2018 Sun God Invitational Specific Question Request and Discussion

[kitakule]

Could I see the tossups on green, Kenya, and Kongo? Thanks.

Also, maybe this is just me but I found it kind of weird that the answerlines "Congo Free State," "DRC," and "Kongo" (yes I know that most of that kingdom was actually in modern-day Angola) all came up within two packets.

[warum]

For the bonus on Indian music that mentioned "meend," portamento should have been accepted as well as glissando.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Could I see the tossups on green, Kenya, and Kongo? Thanks.

Also, maybe this is just me but I found it kind of weird that the answerlines "Congo Free State," "DRC," and "Kongo" (yes I know that most of that kingdom was actually in modern-day Angola) all came up within two packets.

This was a result of you playing on Packet 13, which was mainly intended as a backup packet. We didn't anticipate it being played back-to-back with Finals 1 - indeed, part of the logic of keeping the Congo Free State in Packet 13 was that people would be less likely to play it and thus for some reason rule out "Kongo" as an answer if they played in the finals (even though as you correctly note, the Kongo kingdom and Congo Free State have very little to do with one another).

The DRC arts bonus perhaps could go elsewhere, though.

We'd appreciate a rationale for posting tossups, in order to encourage discussion - if you're hoping to just look at the questions, a PDF download of the packets will be made available (and I don't think any of those questions were changed since the last PDF download).

Re: Natan, "portamento" has been added

[kitakule]

We'd appreciate a rationale for posting tossups, in order to encourage discussion

Sorry for not clarifying earlier, here are my rationales:

I was hoping to see the Kenya tossup because it seemed pretty hard to power - I don't think anyone (at least at the Dec 1 sites) was able to get that. I buzzed on "Sunshine" or "Lodge" (can't remember) and got 10. So I was curious as to see what the opening clues were.



As for the tossup on green, I was having trouble parsing the phrase "mercy in his means" (assuming that line was indeed quoted, I was incredibly tired so there's a great chance I misheard). I think that's from "Fern Hill"...I was very close to negging with "Gold(en)" but thankfully Stephen was faster on the buzzer and gave the correct answer.


As for the tossup on Kongo, the clue about quilombos confused me because I have heard about that only in the context of Brazilian slave history, so if I had been a little less buzzer shy I would have buzzed (and negged) with Brazil. I suspect once again that my delirium caused me to mishear the clue (I'm thinking that Palmares quilombo, which did have a lot of slaves from modern-day Angola, was specifically being referred to), so I was just hoping to see it for some clarification.

[Corry]

As for the tossup on Kongo, the clue about quilombos confused me because I have heard about that only in the context of Brazilian slave history, so if I had been a little less buzzer shy I would have buzzed (and negged) with Brazil. I suspect once again that my delirium caused me to mishear the clue (I'm thinking that Palmares quilombo, which did have a lot of slaves from modern-day Angola, was specifically being referred to), so I was just hoping to see it for some clarification.

I haven’t seen the tossup, but yeah, somewhat confusingly, quilombos are also the Portuguese word used to refer to camps of imbangala invaders / bandits in the late Kingdom of Kongo. I don’t know if this issue has ever come up in quiz bowl before, but it did extremely throw me off one time in a college class on the Black Atlantic.

[jmarvin_]

I'd like to finally address the things I mentioned in the Discord after playing this tournament. First off, I would like to thank the editors and writers for producing a set that I enjoyed playing, which included some wonderful content. Pretty much every great buzz I had on this tournament was the result of "real knowledge," stuff I learned from deep and prolonged engagement with the topics at hand, and never the result of things I learned "for quizbowl" or by studying packets in some capacity. I think that's fantastic—it's exactly how quizbowl should be, where expertise and passion for the world can always beat expertise and passion for the game, and non-canonical knowledge is consistently rewarded while maintaining canonical accessibility. In Penn Bowl this year, every power I got was either a fraud, a misplaced clue, or deep knowledge of a canonical topic that was only mildly satisfying to put into play. At Sun God, every power I got was a big pull from something I learned totally removed from Quizbowl context, which felt great and kept me on my toes. Not only this, but the difficult questions that I only managed decent and not extreme buzzes on were incredibly satisfying in other ways; an example that comes to mind is the Giacometti tossup, which I've only ever seen before in totally transparent or totally impossible form, and which in this tournament was very excitingly interesting. I have been clear about this from the start: I think the highs of this tournament were very high, and the lows were not too low at all, even if there are substantial critiques to be made. I'm sorry that the delay in producing this post has led to a complete misunderstanding of what those critiques are and how severe they were, and I hope this puts things right and helps us all learn something.

The summary of what I thought was personally the most salient problem with playing this set was what I termed in the discord "being duped" by early clues. Although I can't speak at all to science, and I shouldn't speak at all to literature or history, Kai and other players expressed exactly the same sentiment in their categories of preference as I found in mine. What I mean by this is that there were some early clues which, while nailed down and factual, were unproductive or even inimical for deducing the answer if one is a specialist in the relevant area. How much of this failure to parse at game speed is the player's fault and how much is a bad choice from a writing standpoint is up for debate, but the fact remains that this was my and a few others' experience with some of these questions (by no means even the majority!). In the interest of attention to detail I'm going to look through all the packets now and just put all the thoughts I wanted to share in order of encountering the questions, and only on the categories I feel competent to judge; only some of the points I'm about to make fit the category I just discussed.

