MUT 2015 Specific question discussion

[Auks Ran Ova]

This thread is for discussion or examination of specific questions. I'll give you my standard disclaimer: I'm happy to post any question from the set, but you need to tell me why. Doesn't have to be complicated--something like "I want to see where the powermark was" or "the leadin confused me" is totally fine, but please don't post "can I see the tossups on x, y, z, a, b, and c".

For reference, here's who wrote what:
I wrote all of the American, British, and world lit, all of the myth, all of the geography, significant chunks of the painting, trash, social science, euro lit, philosophy, "other arts", and religion, some science tiebreakers, and one (1) bio bonus.
Mike wrote all of the American history, most of the world history, a large amount of Euro history, some trash and religion, and an arts bonus.
Shan wrote all of the music, almost all of the bio, the majority of the philosophy, large chunks of other arts, social science, and religion, and some trash. Also the lone(?) current events tossup.
Andrew wrote almost all of the chemistry, most of the Euro lit, a big chunk of Euro history, and the rest of the painting.
Cody wrote the majority of the physics and other science, as well as the art film questions and a chem tossup
Gautam wrote the remainder of the Euro and world history, a bunch of econ questions, and some other arts, bio, physics, and trash (including the traditional 10/5 bonus).
Bernadette wrote the remainder of the religion.
Ike wrote the computer science and a religion tossup, Auroni wrote a couple of chem tossups, and Eric I think wrote some physics.

[Cheynem]

I wrote the Social Science tossup on "movies" as well.

[p-vs-vp]

Some points concerning the tossup on "statistic", packet 11.

- First off, it made me so so happy to read that question, because omg statistics is bae, and does not come up often enough.
- The clue about the Blackwell-Rao theorem isn't quite appropriate, because the Rao-Blackwell construction requires a sufficient statistic, not just any old statistic. Somebody who knows a lot about statistical inference would almost surely buzz in with "sufficient statistic".
- Also it's usually referred to as "Rao-Blackwell" and not "Blackwell-Rao", but this is less of a big deal.
- Might want to specify "Fisher–Neyman factorization theorem" to avoid ambiguity? I don't know of any other famous factorization theorems, but factorization itself is a common enough thing that it could be confusing.
- "These things must be detangled from nuisance parameters, which is possible to do by using the likelihood function, which itself is used to generate (*) estimators" - I believe this is only really true for exponential families
- "These things are calculated from an observed frequency distribution" - no, not really. If you have discrete data, sure, that can happen. If you have a bunch of continuous data, you're probably not going to represent it with a frequency distribution.
- The last clue used mean and median as examples of statistics. While this is completely true, it can be potentially misleading. In my room, somebody buzzed with "measures of central tendency", which I did not antiprompt on (and maybe I should have). I think it'd be best to either specify that this should be antiprompted on, or remove the examples, or include examples that are statistics but not measures of central tendency (e.g. range, sample sd, max/min)

Again, I loved that this question was written, so thank you for that!

[Wynaut]

Just out of curiosity, what was the 10/5 bonus this time around? I don't think I heard it.

Also, can I see the full "Buddhist relics" TU? I just wanted to see it again, since I said "teeth" at the clue about the Tamil Tigers bombing and was antiprompted generously (I didn't know enough about the tooth's significance in Buddhism to answer correctly, though).

[Muriel Axon]

20. The Cricket World Cup happened in 2015, so it’s time for you to identify some cricketing nations. But wait! This is MUT! You’ll get 10 points if you only need cricket clues, or 5 if you need an academic clue.
[10] This country, which finished at the bottom of Pool B, played close games against Zimbabwe and Ireland. A major airline from this country is also a sponsor of the World Cup.
[5] This country’s city of Sharjah has been home to Pakistan cricket for many years, but you are probably more familiar with landmarks like the Skidmore Owings & Merrill-designed Burj Khalifa.
ANSWER: _UAE_ [or _United Arab Emirates_]
[10] Some of the UAE players are expats from this country, which won the 1996 World Cup when it defeated Australia. This country also made it to the finals of the 2007 and 2011 World Cups, when it lost to Australia and India.
[5] This country controversially had two forfeit wins in the 1996 World Cup, when Australia and West Indies refused to play in this country after major bank was bombed by the Tamil Tigers.
ANSWER: Democratic Socialist Republic of _Sri Lanka_
[10] A self inflicted run-out by this country’s captain AB de Villiers was a pivotal moment in this country’s loss to India in the prelims. AB was disappointed in this country’s inability to chase a low score of 222 against Pakistan.
[5] Between 1970 and 1990, this country was booted from its membership in the International Cricket Council because of its apartheid policy.
ANSWER: Republic of _South Africa_

