Mega-Whats 2015 Face-off - Semifinals 2

Mega-Whats 2015
The 6th National Open Quizzing Championships
Conducted by
The Karnataka Quiz Association
Est. 1983
Set by
Arun Hiregange and Kiran Vijayakumar

The Rules
1. +10/-5 on the pounce; +10 on the bounce
2. No part points available on the pounce

The Design
Three rounds:
I. Clockwise  18
II. Written  5
III. Anti-clockwise  18

1
This building, named after Francesco della
Rovere, was designed by Baccio Pontelli and
built under the supervision of Giovannino de
Dolci. Identify this building whose 15th
century appearance is shown here. (Some of
the distinct features are still retained.) Its
interior dimensions of 40.9 metres (134 ft)
long by 13.4 metres (44 ft) wide are believed
to be based on which other structure?

1
Sistine Chapel.
Temple of Solomon.

2
Giovanni Battista Giraldi (nicknamed
Cinthio), a disciple of Boccaccio, wrote
Gli Hecatommithi (1565), a collection of
100 tales in the style of Decameron. One
of the tales Un Capitano Moro resembles
the earlier tale of The Tale of the Three
Apples, a story from One Thousand and
One Nights. What was the name of the
titular character’s wife?

2
Desdemona.
Othello (The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor
of Venice) is believed to be based on the
short story Un Capitano Moro ("A Moorish
Captain").

3
The earliest citation for this term in the
current sense comes from October 26,
1897. Princeton's football officials
named three students as being the key
handlers of a particular responsibility –
Thomas, Easton and Guerin from
Princeton's classes of 1897, 1898 and
1899, respectively. What were they
entrusted with?

4
It was created by Dr. James Andy Moorer in late 1982
using about 600 lines of C code. Different versions
include Wings, Grand, Cimmaron, Tex, Broadway (the most
famous of all), Ziegfeld and Amazing Life. The original
version could never be recreated again because he
forgot the numerical ‘seed’ that was used. In 2015,
another update was done for a version named Eclipse.
The creator’s inspiration came from an almost Biblical
story about the creation of order from chaos, all
combined into a single instance, "That story of triumph
over chaos is a fundamental human story, and I wanted
to tap into it.“ What?

5
This word initially referred to ‘woolen yarn obtained by
tearing to shreds refuse woolen rags’, which is then
combined with new wool to make cloth. Needless to say,
this textile was not of the highest quality, so the sense of
it as an adjective referring to ‘badly made or done’
naturally followed. According to the Oxford English
Dictionary, it was used during the American Civil War to
refer to those who made vast sums of money, thanks to
army contracts, by allegedly producing clothing largely
made out of this material. Thus the word also came to
refer to someone or something ‘sordid’ or ‘lacking moral
principle’. What word?

6
On 29 April 2015, the Baltimore Orioles
hosted the Chicago White Sox in what
was supposed to be the final game of a
three-game series. In what way was this
match unique, probably the only
occurrence in the 145-year history of
Major League Baseball? What was the
reason for this?

6
It was closed to the public and was played in
an empty stadium.
The civil unrest in Baltimore following
Freddie Gray’s death.

7
One of the methods that art investigators
used to detect forged paintings is to test
for the presence of cesium-137 and
strontium-90 in the materials of the art
work. What historical/scientific reason
accounts for the high efficiency of this
test?

7
These isotopes do not occur naturally
and have been present only since the first
atomic explosion took place in New
Mexico in July 1945. Tiny quantities of
these make their way into the Earth’s soil
and plants. It is then via the natural oils,
such as linseed from the flax plant, that
are used as binding agents in paints that
these isotopes end up in post-1945 art.

8
Three common diagrammatic notations
are used by its practitioners:
1. Ladder diagrams
2. Causal diagrams
3. Mills Mess state transition diagrams
Examples of the first two are given here.
What are these notations used for?

9
Henry III issued an order curbing death and
mutilation as punishments for catching the King's
deer. A royal writ ordered its publication, and also
a revision of a prior order. The revision referred to
a particular clause about castles "in fine
appositum" meaning "placed at the end". The
king’s scribe realised that two distinct items were
part of the writ and the writ was amended to say
"in fine ______ appositum" to show that the clause is
in the prior document and not the present one.
What term did he use thus for the first time?

