooi here, and was replaced with the pacifistic Theodor Leutwein in his post. The 1890 Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty gained for this territory land that would be named for a successor to Otto von Bismarck, and leaders such as Jakobus Morenga fought against the notorious Lothar von Trotha, referenced in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. One city here was named for Adolf Luderitz, and this territory was the site of intense fighting between the Hereros, Namas, and Germans. FTP, name this territory which would later pass under South African control and would declare independence as the nation of Namibia.