Search found 162 matches

by a bird
Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:00 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Fall - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 8
Views: 3935

Re: 2021 ACF Fall - Specific Question Discussion

[E] The "omega" in the expression for the quantum harmonic oscillator's Hamiltonian represents this quantity, which equals two pi over the period of oscillation. This quantity is measured in hertz. ANSWER: angular frequency This is a very minor point, but hopefully it will clear up confus...
by a bird
Mon Feb 24, 2020 7:56 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 Terrapin Open: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 50
Views: 8399

Re: 2020 Terrapin Open: Specific Question Discussion

That being said, two physics bonuses stick out as lacking a true hard part canonical transformations/Hamilton-Jacobi/action I bungled the first part, but nonetheless it is much easier than most hard parts in the set. This easy part may be a bit tough too, idk. Noether's theorem/charge/SU(3) SU(3) b...
by a bird
Mon Feb 24, 2020 4:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 Terrapin Open: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 50
Views: 8399

Re: 2020 Terrapin Open: Specific Question Discussion

I want to apologize for not including some alternate answerlines in my categories. The most egregious issue was probably screening , which should have definitely accepted shielding . I know being negged for something like this can be very frustrating, so I'll try to correct all these issues for rema...
by a bird
Mon Dec 02, 2019 9:01 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 66
Views: 14356

Re: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion

I want to point out that the question on Fourier optics was talking about a lot of cool and important stuff, but that it could be kind of harsh and unpleasant to play. I realize there are lots of books called "Fourier Optics," but many of these clues just strike me as techniques from optic...
by a bird
Wed Nov 20, 2019 7:58 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 66
Views: 14356

Re: 2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion

I found the curvature question a little confusing since it's basically a common link talking about different types of curvature (mean curvature, principal and Gaussian curvature of a manifold, total curvature of a curve). The total curvature/unknot clue is talking about a global property, while the ...
by a bird
Thu Nov 14, 2019 5:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Fall Open @ UVA (Nov. 16, 2019)
Replies: 4
Views: 6192

Re: Fall Open @ UVA (Nov. 16, 2019)

Has there been a logistics email sent for this? I don't think we have the location, official start time, etc.
by a bird
Sun Nov 10, 2019 10:33 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Are Laissez-Faire Eligibility Standards Good for the Circuit?
Replies: 2
Views: 2042

Re: Are Laissez-Faire Eligibility Standards Good for the Circuit?

The Canadian mirror of Penn Bowl was semi-open. People eligible to play for a school were required to play on a school team. An exemption was made for a Carleton student (Daniel) to play with open teammates as the rest of his school. Whether this is good for the circuit, I don't know. Penn Bowl is ...
by a bird
Sat Nov 09, 2019 2:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Are Laissez-Faire Eligibility Standards Good for the Circuit?
Replies: 2
Views: 2042

Are Laissez-Faire Eligibility Standards Good for the Circuit?

Rencently, some tournaments have taken different approaches to eligibility restrictions. Notably this year, Penn Bowl has scheduled open mirrors (Cambridge, Minnesota, and Washington), and seemingly allowed some ad hoc exemptions at the Canadian mirror (it's not clear what happened, but two of the t...
by a bird
Mon Oct 21, 2019 5:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl - Specific Question Discussion Thread
Replies: 60
Views: 10258

Re: Specific Question Discussion Thread

I felt the bonus that went Young's modulus/Poisson's ratio/engineering strain had 2 easy parts and a middle part; most STEM majors learn the first two answers together in freshman year. At first I felt that the Dirac delta should not be referred to as "this function", but I feel I'm being...
by a bird
Sun Oct 20, 2019 8:16 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl - General Discussion Thread
Replies: 26
Views: 3626

Re: General Discussion Thread

In general I was a little disappointed with some of the physics writing. In general I thought the bonuses were somewhat better, focussed on important, well known topics than the tossups (at least the early clues). Many of the physics tossups felt like standard quizbowl fare with early clues drawn f...
by a bird
Sun Oct 20, 2019 6:06 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Penn Bowl - General Discussion Thread
Replies: 26
Views: 3626

Re: General Discussion Thread

This years Penn Bowl struck me as very mixed set. There were many good parts, but there were many not so good parts. More importantly there were huge difficulty and stylistic swings between categories and within categories. Bio and biochem were pretty hard (as we have come to expect from Penn Bowl) ...
by a bird
Sun Oct 06, 2019 7:32 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 EFT - Specific Question Discussion and Errata
Replies: 56
Views: 7460

Re: Specific Question Discussion and Errata

This set contained two references to the SI system of units that have small issues. [10] Sèvres houses the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, which stores platinum-iridium cylinders that serve to officially define the units of this system, which was formalized by an 1875 convention in nea...
by a bird
Sun Oct 06, 2019 12:41 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 EFT - Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 23
Views: 3524