• In the Caravaggio tossup, Wonyoung told me that he knew to buzz on Mario Minniti because it was a high school stock clue. I don't know if this is true, but if it is, that clue is probably misplaced.
• The Rilke tossup cliffs pretty hard at "You must change your life," and was like a four way buzzer race in our room.
• In the Hasidism/kabbalah/Merkabah bonus, I'm not sure which of the first two is supposed to be easy and which medium; I don't think either are particularly more difficult than the other with the clues given. But what do I know!
• While I'm glad you're cluing from Part, it seems kinda awkward to make the player first parse a score clue and THEN do the derivation to what Part's technique was called, and THEN to derive what instrument that word comes from - three steps for one clue. Obviously some people managed to do this, but in any case we should think about how to cover this material more elegantly in the future.
• After the clue from Dawn, the in-power clues in the Nietzsche tossup were incredibly Nietzsche-flavored to the extent that I second-guessed myself instead of just recognizing that sense as correct. This could be on me 100%, but thought it was worth mentioning that when a philosopher has a very distinctive style and set of concerns like Nietzsche does that it's worth checking if things feel too distinctive even in the obscure clues.
• I didn't make this neg myself, but in the Cuba tossup, the first out of power clue (that they sent significant military support to the FRELIMO and RENAMO forces during the Cold War) of course applies just as much to the Soviet Union, and the clues before don't rule out the Soviet Union entirely if you don't know them.
• As Kai pointed out, I think Yoko Ono is easier than Kusama Yayoi, but I don't know, I don't think there's a huge gap in obscurity of their artistic output there (even if there's a huge gap between people knowing Ono exists vs Yayoi thanks to John Lennon).
• I think the first clues to the "suffering" tossup were transparent, even as I haven't read or studied that specific material from Schopenhauer, just because I know the basic character of his thought and of Buddhism.
• Props to you for having a hard part on the Khans and their Qawwali mastery!
• Of course all the earlier clues were very gettable, but in the Shanghai tossup, Chris Ray and I buzzer raced to neg with "Taipei" on the "World Financial Center" drop (if only the Taipei 101 tossup was first!). Yes, in retrospect that's really not a good buzz, especially since there's a Shanghai WFC in 2018 and no longer a Taipei WFC, and the former is quite famous and something I knew about at some point, but anyway it would probably not hurt to prevent this scenario of game-speed reaction failure with an "it's not Taipei" or a feng shui adjustment such that the 101 tossup comes before this one.
• St. Helena's excavation in Jerusalem was notably the source of the True Cross, for which she is perhaps best remembered. As Chris and Clark rightly pointed out after I negged the cups tossup there (before "used by Mary Magdelene" was given), that clue would not be so early in a tossup on "crosses;" in any case, "it's not a cross" would've helped to prevent my gunning for a famous thing that a description applies to before a less famous thing that is desired; another solution would be to rearrange the sentence so that "one of these used by Mary Magdelene" or something similar comes before mentioning St. Helena's excavations. Or maybe I just suck, whatever.
• The first clue of the Jade Emperor tossup is not helpful at all. The theme of a deity figure spending aeons in self-cultivation is incredibly common, if not even ubiquitous, in East Asian religions, and nobody is carding the number of kalpas each Boddhisattva and Daoist deity took to ascend. Moreover, this theme is not very important in popular understanding of the Jade Emperor, whereas there are some religious traditions where it is of the utmost importance, and the most notable of these is Pure Land Buddhism. Pure Land tradition emphasizes Amitabha's ages in self-preparation because it was those very ages that created the Land itself, allowing the good rebirth of anyone willing to focus on Amitabha for a moment and join him. Because I was in a long-shot game against OSU, I played decisively and buzzed on this incredibly generic clue with Amitabha, since that was the most important figure to which such a description would be actually relevant. Nope, minus five!
• I feel like the bonus on Johnson/Montreal/cardboard was medium/easy/medium, with both medium parts being on the somewhat easy side. I mean, the first part doesn't actually say "glass house" and the last part doesn't actually say "Shigeru Ban," but it's pretty clear to someone who knows about these things what's going on, and the added obscurity doesn't really require more knowledge.
• The first clue of the Don Giovanni tossup, according to Wonyoung, could also be a description of something from Cosi Fan Tutte until it mentions the specific word that is sung in unison.
• Wonyoung also got duped out of the Haywain tossup, since he figured out it was Bosch as intended from the Temptation of St. Anthony clue, and then said "Garden of Earthly Delights," which notably also has fires going on in the right panel.
• Putting a clue in the Engels tossup that decodes to "in the manner of Stirner" confuses more than it helps, if you ask me.
• "Cubist Manifesto" should be promptable or acceptable for "De Cubisme," since it is often called that.
• As has been mentioned, dropping Bela Fleck's name so early in the banjo tossup is not the best - JL and I buzzer raced there. Anyone who knows enough about the banjo to get the following clues is probably going to have at least heard of Bela Fleck.
• I find the characterization autism as a disorder somewhat offensive, but I understand that most scientific discourse treats it as one, so I don't blame you.
• While all the clues in the "Big Bang" tossup are unique, the Catholic acceptance of the Big Bang was very much tied up with its acceptance of Darwinian evolution. I'm not sure what to do about this, but in any case we had a buzzer race to neg with evolution at "interpretation was incorrect" in my room.
• The clue on the Nova Scotia settlers, before it mentions settling in Liberia, could be parsed as looking for "repatriation (of slaves to Africa)" as the relevant cause, along with Loyalism—as I did in our game for a fat neg. Again, maybe I suck, but it stinks that I knew exactly what the clue was talking about but got owned by the ambiguity of which cause was the one the question wanted relevant to that situation!