6. One form of these things is believed to multiply through a process called peldung. Another one of these things is celebrated during the extravagant procession of the Esala Perahera festival. One type of these objects called rangsil are small pearl-like objects that often appear after cremation. In 1998, a bombing in Kandy targeted a temple that contains the most famous one of these religious objects in Sri Lanka. The sarira type of these objects are often placed in glass bowls in (*) stupas or in statues of a certain figure. These objects are venerated as means to cut short the cycle of reincarnation and to achieve the enlightenment described by their person of origin in his sermons and sutras. For 10 points, name these sacred objects in a certain religion believed to be remains of bodhisattvas or Siddhartha Gautama that include hair, bone, and teeth.
ANSWER: _Buddhist relic_s [accept things like _relic_s of the _Buddha_, _relic_s of _bodhisattva_s; _rangsil_ (or _rangil_) and _sarira_ before mentioned; prompt on “relics”; prompt on “Buddhist objects/holy things” etc…]

[Gautam]

omg statistics is bae, and does not come up often enough.

I think MUT has always had a statistics question or two between '08 and '11 when I wrote them. But anyway, I liked what Cody did with that TU.

[adosreme]

First, I'd like to express my satisfaction with the fact that there were, if I recall correctly, no less than three dance tossups in this tournament. That said, could I please see the one on "Spain?" (packet 13 I believe) I'm curious as to where the power was and the exact wording of the leadin that mentioned Ethan Stiefel (when I scrimmaged that packet, I was really tempted to YOLO buzz there with "New Zealand")

[Gautam]

I addition to that cricket bonus, which I'm sure was the best one in the whole set, I wrote the tossups on New Girl, the bonus on "saudade", the tossup on "glass", the bonus on Monterey Jazz Festival, the tossup on art in LA, the bonus on Pottery, and that "biology" tossup on the Grand Canyon. I also wrote the tossup on "productivity", the bonus on the sociologist James Coleman, and that tossup on Slums.

I tried to be a little more creative with the above ones (either fresh leadins, or bringing together topics that you don't always see appear concurrently) so I'd love to hear how those went. Feel free to email me - [email protected]

[Muriel Axon]

From packet 12:

10. A dancer from this country joined Ethan Stiefel, Nikolay Tsiskaridze, and Johan Kobborg to form the Kings of the Dance. A man from this country composed a ballet that opens with a scene in which a woman uses a grape to teach a blackbird to correctly tell the time. In a ballet set in this country, Basilio pretends to stab himself with a sword to convince Lorenzo to allow him to marry Kitri. A ballet from this country includes a “Dance of Terror” and involves the protagonists performing a (*) “Ritual Fire Dance” in an attempt to banish a ghost. A miller has to protect his wife from the amorous advances of a magistrate in a ballet from this country called The Three-Cornered Hat. For 10 points, name this home country of Angel Corella and El Amor Brujo composer Manuel de Falla, the setting of Don Quixote.
ANSWER: _Spain_ [or the Kingdom of _Spain_; or Reino de _España_]

[Cosmas's Tabernacular Earth]

Could I see the tossup on "Nitrogen"? I felt it stayed in power for a surprisingly long time.

Also, I agree with Arjun that

statistics is bae, and does not come up often enough

but I don't think that tossup played well. Could that be posted too?