10
He was a student at the Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-
Saint-Mesmin, just outside of Orléans. His subjects
there included a class in Catholic liturgy; the teacher
for this class was the Bishop of Orléans, Félix-Antoine-
Philibert Dupanloup. Dupanloup had devised his own
catechism to be lodged in the minds of the young
schoolboys, and to lead them towards proper spiritual
reflections on the nature of life. The three fundamental
questions in this catechism influenced him
considerably even though he turned vociferously
anticlerical in later life. Who? What was the most
famous outcome of this influence?

10
Paul Gauguin.
Where Do We Come From? What Are We?
Where Are We Going?

11
This system of two or more pulleys with a rope or
cable threaded between them. It is used on boats
and elsewhere to make lifting heavy weights less
demanding. You haul on the single rope to lift the
load. If the two parts run so close together so that
they touch each other, this means that the limit of
hoisting has been reached: seamen used to
describe this using a rhyming term. This has since
been used to refer to something that has reached
or exceeded its capacity. What term?

12
Thunder Stone was found at Lakhta, 6 km inland from
the Gulf of Finland in 1768. It gained its name from a
local legend that thunder split a piece off the stone.
Weighing around 1500 tonnes at 7×14×9 m, it is the
largest stone ever moved by man. It was embedded to
half its depth in marshy terrain and was difficult to
move. Marinos Carburis, a Greek from the Island of
Kefallonia and serving as lieutenant-colonel in the
Russian Army, offered to undertake the project. Carburis
directed workmen to wait for winter, when the ground
was frozen; and the stone reached its destination after 2
years of travel. Where to? Why was it moved?

12
For Bronze Horseman, an equestrian statue of
Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg.

13
Who about naming which character?
“<First name> means sorrow, something she undoubtedly
inflicts on all around her. <Last name> is a play on ‘_____'
from the British expression to 'take _____' meaning to
take offence. She is offended by any challenge to her
limited world view; I felt her surname conveyed the
pettiness and rigidity of her character."
Stephen King, in a review for 11 July 2003 Entertainment
Weekly, noted that the success of any novel is due to a
great villain, with her being the "greatest make-believe
villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter”.

13
J.K. Rowling on Dolores Umbridge.

14
Thomas Shelton (1600–1650) was an
English stenographer and the inventor of a
much-used British 17th- and 18th-century
stenography. His system was published it
in 1626 in the book Short-Writing (in later
editions since 1635 called Tachygraphy).
How did it help in enhancing our
understanding of the English Restoration
period, much later in the 19th century?

14
Every consonant was expressed by an easy
symbol which sometimes still resembled the
alphabetical letter. The vowels were designated
by the height of the following consonant.

14
The diaries of Samuel Pepys were written
using this.

15
Steven Stern is a computer programmer and
professor of Statistics at the Queensland
University of Technology, Brisbane. He is
the current custodian of something that
often causes outrage and anger and has
been in use since 1997 (with modifications
in 2004 and 2014). He can perhaps consider
a civil engineer from Kerala as his closest
rival. What is his claim to fame?

15
Custodian of the DLS (Duckworth-Lewis-
Stern) method.

16
Identify the brand being advertised.
What’s the guy’s name (that he shares
with a famous literary character) that’s
cut from the end of the clip?

17
Some scientific studies are popular from the start, garnering
multiple citations from other researchers. But some papers are
forgotten for a long time before experiencing a sudden spike in
citations as they are discovered and recognized as important.
In 2004, bibliometrics expert Anthony van Raan gave a name to
this phenomenon. Filippo Radicchi, a researcher in complex
networks at Indiana University Bloomington analysed over 22
million scientific papers, and came up with the ‘_____
coefficient', B, a value based on the number of citations a
paper has received and how long after publication it gained
them. The famous 1935 Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paper on
quantum-mechanics comes in 14th place, with a B value of
2,258. What is this phenomenon called?

18
The final practice session before the Indy 500
race, currently held on the Friday before race day,
is called “_____ Day" (shortened to “_____ Day"
since 2000). The name doesn’t have anything to
do with the food or alcohol consumed on the day
by the fans, but originally came from the fact that
it was the final session where teams could tune
their _____ in conditions similar to those that may
be encountered on race day. The name has
remained despite the fact that no qualified car has
used one since 1963. Fill up.