Re: Thanks and General Discussion

I would refer those who consider Kek only as an irrelevant meme to a fascinating book by the journalist Angela Nagle titled Kill All Normies . Mythology and its motifs permeate culture in many ways, as I hope this tournament made clear, and I don't think it's fair to say we need to avoid such discu...
by a bird
Sun Oct 06, 2019 11:41 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 EFT - Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 23
Views: 3524

Re: Thanks and General Discussion

Following up William Golden's point: This tournament was very accessible and fun to play. Thank you to Will and the other editors for your hard work. I do have to question some of the humor that was added to the set. The mythology bonus centered around 4chan (the bad website) (the bad website) was n...
by a bird
Sun Oct 06, 2019 10:17 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 EFT - Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 23
Views: 3524

Re: Thanks and General Discussion

This was a good set, and I thought it captured many of the good aspects of previous EFTs! Speaking to the science, I'm not sure if the set distribution served this tournament well. As I understand it, roughly 3/4 of the packets had a fairly standard split, while 1/4 of the packets had had no chem TU...
by a bird
Sat Aug 17, 2019 1:38 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO 2019 Discussion
Replies: 48
Views: 31823

Re: CO 2019 Discussion

I'm a bit late, but here are some thoughts on the science. Overall I had a good time playing CO, so I hope I don't sound overly negative. 1. The chem tossups were like 70-80% organic syntheses, with the bulk of the clues drawing from named reactions. Quizbowl writing has been moving away from this d...
by a bird
Sun Apr 21, 2019 11:49 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Player Poll 2019
Replies: 92
Views: 63839

Re: Player Poll 2019

Not only is Caleb Kendrick a really good quizbowl generalist, he's probably the best philosophy player in the country In addition to being a really strong generalist and an elite philosophy player, I want to mention that Caleb is also really good at social science. Many people think of Weijia as ou...
by a bird
Thu Apr 18, 2019 11:05 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2019 discussion: Logistics/format
Replies: 37
Views: 22191

Re: ACF Nationals 2019 discussion: Logistics/format

I agree with Chris and Jack that this year's crossover playoff felt less complete than a full round robin in the top bracket. In addition to the point about playoff losses not carrying over, we should remember that this year's format can also erase playoff wins against higher finishing opponents (e....
by a bird
Thu Apr 11, 2019 6:29 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Lederberg 3: General Discussion
Replies: 19
Views: 1893

Re: Lederberg 3: General Discussion

I'm not gonna type out all the answerlines, but within physics there were 7 solid/classical (which also incorporated some engineering-focused questions), 5 fluid mechanics, 4 particle physics, 5 quantum, 6 E&M, 3 optics, 4 solid state, 5 thermal/stat mech, 6 other/cross (I believe the only one ...
by a bird
Tue Apr 09, 2019 9:40 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Lederberg 3: General Discussion
Replies: 19
Views: 1893

Re: Lederberg 3: General Discussion

I had a really good time playing this set, and it was clear that the writers and editors put a lot of effort into it. I admire the goals Eric set out in his initial post, and I think many questions in the set aligned well with the way science is taught and practiced. On the other hand, I'm not sure ...
by a bird
Sun Mar 31, 2019 10:11 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Spartan Housewrite: General Discussion
Replies: 19
Views: 1898

Re: Spartan Housewrite: General Discussion

I have some general thoughts on the science, which was a bit of a mixed bag, but had plenty of good ideas. I'll start by answering Harris's question about the chemistry distribution: I didn't really notice a lack of chemistry questions. Were the materials science questions you mentioned categorized ...
by a bird
Sun Mar 31, 2019 9:27 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Spartan Housewrite: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 65
Views: 8130

Re: Spartan Housewrite: Specific Question Discussion

A middle clue for the _action_ question read: The (*) Euler-Lagrange equations can be derived from this quantity's integral along with the requirement that the integral be stationary under small perturbations. My understanding is that the ELE's come from finding the stationary points of the action n...
by a bird
Wed Mar 20, 2019 12:29 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Terrapin speciifc question discussion and requests
Replies: 39
Views: 5012

Re: 2019 Terrapin speciifc question discussion and requests

Jakob and Mike are probably right that the _lattices_ question was a bit too hard for this difficulty. I'm sure the question was frustrating for some people since QB doesn't always emphasize the distinction between lattices and crystals. Still, there is real distinction between the two concepts, and...
by a bird
Sun Mar 10, 2019 4:03 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 110
Views: 292280