[Muriel Axon]

From Packet 4:

7. The stoichiometric ratio of carbon to this element to phosphorus is 106 to 16 according to the well-known Redfield ratio. Important work on the source of this element in soils was done by Martinus Beijerinck, who discovered the Beijerinckia and Azotobacter bacteria. A surprise microbial impact on this element was found in the discovery of the anammox process, in which hydrazine is produced as an intermediate. Anthropogenic eutrophication creates excessive amounts of this element and (*) phosphorus. A significant source of this element found in soils is due to the action of Rhizobium bacteria in legumes and other plants. The Haber-Bosch process allowed the inorganic creation of a compound with this element, which could then be used as a fertilizer. For 10 points, name this element “fixed” to ammonia that makes up the majority of the Earth’s atmosphere.
ANSWER: nitrogen [or N]

My thoughts on this question (not in any official capacity) are that it's obvious if you've taken any microbial or ecosystem ecology. But I don't know how many people have, and I'd bet it's not so many that the powermark is unreasonable. (To clarify, I did not write this question.)

From Packet 11:

14. A small mean squared error can be obtained by focusing on rules that are functions of one of these things, according to the Blackwell-Rao theorem. A complete, sufficient one of these things is independent of an ancillary one according to Basu’s theorem. The factorization theorem uses the conditional of a random variable given one of these things to determine whether they are sufficient. These things must be detangled from nuisance parameters, which is possible to do by using the likelihood function, which itself is used to generate (*) estimators. These things are calculated from an observed frequency distribution, distinguishing them from parameters, which are measures of a probability distribution. For 10 points, name these measures of a sample, such as the mean and median.
ANSWER: statistic [until they are read, prompt on: statistical parameter, statistical estimator]

Any comments more specific than "didn't play well"?

[otsasonr]

My thoughts on this question (not in any official capacity) are that it's obvious if you've taken any microbial or ecosystem ecology. But I don't know how many people have, and I'd bet it's not so many that the powermark is unreasonable. (To clarify, I did not write this question.)

I think that the problem is that many people can figure out what the answer is based on just the name of the bacteria ("Azotobacter" is pretty evocative) and the fact that the element's presence in soil is important.

[Cosmas's Tabernacular Earth]

From Packet 11:

14. A small mean squared error can be obtained by focusing on rules that are functions of one of these things, according to the Blackwell-Rao theorem. A complete, sufficient one of these things is independent of an ancillary one according to Basu’s theorem. The factorization theorem uses the conditional of a random variable given one of these things to determine whether they are sufficient. These things must be detangled from nuisance parameters, which is possible to do by using the likelihood function, which itself is used to generate (*) estimators. These things are calculated from an observed frequency distribution, distinguishing them from parameters, which are measures of a probability distribution. For 10 points, name these measures of a sample, such as the mean and median.
ANSWER: statistic [until they are read, prompt on: statistical parameter, statistical estimator]

Any comments more specific than "didn't play well"?

I feel that anti-prompting on subsets of statistics (like "measures of central tendency") would help. Even then, to me this feels like asking a chemistry question on "chemicals" - just a little off if you encounter it in a game.

[p-vs-vp]

From Packet 11:

14. A small mean squared error can be obtained by focusing on rules that are functions of one of these things, according to the Blackwell-Rao theorem. A complete, sufficient one of these things is independent of an ancillary one according to Basu’s theorem. The factorization theorem uses the conditional of a random variable given one of these things to determine whether they are sufficient. These things must be detangled from nuisance parameters, which is possible to do by using the likelihood function, which itself is used to generate (*) estimators. These things are calculated from an observed frequency distribution, distinguishing them from parameters, which are measures of a probability distribution. For 10 points, name these measures of a sample, such as the mean and median.
ANSWER: statistic [until they are read, prompt on: statistical parameter, statistical estimator]

Any comments more specific than "didn't play well"?

I feel that anti-prompting on subsets of statistics (like "measures of central tendency") would help. Even then, to me this feels like asking a chemistry question on "chemicals" - just a little off if you encounter it in a game.