I think I'll call it there for now, since that's as far as I played in tournament. I didn't think this tournament was awful; I loved all the creative and real cool stuff that wound up in here, and think this tournament was an order better a quizbowl experience than this year's Penn Bowl. Sorry it took me a while to write these up, but I hope that it's clear now that there is no smear campaign against this set and that there's legitimate things to say and learn. It was never supposed to be a big deal, and I hope now it's clear that it isn't: just more progress toward the advancement of this game from detail to detail. Other players have more insightful and accurate comments than me, for sure.

[ErikC]

I think the Nova Scotia Black Loyalist clue is really unambiguous, and I think everyone buzzing at the Canadian site understood exactly what that clue wanted an answer. They were specifically chosen because of their support/fighting in the war, and when talked about as a group they are specifically called Black Loyalists.

[jmarvin_]

I think the Nova Scotia Black Loyalist clue is really unambiguous, and I think everyone buzzing at the Canadian site understood exactly what that clue wanted an answer. They were specifically chosen because of their support/fighting in the war, and when talked about as a group they are specifically called Black Loyalists.

That makes sense; the fact that I learned about them in the context of the history of Sierra Leone rather than the history of Canada/Loyalism/The Revolutionary War may have put my mental organization of those facts in an unproductive ordering. In any case, the potential frustration to fools like me could probably have been avoided by slight sentence rearrangement.

[Jason Cheng]

Sorry for not clarifying earlier, here are my rationales:

I was hoping to see the Kenya tossup because it seemed pretty hard to power - I don't think anyone (at least at the Dec 1 sites) was able to get that. I buzzed on "Sunshine" or "Lodge" (can't remember) and got 10. So I was curious as to see what the opening clues were.

As for the tossup on green, I was having trouble parsing the phrase "mercy in his means" (assuming that line was indeed quoted, I was incredibly tired so there's a great chance I misheard). I think that's from "Fern Hill"...I was very close to negging with "Gold(en)" but thankfully Stephen was faster on the buzzer and gave the correct answer.

As for the tossup on Kongo, the clue about quilombos confused me because I have heard about that only in the context of Brazilian slave history, so if I had been a little less buzzer shy I would have buzzed (and negged) with Brazil. I suspect once again that my delirium caused me to mishear the clue (I'm thinking that Palmares quilombo, which did have a lot of slaves from modern-day Angola, was specifically being referred to), so I was just hoping to see it for some clarification.

5. This adjective describes a “stream” where the speaker wishes to “remain on a broad flat rock / And to cast a fishing-line forever!” in a poem by Wang Wei (“wong way”). Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode” mentions a “light” described by this adjective “that lingers in the west.” This color describes a youthful speaker who is “carefree, famous among the barns” and “easy in the mercy of his means.” The speaker repeats this color in the poem (*) “Sleepwalking Romance” by Federico Garcia Lorca, stating “[this adjective] how I want you [this adjective].” In Dylan Thomas’s poem “Fern Hill,” the speaker says that “time held me [this color] and dying.” A beheading contest involving a warrior of this color was described by the Pearl Poet. For 10 points, name this color that identifies a knight fought by Sir Gawain.
ANSWER: green [or verde or qīng or cheng; accept blue-green until “Lorca” due to Chinese translations; accept Sir Gawain and the Green Knight] (The Wang Wei poem is titled “Green Stream.”)

The golden critique is fair enough, I'm not sure how I didn't catch that. Negged 0 times across all 98 teams including by a bunch of people who buzzed on that clue since I think "green" is the primary color-image of the poem, but that doesn't change this clue from being ambiguous. Fixed!

16. A novel set in this country opens with the arrest of a man reading the Book of Revelation who impresses the arresting officers by bringing his Bible along. A traditional liquor from this country that “gives you sight” is corrupted by the establishment of a brewery and Brewers Union. This country’s police force is called the “maker of its modernity” by Inspector Godfrey, whose investigations into the burning of the (*) Sunshine Lodge frame a novel set here. A plane crash sparks the reconstruction of Ilmorog in this country, which is also the setting of a novel framed around Uhuru, this country’s independence day. For 10 points, name this African country, the setting of the novels Petals of Blood and A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong’o (“GOO-gee wah thee-ON-go”).
ANSWER: Kenya [or Republic of Kenya]

Looks like you're right in that only one person powered this tossup (s/o Caleb), there were a ton of sporadic negs, and the fluidity of buzzpoints starts right around Sunshine Lodge to the end of the tossup, although I was under the impression that thang'eta and in general Petals of Blood was more well-known than I thought--this is one of those cases where I used prior quiz bowl questions as a metric and I was wrong.

18. This kingdom’s ruler Bernardo I was killed while fighting a group whose name became a byword for “vagabond,” the Yakas or Jagas (“ZHAH-guhs”). After this kingdom’s ruler António I lost the Battle of Ambuila (“am-BWEE-lah”), its politics became dictated by short-term alliances between noble clans called gerações (“zheh-rah-SOYSH”), rather than those of royal lineage, or kanda. A nobleman born in this kingdom named (*) Ganga Zumba led the Quilombo dos Palmares (“kee-LOHM-boo doos pow-MAH-riss”). José Eduardo dos Santos (“zhoo-ZEH aid-WAR-doo doos SUN-toosh”) had a statue built to commemorate this realm’s queen Nzinga (“n’JING-ah”). This kingdom, which adopted Catholicism under Afonso I, helped Portugal establish a colony near present-day Luanda. For 10 points, name this kingdom eventually merged into Angola, and which is not actually named after a river.
ANSWER: Kingdom of Kongo

I'll leave it to Will and Emmett to evaluate the quilombos thing, though I suppose this one is named and it appears to be a shared term across two areas. Still seems confusing, though, and I'd probably have edits made to avoid this problem if we were looking at this right now (guess there's still the potential closed online mirror and the HS mirror). Not a lot of buzzer stats to go on, since this is a finals tossup.