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion

ANSWER: helium atom [or He] <AS> (classified as physics) Does this mean the question on _resolution_ in the same packet was classified as chemistry? I thought both questions were good, but the _resolution_ tossup didn't sound like chemistry. Cyclophosphamide, a derivative of mustard gas, and cispla...
by a bird
Sun Mar 10, 2019 2:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 110
Views: 292280

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion

Could I also see the TU on fisheries from packet 4 and the DNA damage bonus from packet 13? I was a bit confused on the "alkylation" bonus part—I thought at least one of the drugs mentioned functions by crosslinking.
by a bird
Sun Mar 10, 2019 10:31 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 50
Views: 9790

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Thanks and General Discussion

I really enjoyed the science in this set. Here are a few questions and comments: I thought the physics covered a lot of important topics, except for a lack of material from quantum mechanics courses (at least in the first 13 packets). The set included 1/1 classroom E&M; I thought this was great,...
by a bird
Sun Mar 10, 2019 9:58 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 110
Views: 292280

Re: 2019 PIANO/MO Specific Question Discussion

Could I see the stat mech bonus from packet 13 and the Helium atom question from packet 11?
by a bird
Wed Mar 06, 2019 11:38 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Terrapin Science
Replies: 3
Views: 648

Re: 2019 Terrapin Science

I think the points in Joell's post are very fair. I'll definitely look at advanced stats for the questions listed and try make things pyramidal. Re: difficulty, I wasn't too worried about having second or third lines that many strong players could buzz on. I'm not really convinced the ping-pong mech...
by a bird
Sun Mar 03, 2019 12:33 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Terrapin Science
Replies: 3
Views: 648

2019 Terrapin Science

I'm interested to hear what people thought of the science in this set. I had a few different goals with the science in this set, and I know I didn't meet all of them. One goal was to keep the science accessible. I know this led to some of the science tossups being slightly easier than expected. I do...
by a bird
Sun Mar 03, 2019 11:47 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Terrapin general discussion
Replies: 24
Views: 2321

Re: 2019 Terrapin general discussion

Another thing, although this is almost certainly a result of some sort of cognitive bias, was that there seemed to be much more computer science than math. I don't want to derail this discussion with an argument about how much math there should be per packet, but I will say that I don't think combi...
by a bird
Mon Feb 25, 2019 5:30 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Terrapin Open Discord mirror (2/23/19) [REGISTRATION CLOSED]
Replies: 15
Views: 8454

Re: 2019 Terrapin Open Discord mirror (2/23/19) [REGISTRATION CLOSED]

We're going to be reading some of the remaining packets in Discord tonight, starting around 7:00 pm EST. Message me or Ophir if you need more details.
by a bird
Sat Feb 16, 2019 6:41 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 SCT general discussion
Replies: 5
Views: 945

Re: 2019 SCT general discussion

In particular, one thing I'd like to push back hard on is the idea that engineering classes should all be on applied topics--engineers learn quite a bit of theory. In fact, nearly all of my classes were primarily theory-based until my senior design class, in my very last semester of UG. This class,...
by a bird
Wed Feb 13, 2019 6:11 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 Division I SCT: specific question discussion
Replies: 25
Views: 1744

Re: 2019 Division I SCT: specific question discussion

Incredibly minor point, but the principal TU in packet 5 accepts principle axes. I'm not totally familiar with the ellipsoid clue, but I've only ever heard of principal axes (this is the spelling used on Wikipedia as well).
by a bird
Wed Feb 13, 2019 11:35 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 SCT general discussion
Replies: 5
Views: 945

Re: 2019 SCT general discussion

I didn't have a great time playing this year's SCT, and I'm going to try to elucidate why in this post. Perhaps some of what I don't like just boils down to not liking NAQT questions, but I actually liked last year's ICT quite a bit, so I'm convinced NAQT can write great sets! My main complaint is t...
by a bird
Sun Jan 27, 2019 5:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 ACF Regionals Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 43
Views: 20583

Re: 2019 ACF Regionals Thanks and General Discussion

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts about physics and other science, in terms of difficulty, subject matter and execution. I tried to strike a balance between important things experts would know about and accessibility/maintaining interest from a non scientific audience. I'm specifically intereste...
by a bird
Sun Jan 20, 2019 11:07 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals playtesting
Replies: 26
Views: 12518

Re: ACF Regionals playtesting

I'm going to try to playtest math and earth science tonight starting at 9:00 pm eastern. Message me if you're interested; I'd be happy to have more participants even if they're not experts.
by a bird
Thu Jan 17, 2019 5:26 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals playtesting
Replies: 26
Views: 12518