I just thought of another one! You really shouldn't prompt on statistical parameter, because there is no such thing as a "complete sufficient parameter", nor an "ancillary parameter", nor can you condition on a parameter, because parameters are unknown constants and not random variables (unless you're a Bayesian, in which case almost nothing in this question even applies).

I still love this question, but there are quite a few serious issues with it, which should probably be corrected (see the laundry list in my first post).

[Muriel Axon]

Oh, I should note that the version of the question I just posted is the version read at Waterloo. There may have been modifications since.

[Cody]

Even then, to me this feels like asking a chemistry question on "chemicals" - just a little off if you encounter it in a game.

"Chemicals" are a broad grouping of things that aren't studied as a unit because the grouping is too broad to be of any use. This is not true of a statistic. So, no, they aren't comparable at all.

[RexSueciae]

Could I see the tossup on W. H. Auden? The lead-in was completely new to me--just wondering where it was quoting from, it sounded interesting.

[Auks Ran Ova]

A poem by this author includes the image of “gamins, pursuing the scientist down the tiled colonnade” after describing a poet’s unease at those who “doubt his antimythological myth”. The speaker of that poem by this man tries to imagine “a faultless love or the life to come”, which causes him to hear “the murmur of underground streams”. Another of his poems ends a list with “My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song” before the speaker laments “I thought that (*) love would last forever; I was wrong”. He concluded that “we must love one another or die” in a poem set “in one of the dives on Fifty-second Street” on the eve of World War II, and opened another with the line “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.”. For 10 points, name this poet of “In Praise of Limestone”, “Funeral Blues”, and “September 1, 1939”.
ANSWER: W.H. Auden [or Wystan Hugh Auden]

All of the quotes in the first two sentences are from "In Praise of Limestone".

[coldstonesteveaustin]

The Redfield ratio in the nitrogen leadin should be fixed to "106 to 16 to 1." It was really confusing when it was read in our room.

[Cody]

The Redfield ratio in the nitrogen leadin should be fixed to "106 to 16 to 1." It was really confusing when it was read in our room.

Yes, I noticed that while reading it as well. The phrase "to phosphorus" should actually be removed (my bad). It'll be fixed for future mirrors.

[Eddie]

Could I see the TU on Brahms? I'm curious what piece the lead-in was referring to.

[Muriel Axon]

2. This composer used a plagal half-cadence to end the exposition of one piece’s first movement. Schoenberg orchestrated this man’s Piano Quartet No. 1 and wrote an essay about this man “the Progressive.” This composer used a natural horn in his Horn Trio and wrote his Clarinet Trio and Clarinet Quintet for Richard Mühlfeld. He used the likely misattributed “Chorale St. Antoni” as the basis for his Variations on a Theme of (*) Haydn. Another of his works is based around a motif first presented as F-A-B flat and sets texts from the Luther Bible. This composer quoted from student songs like “Fuchslied” and “Gaudeamus igitur” in a piece often paired with the Tragic Overture. For 10 points, name this Romantic composer of Academic Festival Overture, A German Requiem, and the Hungarian Dances.
ANSWER: Johannes _Brahms_

The lead-in is from a wacky moment in the Clarinet Trio.

[Lo, a momentary rabbit-stage]

Could I see the tossup on Adorno? I'm curious what the other clues used were, as I completely frauded it first line by completely confusing three different things and managing to come out with the right answer anyway.

[Auks Ran Ova]

This man was the alphabetically-first author of a book that developed a method to measure the intensity of certain personality traits called the F-scale. A book he wrote solo concludes that art-objects themselves contain “truth content”. Another of his books describes society as a “total system” and rejects Hegel’s argument that the parts that make up a dialectic are sublated into something greater and thus positive. He claimed that “life does not live” in a collection of aphorisms whose title (*) parodies a work of Aristotle. This author of Negative Dialectics and Minima Moralia was the younger author of a book that condemns radio while claiming that society is lulled into passivity by the products of a “culture industry”. For 10 points, name this social critic, a member of the Frankfurt School who collaborated on The Dialectic of Enlightenment with Max Horkheimer.
ANSWER: Theodor W. Adorno [or Theodor Adorno-Wiesengrund; or Theodore Ludwig Wiesengrund]

[Arkangel de la Muerte]

Could I see the Arjun tossup? I'm curious to see when the power ended.