[Jason Cheng]

Thanks for the feedback, John! I understand some of these points have already been hashed out privately, so I'll keep things to ones I have expertise in and can immediately talk about.

The first clue of the Jade Emperor tossup is not helpful at all. The theme of a deity figure spending aeons in self-cultivation is incredibly common, if not even ubiquitous, in East Asian religions, and nobody is carding the number of kalpas each Boddhisattva and Daoist deity took to ascend. Moreover, this theme is not very important in popular understanding of the Jade Emperor, whereas there are some religious traditions where it is of the utmost importance, and the most notable of these is Pure Land Buddhism. Pure Land tradition emphasizes Amitabha's ages in self-preparation because it was those very ages that created the Land itself, allowing the good rebirth of anyone willing to focus on Amitabha for a moment and join him. Because I was in a long-shot game against OSU, I played decisively and buzzed on this incredibly generic clue with Amitabha, since that was the most important figure to which such a description would be actually relevant. Nope, minus five!

When I first saw that tossup, I couldn't agree more, and told Will the exact same thing you did re: "cultivation for longass" being a critical theme for a lot of East Asian belief systems. I'm still mixed, but I was told by my fellow bizarre China-weeb Andrew Wang that the leadin was perfectly fine, and the stats mostly seem to bear that out, in that three people powered on that leadin. I wouldn't write this tossup myself, but I had to stay self-consistent about encouraging many different types of clue engagement, and I was told by two people I trust to know engagement with these subjects (the leadin is a big thing in Journey to the West, for example) that it was uniquely identifying and helpfully directive towards the answer. I'm with you in spirit, though.

In the Caravaggio tossup, Wonyoung told me that he knew to buzz on Mario Minniti because it was a high school stock clue. I don't know if this is true, but if it is, that clue is probably misplaced.

I don't think Mario Minniti could possibly be a high school stock clue, and evaluating that claim the only way I know how (http://aseemsdb.me/results?query=mario+ ... g=0&page=1) gives me no results

The Rilke tossup cliffs pretty hard at "You must change your life," and was like a four way buzzer race in our room.

18. Cy Twombly quoted from a set of French poems about roses by this author on the right side of each painting in his Rose series. This poet punctuates descriptions of animals spinning past in a “blind and breathless game” with the line “And now and then there’s a white elephant” in his poem “The Carousel.” A poem by this author interprets an action as a “ritual dance around a center” of “mighty will” next to a “thousand” “constantly passing (*) bars.” Ocean Vuong’s “Torso of Air” responds to this poet’s line “You must change your life.” This author’s “thing-poems” include one that describes a creature “pacing in cramped circles” and one titled “Archaic Torso of Apollo.” For 10 points, name this poet of “The Panther” who asked “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?” in the Duino Elegies.
ANSWER: Rainer Maria Rilke (“RILL-kuh”)

Intellectually, I wouldn't call this a cliff at "You must change your life," since "The Carousel" is a tough but anthologized/oft-discussed poems in circles that exist, Rilke's whole thing for roses is well-known as both AuthorFacts(TM) and as a clue, and the poem which bookends power ("The Panther") is one of his most famous "tier 2ish" poems and those exact lines come up a dece amount in QB iirc. On the other hand, I had that tough-but-oft-discussed poem as the second and third lines. (Across all sites, 3 people powered on "The Carousel" title drop, and 1 person powered on the "ritual dance around a center," so the answer may be somewhere in between. I'll reevaluate this, possibly shortening "The Carousel" and inserting an... easier thing-poem?).

In the Hasidism/kabbalah/Merkabah bonus, I'm not sure which of the first two is supposed to be easy and which medium; I don't think either are particularly more difficult than the other with the clues given. But what do I know!

I don't know anything either, so I can't really tell you if this is a problem or not. I would guess kabbalah, though?

As Kai pointed out, I think Yoko Ono is easier than Kusama Yayoi, but I don't know, I don't think there's a huge gap in obscurity of their artistic output there (even if there's a huge gap between people knowing Ono exists vs Yayoi thanks to John Lennon).

5. An artist from this country created a wearable assemblage of tube lights that deliver shocks to the wearer in her piece Electric Dress. An appropriation artist from this country who is fond of posing bottomless inserted himself into the Mona Lisa and Manet’s Olympia in his Daughter of Art History series. A Fluxus artist from this country sat on the floor and allowed viewers to cut sections of her favorite dress in Cut Piece. An artist from this country who is obsessed with (*) polka dots has created many “infinity mirror” rooms. An artist from this country pioneered the “superflat” style used in his collaborations with Kanye West on the cover of Kids See Ghosts and Graduation. An artist from this country collaborated with her husband on the album Double Fantasy and organized several Bed-Ins for Peace. For 10 points, name this home country of Takashi Murakami.
ANSWER: Japan [or Nippon]

I really, really think "Cut Piece" without naming of Yoko Ono is harder than the most famous and one of the most attended art exhibitions of the last couple decades and the emblem of the massive social-media artboy/girl/non-gendered ho movement going on right now. Yoko Ono herself may be much more well-known, but Cut Piece isn't.