Re: ACF Regionals playtesting

I'm going to playtest the other science this weekend or next Monday. I'll be reaching out to everyone who's expressed interest to decide the time, but feel free to message me if you haven't expressed interest already.
by a bird
Fri Jan 11, 2019 12:30 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals playtesting
Replies: 26
Views: 12518

Re: ACF Regionals playtesting

I'm going to schedule a playtesting session for Sunday (1/13) at 9:00 pm (8:00 central), hopefully allowing all three interested players to participate. This session will be mostly focussed on physics, but we'll do some other science as time allows. I'll send instructions for this session on Sunday ...
by a bird
Wed Jan 09, 2019 11:55 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals playtesting
Replies: 26
Views: 12518

Re: ACF Regionals playtesting

I'm going to playtest physics and other science this weekend or early next week. I'll probably hold the sessions one after the other, but I'm open to having them at separate times depending on interest. I've made two doodle polls to select times: physics, other science.
by a bird
Sat Dec 08, 2018 12:45 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
Replies: 50
Views: 19895

Re: Science (2018 Sun God)

I'm really confused by the discussion of the data centers question, because it was categorized as other academic, not computer science. I think it was a good example of an interesting technology current events/general knowledge question, and I support the editors decision to include it in the other ...
by a bird
Thu Dec 06, 2018 8:19 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
Replies: 50
Views: 19895

Re: Science (2018 Sun God)

I have a few things to refine from my earlier points about computational bonus parts. First, I do not think the computational parts at this tournament were way too hard, or particularly unfair. I think Billy's post lays the groundwork for the different things to consider when analyzing this type of ...
by a bird
Mon Dec 03, 2018 5:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
Replies: 50
Views: 19895

Re: Science (2018 Sun God)

Round 1: Is there any reason that "dipole" is explicitly not prompted on? Graham buzzed with this and expected to be prompted before saying dipole moment, but was just negged. Looking at past tossups on this answerline, pretty much all of them prompt on "dipole" alone, and I don...
by a bird
Mon Dec 03, 2018 3:13 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats
Replies: 17
Views: 3722

Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Detailed Stats

I went in a different direction and wrote code to simulate games based upon two team's buzzpoint distribution, Neg Rate, and PPBs. I've gone ahead and computed head to head winning percentages for the top 5 teams at the UIUC mirror site. This was accomplished by "playing" each team agains...
by a bird
Sat Nov 17, 2018 1:12 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
Replies: 125
Views: 21960

Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion

EAS seemed like a difficult answerline for this difficulty (and advanced stats seem to bear that out). Hey, so this is great example of why you can't always try to argue stuff with empirical evidence from stats. People are not good at chemistry! That being said, electrophilic aromatic substitution ...
by a bird
Fri Nov 16, 2018 3:19 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
Replies: 50
Views: 19895

Re: Science (2018 Sun God)

Matt, I agree with your reasons why someone should be able to get that question (though I'm not sure that makes it a good medium part), but you're talking past my point. In fact your solution (which is basically what I tried to do) requires two separate steps plus a check that the dimensions work. T...
by a bird
Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:07 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
Replies: 50
Views: 19895

Re: Science (2018 Sun God)

I think that allowing 10 seconds for players to do a little dimensional analysis (whether to check their work or to figure it out) makes this OK, although you might question if that's how you want players to be getting points. I think I agree with this—the main reason I missed those parts was not u...
by a bird
Wed Nov 14, 2018 8:01 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
Replies: 50
Views: 19895

Re: Science (2018 Sun God)

Disagree: Canonical ensemble, Stefan-Boltzmann In my opinion, this tossup does test the ability of the player to keep the different thermodynamic ensembles straight, which I think is a worthwhile enough topic. To be clear, do you think this answer line is unworkable because of this issue, or are ju...
by a bird
Wed Nov 14, 2018 5:25 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Science (2018 Sun God)
Replies: 50
Views: 19895

Science (2018 Sun God)

I decided to make this thread since I've heard some discussion of the science in this set (on Discord and in personal messages). I'm going to discuss the physics in detail, but I also put some thoughts about bio and chem in the general discussion thread. I've told Will some of my thoughts about the ...
by a bird
Mon Nov 12, 2018 1:43 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion
Replies: 64
Views: 8052

Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational General Discussion

Accessible is not (and should not be!) a strict function of how much things have come up before, nor is it a function of some nebulous canon. Learning things from reading or carding is only one form of knowledge acquisition—learning from classes or learning from following podcasts and YouTube chann...
by a bird
Mon Nov 12, 2018 12:24 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion
Replies: 125
Views: 21960

Re: 2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion

Do we primarily think of Yoko Ono as a "Fluxus artist?" I realize she participated in some Fluxus activities, but I found this description really confusing. I remember discussing Cut Piece in class with no mention of Fluxus.