[Auks Ran Ova]

Could I see the Arjun tossup? I'm curious to see when the power ended.

During his travels, this character asks why an earlier figure hadn’t simply built a bridge out of arrows, prompting a contest in which he builds bridges that a god attempts to destroy. This character teaches music and dancing to the princess Uttara while living under the female alias Brihannala. During a pilgrimage, he married Chitrangada, Subhadra, and the naga princess Ulupi. He used Shikhandi, whose sex had been changed, as a shield in order to defeat the nearly-invincible (*) Bhishma. This wielder of Gandiva passed a test involving shooting a golden fish’s eye while looking at its reflection, thus winning the hand of Draupadi. On the seventeenth day of the Kurukshetra War, he killed Karna. For 10 points, name this strongest of the Pandavas, whose dialogue with his charioteer Krishna forms the Bhagavad Gita.
ANSWER: Arjuna

[p-vs-vp]

Could I see the Arjun tossup?

tossup

[blizzard]

Could I see the tossup on Belshazzar? I was confused as to why Balthasar was not accepted or even prompted, and protested the question, but it ended up not mattering and was unresolved.

[Cheynem]

Am I parsing the Double Indemnity tossup correctly to read that the question writer thinks I look like Edward G. Robinson? That seemed an odd statement for an actual tossup and not like a throwaway bonus lead-in.

[Aaron's Rod]

Can I see the NPR bonus? A member of my team was under the impression that "All Things Considered" is actually produced/run/whatever the question mentioned by WBEZ, which is an NPR affiliate but I don't think part of NPR proper--just want to see the wording.

[Muriel Axon]

7. An oft-parodied advertisement preceding episodes of this podcast involves a girl who is inexplicably unable to pronounce “Mailchimp.” For 10 points each:
[10] Name this podcast narrated by Sarah Koenig, whose first season covered the controversy surrounding the arrest and trial of Adnan Syed for the murder of his girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
ANSWER: _Serial_
[10] This Muslim-American activist and lawyer brought Koenig’s attention to Adnan’s case. As a friend of the Syed family, she leads the campaign to free Adnan.
ANSWER: _Rabia_ _Chaudry_ [accept either underlined portion]
[10] Koenig produced episodes like “Habeas Schmabeas” for This American Life, whose producer, WBEZ, is a member organization of this non-profit media group. It broadcasts Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
ANSWER: _National Public Radio_ [or _NPR_]

Morning Edition and All Things Considered are NPR programs.

Also, that middle part is a little unreasonable in retrospect. Sorry about that!

[ValenciaQBowl]

Am I parsing the Double Indemnity tossup correctly to read that the question writer thinks I look like Edward G. Robinson?

I also figured the writer was referring to you, and also thought this was weird for a tossup. And yet, is it bad to say that I can kind of see it? In a very distant way?

[Auks Ran Ova]

Am I parsing the Double Indemnity tossup correctly to read that the question writer thinks I look like Edward G. Robinson?

I also figured the writer was referring to you, and also thought this was weird for a tossup. And yet, is it bad to say that I can kind of see it? In a very distant way?

Not at all - check out this picture of Edward G. Robinson: http://upload.wikimedia.org/ ... Edward_G._Robinson_-_still.jpg

[ValenciaQBowl]

Mother of mercy . . . is this the end of Mike Cheyne?

[Wynaut]

Oh yeah, here's a lingering request: could I please see the "thyroid" TU? I wanna know the clues before I BS'd my way to a 15 on the clue about a "third lobe."