I think the first clues to the "suffering" tossup were transparent, even as I haven't read or studied that specific material from Schopenhauer, just because I know the basic character of his thought and of Buddhism.

4. Though it’s not the Will, Arthur Schopenhauer claimed that “unless [this concept] is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must fail of its aim” in an essay on this concept “in the World.” A philosophical system which claims that this concept is caused by tanhā inspired Schopenhauer, who claimed that “all striving comes from lack” and is thus equivalent to this concept. The term nirodha refers to a (*) cessation of this concept, which is the usual English rendition of the term dukkha (“DOOK-kuh”). This concept was first witnessed by a religious leader at age 29 when he left the palace where his kshatriya (“k’SHAH-tree-yuh”) parents lived, leading him to preach an Eightfold Way for avoiding it. The First Noble Truth states that life is equivalent to, for 10 points, what painful experience that can be escaped through nirvana?
ANSWER: suffering [or unsatisfactoriness or stress or angst; accept dukkha until it is read; accept “On Suffering in the World”; prompt on pain; prompt on desire by asking “what does desire cause?”; do not accept or prompt on “grief” or “sorrow”]

Three people powered this, with two of them right before the end of power. I'd argue that if you're well-versed enough with Schopenhauer's philosophy and stuff to make that connection, you might be good enough to warrant giving power to before those two.

I find the characterization autism as a disorder somewhat offensive, but I understand that most scientific discourse treats it as one, so I don't blame you.

I'm also convinced that the way society treats autism is problematic, but this tossup was on the scientific diagnostic and study and we have to test knowledge somehow, so I guess that's where it stands.

I think I'll call it there for now, since that's as far as I played in tournament. I didn't think this tournament was awful; I loved all the creative and real cool stuff that wound up in here, and think this tournament was an order better a quizbowl experience than this year's Penn Bowl. Sorry it took me a while to write these up, but I hope that it's clear now that there is no smear campaign against this set and that there's legitimate things to say and learn. It was never supposed to be a big deal, and I hope now it's clear that it isn't: just more progress toward the advancement of this game from detail to detail. Other players have more insightful and accurate comments than me, for sure.

While we're at it, I guess I'll also apologize for making this too personal, since like I said, in my limited personal interaction with all of you, you're all cool people--my callout was of the very unproductive behavior I saw going on for a month in an activity which needs active discussion and engagement to survive, and the perception of those actions.

[Jason Cheng]

In our ongoing call, Ophir just yelled at me for not looking up the bonus conversion stats for Hasidism/kabbalah etc ("It's the first packet! Open it and scroll down! It's right there!")

Hasidism / Kabbalah / Merkabah

for your mirror- 50% / 75% / 13%

[34 + P.J. Dozier]

Wonyoung also got duped out of the Haywain tossup, since he figured out it was Bosch as intended from the Temptation of St. Anthony clue, and then said "Garden of Earthly Delights," which notably also has fires going on in the right panel.

To clarify: while my buzz right after the second line may not have been the smartest buzz (I was playing a little more aggressively since we were playing Illinois A), the larger issue is the fact that the second line appears to be essentially unbuzzable. Dropping "The Temptation of St. Anthony" and "Brabant" pointed me towards Bosch, and, knowing that both Garden of Earthly Delights and the Haywain Triptych have fires in their right panels, I buzzed and answered with the work that I thought was more likely to get tossed up. As far as I know, the 1463 fire in Brabant that Bosch witnessed influenced his depiction of fire in many of his paintings, and not just the The Temptation of St. Anthony and the Haywain Triptych. Obviously, people probably wouldn't neg this with the same thought process if they knew the first line clue, and I'm not defending my buzz at all; rather, I think the clues in the second line should be replaced with different and more helpful clues.

Also, my comment about the Caravaggio tossup was said right after I had buzzed and was more of an off-the-cuff remark that I didn't really think twice about, and I was entirely mistaken. My apologies for any confusion.

[t-bar]

I enjoyed the large majority of this tournament’s science questions. In the categories in which I have deeper knowledge, topic and clue selection was generally very good. There were some early clue drops, confusingly worded sentences, and very difficult bonuses, but most sets suffer from all those diseases. If I have one overarching critique, it’s that it seemed like more frequently than usual, the writers tried to describe something technical and got part of their description slightly off. I applaud the ambition to clue “real” things, but you have to be careful to actually get those real things right. This led to some of the questions that I note below as being vague (canonical ensemble, waves/spherical harmonics/Laplace), slightly garbled (potentials, conservation of energy, intersection), or insufficiently distinguished from another answer (Stefan–Boltzmann law). More specific commentary:
Round 1:
—I wasn’t a huge fan of the dipole moment tossup, which immediately tells you “this is a quantity that changes during some sort of oscillation that molecules undergo.” I guess the point of this tossup is to test knowledge of the fact that “IR-active vibrations change a molecule’s dipole moment” in progressively easier ways, but IMO it got to the point pretty quickly.
—The tossup on potentials is good, though some of the wording could be tweaked. The exponential damping term of the Yukawa potential doesn’t “multiply one of these functions,” which wording suggests that it’s some sort of auxiliary feature—it’s the most important functional part of the potential itself.
—As I said in the other thread, I liked the computational bonus parts, both the one in this packet and the later ones.
Round 2:
—I liked the logistic function tossup; I think the revised position of Verhulst’s name is perfectly fine.
—I was surprised that the esters tossup gave a very straightforward description (and namedrop!) of the Baeyer–Villiger oxidation in power. If you know what peroxyacids usually do, and you know a compound that’s like a ketone but with one more oxygen, you get 15 points.
—I always have a devil of a time keeping the units of radiant quantities straight, but shouldn’t the tossup on power accept “radiant flux”?
—I think the bonus part on Richard von Mises is missing a word:

[10] Coulomb’s criterion gives the conditions under which a rock or other material experiences brittle? fracture, while this statistician and physicist’s criterion gives the conditions under which it experiences ductile fracture.