1 In 1916, under the British Board of Invention and
Research, Canadian physicist Robert William Boyle (whose
doctoral advisor incidentally was Ernest Rutherford)
started work on a project and produced a prototype for
testing in mid 1917. This work used quartz piezoelectric
crystals. To maintain secrecy no mention of quartz was
made and the word used to describe the early work
(____ics) was changed to ASDics, and the quartz material
to ASDivite. In 1939, in response to a question from the
Oxford English Dictionary, a story was made up that it
stood for ‘Allied ____ ____ Investigation Committee', and
this is still widely believed, though no committee bearing
this name has been found in archives. What was the
project all about? Or, fill in the blanks.

1
Submarine Detection (ASDIC was the
initial name for Sonar).

2
In the 1980's he was approached by the wine
merchants, Oddbins, to produce their wine catalogues.
Over 12 years he travelled the vineyards of the world
for them including France, Portugal, USA, Australia,
and Chile capturing the scenes and characters he
encountered. It inspired him to establish his own
vineyard in his garden in Kent and he remains
convinced to this day that the Loose Valley near his
home is the sight of a lost Roman Vineyard, although
no proof of this theory exists. Many of the drawings he
produced for Oddbins were included in his own wine
books, shown on the next slide. Who is this?

3 A condition which affected workers
such as the one shown here was named after
the main component of these matches. What
was it called?

4
“[They] are collected in leaf cups and put
directly into the hot ashes of a fire for a few
minutes. They then are removed and ground
into paste. Salt, tomatoes, and ground chilis
are added and the mixture is baked. It is said
to have 'a sharp clean taste' and is often
eaten with alcoholic drinks or used with
curries.” This is the description of a food item
from Chattisgarh. What is the basic
ingredient?

5
Coccinia grandis, the ivy gourd, also known as
baby watermelon, little gourd or gentleman's
toes is a tropical vine. It is also known as
Cephalandra indica or Coccinia indica, thonde
kaayi in Kannada and tindora in Gujarati. Its
name in Marathi used to keep popping up in
typical nostalgia articles about a famous
sportsman’s childhood, schooling etc. What
is the Marathi name and who is the
sportsman?

1
It is a word which denotes a wasteful or useless
activity. The Sydney Opera House, the F-35
fighter and the new Bangkok airport (mockingly
called a Suvarna_____ in an article) have been
referred to by this word. Adding to its oddness is
the fact that it appeared out of nowhere in a New
York Times article in 1935, which said that
millions had been spent on recreational activities
for the jobless including craft classes to produce
the objects in the visual. What word?

2 Legendary Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman is said
to have come up with this innovation for his team in 1934.
From their website: “One version of events has Chapman
spotting someone in the Highbury crowd wearing a red
sweater over a white shirt. Another school of thought has it
that a famous cartoonist had worn a blue pullover over a
white shirt whilst playing golf with the Chelsea chairman
who was struck by the colour combination and flirted with
the possibility of a certain addition to the blue Chelsea
shirt. Herbert Chapman on being told of the incident, asked
the cartoonist to sketch out the idea, which met with
Chapman's approval and was adopted.” What was the idea
and how did Chapman think it would help his players?

2
Changed the all-red jersey to have white
sleeves. So players could easily sight a
team-mate from the corner of his eye
while running with the ball at his feet.

3
The London department store Fortnum & Mason
claims to have invented this dish in 1738. Some
sources claim it was invented in Yorkshire and
not in the place in its name, while some claim it
was indeed invented in the Middle Ages by _____
farmers and shepherds as a means of taking
food out to the fields without having to return
home for lunch. Many other sources say that the
dish was an Indian import into Britain. What dish?
And what could have been its Indian inspiration?

4
This is an interesting map that shows
what country you would come across next
by going along that latitude. If you start
from the part of Chile cut off at the bottom
here and head West, what two countries
would you come across depending on
where you started?