[Muriel Axon]

4. The NADPH oxidases DUOX1 and DUOX2 were first characterized in this gland for their role in making hydrogen peroxide. Anaplastic cancer of this gland is always diagnosed at stage IV. Propylthiouracil and methimazole inhibit a peroxidase that helps synthesize two tyrosine-based hormones made by this gland. In some people, this gland has a third lobe, which is known as Lalouette’s pyramid. Autoimmune disorders of this gland include (*) Hashimoto’s disease and Graves’ disease. This gland has follicles, follicular cells, and parafollicular cells, the last of which secrete calcitonin. This gland is stimulated by TSH from the anterior pituitary. Two hormones made by this gland require iodine, so iodine deficiency can cause enlargement known as goiter. For 10 points, name this endocrine gland around the base of the neck.
ANSWER: _thyroid_ gland

[blizzard]

Could I see the tossup on Belshazzar? I was confused as to why Balthasar was not accepted or even prompted, and protested the question, but it ended up not mattering and was unresolved.

Would it be possible to see this question still?

[1.82]

Could I see the question on the Giants? I always enjoy content concerning my favorite sports team and I'm curious as to where that question went.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Can you post the Heidegger tossup? I negged with Parmenides when the question said the word aletheia and wanted to reread the question to see where I went wrong in parsing things. I think the question said aletheia to begin the sentence, though - perhaps it might have been better to reverse that order to prevent others from making a similar mistake (even though the word isn't unique to either of those two men)?

Similarly, I'd like to see the "productivity" question, since I screwed things up by confusing the growth residual for what it actually can be used to calculate. The economics in this set was fantastic, by the way.

Overall this set was pretty great and I enjoyed it a lot, even though I screwed up a ton of the history questions. It had a very distinct "creative" feel to it which I enjoyed immensely. I especially liked the visual arts - playing "fresh" answers like "playing cards" and "blue" in painting, for example, was a lot of fun and an interesting test for someone who's trying to get a hold on the category like myself.

[Muriel Axon]

This philosopher analyzes the word deinotaton in the “Ode on Man” from Sophocles’s Antigone in a lecture course that analyzes the title river of a German poem as an enigma at encompasses both locality and journeying. This philosopher uses a silver chalice to illustrate Aristotle’s four causes in a work that contrasts forms of revealing, or aletheia, called bringing-forth and challenging-forth. This author of (*) Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister” discussed the hermeneutic circle between fundamental ontology and specific modes of existence in another work. This author of The Question Concerning Technology wrote that a hammer can be approached from the perspective of presence-at-hand or readiness-to-hand. For 10 points, name this Nazi-sympathizing phenomenologist who introduced the concept of Dasein in Being and Time.
ANSWER: Martin _Heidegger_

I should note that there are two versions of this question, one which used a clue from "The Origin of the Work of Art," and one (seen here) in which I replaced that clue to avoid a repeat. I'm not sure which was used here (the old version snuck into the set read in Minnesota) but it shouldn't matter since that only affects clues after the word "aletheia."

The KLEMS measures for this concept takes into account intermediate activity. A “paradox” about this concept, in which measures for it had not risen for a two-decade period, was described by Erik Brynjolfsson. Modern measures for it were inspired by a paper written by Dale Jorgenson and Zvi Griliches. One form of this concept is calculated via growth accounting exercises as the (*) residual from output not attributable to labor or capital. Technological shocks are assumed to affect this concept, which may be measured in its “total factor” form. For 10 points, name this economic concept which is often measured in “dollars per hour worked”, which describes how many units of input are needed to make a given output.
ANSWER: _productivity_ [accept “Total factor _productivity_” or “multi-factor _productivity_” or abbreviations; accept “_productivity_ growth” or anything implying changes in productivity; reverse prompt, i.e. ‘can you be less specific?’ on “Solow Residual;” do not accept “production” or “output”; do NOT accept or prompt on “technology” or “technological progress”]

[Red Panda Cub]

Muscovado should probably not be in the first clue of a tossup on sugar.

Edit: Probably my second favourite question in quizbowl ever was the tossup on "Germany" that described Gursky's photo Rhein II - that was awesome.

[Edmund]

Thanks, as every year, to Minnesota for this set. We had a good day.

One thing that stood out for me reading was a few misplaced or lax clues in the physical science tossups. Off the top of my head:

- Using "length scale proportional to square root of time" as a lead-in for _diffusion_ seems too easy. But more importantly, it is true of any phenomenon that obeys a diffusion equation. Besides esoteric examples, this includes at least _Brownian motion_ and thermal _conduction_ in the answer space of MUT, so the alternate answers should have considered this.