Round 3:
—I think requiring (elliptic integral of the) first kind is pretty unforgiving (in general, I seriously doubt people are spending time memorizing fine terminological distinctions for special functions), but it looks like a few people converted it, so I could be talking out of my ass.
Round 4:
—Is a prompt on something like “polar and nonpolar” merited for the bonus part on aqueous and organic phases?
Round 5:
—It’s been discussed upthread, but my intuition that the in-power clues in the canonical ensemble tossup are extremely difficult to parse is borne out by the fact that it looks like nobody powered it at any site.
Round 6:
—Even after the wording change, I was confused by the Gell-Mann–Okubo clue in the mesons tossup, but that could be my fault. I disagree with the critique that the GIM mechanism clue was poorly executed—the November Revolution experiments were the first observation of both the charm quark and the J/psi meson, and you have to distinguish them somehow.
—I was not a fan of this bonus:

Some examples of these phenomena occur when the driving frequency of a system equals one of that system’s natural frequencies. For 10 points each:
[10] Name these patterns whose “standing” variety has amplitude profiles that oscillate in time, but not in space.
ANSWER: waves [accept standing waves or standing wave patterns or stationary waves; prompt on harmonics]
[10] In three dimensions, standing waves can be represented using these mathematical functions. The wavefunction of a rigid rotor can be described entirely by these functions.
ANSWER: spherical harmonics [prompt on partial answer]
[10] The angular part of this mathematician’s namesake equation, which is a special case of the more general Poisson (“pwah-SAWN”) equation, is solved by spherical harmonics.
ANSWER: Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace [accept Laplace’s equation or Laplacian]

I would much sooner answer either “normal modes” or “resonances” to the bonus leadin, and indeed I’m still not sure what the conceptual link that clearly picks out “waves” is supposed to be. I’m grateful that the later clues are clearer. The first sentence of the second part is not uniquely identifying in any way—I can describe waves however I want! The second sentence is admittedly true and unique, but I think it would be better if it also said “they are denoted Y-L-M” or something like that. The third part is also vaguer than necessary, since you don’t state in what way Laplace’s equation is a special case of Poisson’s equation—“is the homogeneous case of Poisson’s equation” or “is the special case of Poisson’s equation in a charge-free space” would be much better.
Round 7:
—The conservation of energy tossup was a good idea and was for the most part executed well. I think the Euler–Lagrange clue slightly misleads the listener about the cause-and-effect (the fact that the time partial of the Lagrangian is zero is the crucial fact that leads to conservation of energy, while the derivative exchange that you get from E–L is just a formal manipulation), and I would reword the friction clue (“this result does not hold in the presence of friction”), but those are minor points.
—The bonus part on the quantity that governs the isotope effect should explicitly accept mass number.
Round 9:
—The bonus part on dT-dV, as written in the version I’m looking at, requires you to say partial after already saying “partial” in the prompt, which seems unforgiving to me.
Round 10:
—I’m pretty sure the description of a Fresnel lens is incorrect.
Round 11:
—The antepenultimate sentence in the intersection tossup is a bit garbled: it’s trying to say that an arbitrary intersection of closed sets is still closed, while openness is only preserved on intersection of a finite number of open sets. Saying this precisely would require a good bit more verbiage, though.
Round 12:
—The non-dimensionalized integral cited in the Stefan–Boltzmann law tossup also appears in the derivation of the Debye model. Perhaps this is personal bias, but I would guess that the latter usage is more commonly encountered.
—I think there’s a typo in the bonus part on the path-integral formulation—it should say “the exponential of i times the action…” rather than “i times the exponential of the action…”
Round 13:
—The wave–particle duality tossup was very neat, though I’m hella amused that the description of the Englert–Greenberger inequality is apparently two lines easier than the namedrop?
Finals 2:
—I agree with the posters above who said that the positive semi-definite bonus part is pretty rough. I think you can spell it out very explicitly—“x-transpose times M times x is either positive or zero”—and still have a fine middle part.

[ryanrosenberg]

From Kevin's post in the science thread:

Uh these aren’t science, but “Pigou” (0/7/2 in 9) and “Simon Magus” (0/6/6 in 9) were really hard, and not converted very well.

Here's the tossup in question:

This economist’s views on state action, which are laid out in essays such as “State Action and Laissez-Faire,” are critiqued in another man’s 1960 paper that uses the example of “sparks from engines.” This economist names a phenomenon in which deflation stimulates consumption due to the resulting rise in real wealth, also known as the “real balance effect.” Policies proposed by this economist are “inappropriate” in dealing with the “divergences between private and social net products” according to (*) Ronald Coase’s paper “The Problem of Social Cost,” which asserts that such policies do not adequately reduce incidental harm. This student of Alfred Marshall founded the field of welfare economics by writing the book The Economics of Welfare. For 10 points, name this British economist who proposed to reduce externalities via his namesake taxes.

ANSWER: Arthur Pigou [accept Pigou effect or Pigovian taxes]

This seemed like a fine tossup when I heard it, as well as reading back, and I'm not sure why so many buzzes clustered near the end. Pigovian taxes are a pretty fundamental econ topic, and the sentence about Coase is straightforward and buzzable by the end.