5
From a BBC article: “On a dusty industrial estate on
the outskirts of Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia,
you get a sense of how big the brand is. The conveyor
belts of the Aujan Industries factory (part of an
organisation recently part-bought by Coca-Cola)
churn out more than 20 million bottles of _____
cordial every year. And almost all of it is destined for
Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Yemen, Bahrain and
the UAE, as well as Saudi. Over the past couple of
decades the drink has increasingly become
associated with the holy month of Ramadan - a
period which now makes up more than 50% of the
cordial's entire sales. So much so that supermarkets
are forced to restrict sales per person.” Which drink?

6 What connects these works? It is actually
an exhaustive extant set.

7
All named for the sounds they create (Dik
dik, Chickadee, Phoebe, Gecko, Katydid,
Curlew, Bobwhite, Chachalaca).

8
The ESPN 30 For 30 short named Robbed
spoke on the one hand about the riots
and looting in NYC while the police were
on strike. What other controversial
robbery did the short refer to that was
happening at the Yankee stadium at the
same time i.e. 28 September 1976?

8
Mohammed Ali controversially beating
Ken Norton to retain his title.

9
To celebrate the 150th anniversary
of an event, the Republic of Palau minted
special commemorative coins in
2007/2008. It contained a cast-in glass
pipette with contents relevant to the
event. What does the coin
commemorate?

9
Bernadette’s visions at Lourdes.

10
It is a set of 24 based on a much older set
of 254. The first and last are named the
same and are inspired by the wheel (next
slide) on the cover of the older set. The
themes are as relevant now as centuries
ago, like the fickleness of wealth, the joy
of spring and the pleasures and perils of
drinking, gluttony and lust. What?

10
Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.
That’s the Wheel of Fortune – Carmina
Burana opens with O Fortuna.

11 This slang word’s origins are obscure. It was first
recorded in the 1600s and then meant pretty much what it
means now. It may have originated from an earlier word
meaning passage or lane. Robert Browning famously used
it erroneously in these lines:
“Then owls and bats
Cowls and ____
Monks and nuns in a cloister's moods
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry”
The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary apparently
wondered what was going on when they were gathering
quotations four decades after the poem’s 1841…

11
…publication and checked with the poet. Their research
produced this rather cryptic note in their entry for the
word:
“Erroneously used (after quot. 1660) by Browning Pippa
Passes IV. ii. 96 under the impression that it denoted some
part of a nun’s attire.”
They further traced this mistake to an earlier poem
Browning had come across which had these lines:
“They talk’t of his having a Cardinall’s Hat,
They’d send him as soon an Old Nun’s ____.”

12
Who is narrating? And why did she
participate in this small documentary?

12
Dame Kire Te Kanawa.
She played Dame Nellie Melba in one
episode of Downton Abbey.

13
This film was Israel’s original Foreign
Language Film submission to the 80th
Academy Awards held in 2008, but was
rejected. So Israel had to submit another
movie. Which film is this and why was it
rejected?

13
The Band’s Visit. It had more than 50%
dialogue in English.

14
Name the compatriots whose names
have been blanked out from these styles
in the Full Beard section of the World
Beard and Mustache Championships.

15
What term coined by Thomas Carlyle,
based on something exhibited to the
British Parliament, connects to this
plaque unveiled in November 2014 that
has since been removed due to local
opposition?

16
What image is
missing from
this set?

16
Cement Mixer (along with Gremlin
Boogie, Comet, Sewing Machine, Atomic,
Broken Compass: the six types of
hangovers according to P.G.
Wodehouse).

17
Jawaharlal Nehru was imprisoned for his
participation in the Quit India movement,
along with other Congress leaders, 160
km from Bombay. Nehru had to content
himself with writing, tending a prison-
yard garden, a pebble collection and a
stray female cat. Connect the cat to the
structure in the next slide.

18
This is the Madhuka longifloria, a tropical tree
which has a variety of uses: the leaves are fed on
by the moth that produces tassar silk, the flower
can be used as a sugar substitute, dried flowers
are used to make local wine and oil extracted
from it has been used as biofuel. And apparently,
its name in Hindi is the actual origin of
something that has popped up as a kitchen quiz
question now and then, but which it seems is just
a backronym. In short, Madhuka longifloria is the
origin of what?

18
Mhow in Madhya Pradesh apparently
comes from this plant locally called
Mahua (and not Military HQ of War).

Mega-Whats 2015 Face-off - Semifinals 2

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Mega-Whats 2015 Face-off - Semifinals 2