- I haven't got the text in front of me, but the question on _charge_ seemed to give a description in words of the integral form of Gauss's law one/two sentences before a description in words of the Gell-Mann - Nishijima formula. In spite of modern fetishism (outside quizbowl) for particle physics over basic, practically useful concepts, I hope the former is still much better known.

- _Voltage_ and _electric potential_ are not synonymous, though the alternate answer fortunately contained the latter term which is what the question was about. Voltage is a measurable circuit property corresponding to potential difference; electric potential is an unmeasurable property used to define the electric field.

- In the first clue of the tossup on _electrons_, the formal use of two conducting spheres in the derivation of Marcus theory is not the exciting bit of the theory. At least, it didn't come up when I was taught Marcus theory at undergraduate level. I think a mention of the reorganization energy or the inverted region would be more likely to reward knowledge of the theory before dropping Marcus's name.

- In the bonuses, the clues for _reduction potential_ didn't seem to point specifically to the expected answer.

Not really a problem, but I hope that some site saw a deep general relativity understanding buzz on _gravity_ from the lead-in 'clue' "Though it's not inertia, ..."

[Cody]

- _Voltage_ and _electric potential_ are not synonymous, though the alternate answer fortunately contained the latter term which is what the question was about. Voltage is a measurable circuit property corresponding to potential difference; electric potential is an unmeasurable property used to define the electric field.

The problem is that these terms are often confused and used interchangeably, for example, here. Voltage was made the main answerline because I expected more people to say it.

[Edmund]

Ok, I respect the decision to follow pragmatism over rigour, though I don't agree with it.

Off-topic: Reading those lecture notes has ruined my day.

[Gautam]

The economics in this set was fantastic, by the way.

Thanks.

Using "length scale proportional to square root of time" as a lead-in for _diffusion_ seems too easy. But more importantly, it is true of any phenomenon that obeys a diffusion equation. Besides esoteric examples, this includes at least _Brownian motion_ and thermal _conduction_ in the answer space of MUT, so the alternate answers should have considered this.

Good points re: answerlines. As for the clue being too easy, my recent experiences have led me to revise my expectations on where people buzz in on questions, what clues the average undergrad knows, etc. Rather than load up leadins with really hard clues, I've been more willing to describe easier clues in more technical detail. My hope is that this is enough to generate a good distribution of buzzes.

Muscovado should probably not be in the first clue of a tossup on sugar.

Edit: Probably my second favourite question in quizbowl ever was the tossup on "Germany" that described Gursky's photo Rhein II - that was awesome.

Eh, I don't know that the term is terribly famous. I only learned about it after the fancy pack of turbinado sugar that I bought from TJs and looked up what the various terms meant. I'm happy to give you points if you could buzz in on the muscovado bias mention.

Was the tossup on Andreas Gurksy himself, which we had at CO 2014, your favouritest tossup?

[Red Panda Cub]

Muscovado should probably not be in the first clue of a tossup on sugar.

Edit: Probably my second favourite question in quizbowl ever was the tossup on "Germany" that described Gursky's photo Rhein II - that was awesome.

Eh, I don't know that the term is terribly famous. I only learned about it after the fancy pack of turbinado sugar that I bought from TJs and looked up what the various terms meant. I'm happy to give you points if you could buzz in on the muscovado bias mention.

Was the tossup on Andreas Gurksy himself, which we had at CO 2014, your favouritest tossup?

I'd never heard of the term "muscovado bias" but lots of people at our site had certainly heard of notable sugar variety, muscovado, causing a fair few buzzer races. Maybe that's anomalous, though.

For completeness: my favourite question in quizbowl is Ike's Joseph Kosuth bonus at Nats this year, and, having now looked at it, that CO tossup on Gursky is not very good because all the clues in it are at about the same required depth of Gursky knowledge. I guess that's the problem with really hard answerlines, though.