However, I really don't like how this tossup was powermarked; to me, the powermarking did more to test buzzer aggression than knowledge of Pigovian taxes. The relevant part of the sentence is "Policies proposed by this economist are 'inappropriate' in dealing with the 'divergences between private and social net products'". This sentence parses as "this economist has (potentially namesake) policies that deal with externalities". Identifying Pigovian taxes as policies that deal with externalities doesn't discriminate between players' levels of knowledge well -- they're the most famous policies that deal with externalities. I don't doubt that Dylan and I (who were the first buzzes on this topic, near the end of the sentence) knew that about Pigovian taxes, but with very little to buzz on besides that somewhat generic description, we were forced to wait until after the powermark for the Coase clue.

I bring this up because it's an example of a recurrent problem in social science questions across many different tournaments -- descriptions of a very-well-known phenomenon do not make for good clues unless there are specific, unique clues that players can buzz on.

[jonsh]

I would take issue with the characterization of ABA in the autism tossup as the "gold standard" for treatment. ABA is really controversial: https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/d ... n-therapy/ is the third link on google when you search 'aba autism', and it has a 'criticism' section on its wikipedia page. Many autistic adults who had ABA therapy as children, or parents who did it with their autistic children, have since spoken out about it and labelled it variously as not helpful, traumatizing, or abusive, and the autistic self-advocacy network opposes its use (source: all the way at the bottom of https://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan ... tatements/). I think it would be more accurate to highlight both its popularity and the controversy surrounding it.

[Borrowing 100,000 Arrows]

From Kevin's post in the science thread:

Uh these aren’t science, but “Pigou” (0/7/2 in 9) and “Simon Magus” (0/6/6 in 9) were really hard, and not converted very well.

Here's the tossup in question:

This economist’s views on state action, which are laid out in essays such as “State Action and Laissez-Faire,” are critiqued in another man’s 1960 paper that uses the example of “sparks from engines.” This economist names a phenomenon in which deflation stimulates consumption due to the resulting rise in real wealth, also known as the “real balance effect.” Policies proposed by this economist are “inappropriate” in dealing with the “divergences between private and social net products” according to (*) Ronald Coase’s paper “The Problem of Social Cost,” which asserts that such policies do not adequately reduce incidental harm. This student of Alfred Marshall founded the field of welfare economics by writing the book The Economics of Welfare. For 10 points, name this British economist who proposed to reduce externalities via his namesake taxes.

ANSWER: Arthur Pigou [accept Pigou effect or Pigovian taxes]

This seemed like a fine tossup when I heard it, as well as reading back, and I'm not sure why so many buzzes clustered near the end. Pigovian taxes are a pretty fundamental econ topic, and the sentence about Coase is straightforward and buzzable by the end.

However, I really don't like how this tossup was powermarked; to me, the powermarking did more to test buzzer aggression than knowledge of Pigovian taxes. The relevant part of the sentence is "Policies proposed by this economist are 'inappropriate' in dealing with the 'divergences between private and social net products'". This sentence parses as "this economist has (potentially namesake) policies that deal with externalities". Identifying Pigovian taxes as policies that deal with externalities doesn't discriminate between players' levels of knowledge well -- they're the most famous policies that deal with externalities. I don't doubt that Dylan and I (who were the first buzzes on this topic, near the end of the sentence) knew that about Pigovian taxes, but with very little to buzz on besides that somewhat generic description, we were forced to wait until after the powermark for the Coase clue.

I bring this up because it's an example of a recurrent problem in social science questions across many different tournaments -- descriptions of a very-well-known phenomenon do not make for good clues unless there are specific, unique clues that players can buzz on.

To be fair, those clues are definitely buzzable. I buzzed on the first-line and negged with Coase because I am dumb, but I think it is totally justifiable to only award powers to people who have actually read "The Problem of Social Cost."

[ryanrosenberg]

From Kevin's post in the science thread:

Uh these aren’t science, but “Pigou” (0/7/2 in 9) and “Simon Magus” (0/6/6 in 9) were really hard, and not converted very well.

Here's the tossup in question:

This economist’s views on state action, which are laid out in essays such as “State Action and Laissez-Faire,” are critiqued in another man’s 1960 paper that uses the example of “sparks from engines.” This economist names a phenomenon in which deflation stimulates consumption due to the resulting rise in real wealth, also known as the “real balance effect.” Policies proposed by this economist are “inappropriate” in dealing with the “divergences between private and social net products” according to (*) Ronald Coase’s paper “The Problem of Social Cost,” which asserts that such policies do not adequately reduce incidental harm. This student of Alfred Marshall founded the field of welfare economics by writing the book The Economics of Welfare. For 10 points, name this British economist who proposed to reduce externalities via his namesake taxes.

ANSWER: Arthur Pigou [accept Pigou effect or Pigovian taxes]

This seemed like a fine tossup when I heard it, as well as reading back, and I'm not sure why so many buzzes clustered near the end. Pigovian taxes are a pretty fundamental econ topic, and the sentence about Coase is straightforward and buzzable by the end.

However, I really don't like how this tossup was powermarked; to me, the powermarking did more to test buzzer aggression than knowledge of Pigovian taxes. The relevant part of the sentence is "Policies proposed by this economist are 'inappropriate' in dealing with the 'divergences between private and social net products'". This sentence parses as "this economist has (potentially namesake) policies that deal with externalities". Identifying Pigovian taxes as policies that deal with externalities doesn't discriminate between players' levels of knowledge well -- they're the most famous policies that deal with externalities. I don't doubt that Dylan and I (who were the first buzzes on this topic, near the end of the sentence) knew that about Pigovian taxes, but with very little to buzz on besides that somewhat generic description, we were forced to wait until after the powermark for the Coase clue.

I bring this up because it's an example of a recurrent problem in social science questions across many different tournaments -- descriptions of a very-well-known phenomenon do not make for good clues unless there are specific, unique clues that players can buzz on.

To be fair, those clues are definitely buzzable. I buzzed on the first-line and negged with Coase because I am dumb, but I think it is totally justifiable to only award powers to people who have actually read "The Problem of Social Cost."

Oh, my post was only referring to the sentence bookending the powermark (although the point about buzzability would apply if a similarly vague description were anywhere in the question). The previous clues were good and buzzable.

[Borrowing 100,000 Arrows]

From Kevin's post in the science thread:

Uh these aren’t science, but “Pigou” (0/7/2 in 9) and “Simon Magus” (0/6/6 in 9) were really hard, and not converted very well.

Here's the tossup in question:

This economist’s views on state action, which are laid out in essays such as “State Action and Laissez-Faire,” are critiqued in another man’s 1960 paper that uses the example of “sparks from engines.” This economist names a phenomenon in which deflation stimulates consumption due to the resulting rise in real wealth, also known as the “real balance effect.” Policies proposed by this economist are “inappropriate” in dealing with the “divergences between private and social net products” according to (*) Ronald Coase’s paper “The Problem of Social Cost,” which asserts that such policies do not adequately reduce incidental harm. This student of Alfred Marshall founded the field of welfare economics by writing the book The Economics of Welfare. For 10 points, name this British economist who proposed to reduce externalities via his namesake taxes.

ANSWER: Arthur Pigou [accept Pigou effect or Pigovian taxes]

This seemed like a fine tossup when I heard it, as well as reading back, and I'm not sure why so many buzzes clustered near the end. Pigovian taxes are a pretty fundamental econ topic, and the sentence about Coase is straightforward and buzzable by the end.

However, I really don't like how this tossup was powermarked; to me, the powermarking did more to test buzzer aggression than knowledge of Pigovian taxes. The relevant part of the sentence is "Policies proposed by this economist are 'inappropriate' in dealing with the 'divergences between private and social net products'". This sentence parses as "this economist has (potentially namesake) policies that deal with externalities". Identifying Pigovian taxes as policies that deal with externalities doesn't discriminate between players' levels of knowledge well -- they're the most famous policies that deal with externalities. I don't doubt that Dylan and I (who were the first buzzes on this topic, near the end of the sentence) knew that about Pigovian taxes, but with very little to buzz on besides that somewhat generic description, we were forced to wait until after the powermark for the Coase clue.

I bring this up because it's an example of a recurrent problem in social science questions across many different tournaments -- descriptions of a very-well-known phenomenon do not make for good clues unless there are specific, unique clues that players can buzz on.

To be fair, those clues are definitely buzzable. I buzzed on the first-line and negged with Coase because I am dumb, but I think it is totally justifiable to only award powers to people who have actually read "The Problem of Social Cost."

Oh, my post was only referring to the sentence bookending the powermark (although the point about buzzability would apply if a similarly vague description were anywhere in the question). The previous clues were good and buzzable.

Oh my bad, I misunderstood what you were saying.

[Deepika Goes From Ranbir To Ranveer]

I would take issue with the characterization of ABA in the autism tossup as the "gold standard" for treatment. ABA is really controversial: https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/d ... n-therapy/ is the third link on google when you search 'aba autism', and it has a 'criticism' section on its wikipedia page. Many autistic adults who had ABA therapy as children, or parents who did it with their autistic children, have since spoken out about it and labelled it variously as not helpful, traumatizing, or abusive, and the autistic self-advocacy network opposes its use (source: all the way at the bottom of https://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan ... tatements/). I think it would be more accurate to highlight both its popularity and the controversy surrounding it.

I think this is a really valuable post that should be discussed.

[aseem.keyal]

The clue in the autism tossup has been changed to read "A form of ABA called early intensive behavioral intervention is a controversial method commonly used to treat this disorder."

[AGoodMan]

I think the second clue of the Solomon tossup could be improved:

"Some of the sins committed during the reign of this man's sons included putting male prostitutes in their shrines."

First, that clue is more about Rehoboam than Solomon. I think it's a more roundabout way to ask about Solomon, even though there are other difficulty-appropriate clues that could have been pulled to ask more directly about him. The clue as is makes the player do some unnecessary mental gymnastics.

Second, given that the majority of the kings of Israel and Judah were called wicked, the male prostitute clue is incredibly difficult; I don't know if there's much gradation between the lead-in and this clue. Personally, I also think there is a minor cliff between the male prostitute part and the latter part of the clue, the bit talking about Shishak of Egypt invading Judah as that is also mentioned in Raiders of the Lost Ark. But the buzz points seem to suggest that this is a moot point.

But most importantly, the clue isn't very unique. Male prostitutes are recorded in the reigns of Rehoboam (which the clue refers to), but also in the reigns of Abijah (1 Kings 15:12) and even Asa, a righteous king (1 Kings 22:46). I guess the clue phrasing of "putting male prostitutes" implies that we're looking for the father of the king (Rehoboam) who started this practice, but man, that's hard to parse.

Overall, I understand that the lead in uniquely identifying to Solomon, but that leadin is quite difficult. So it might have been a good idea to replace the second clue out of player empathy.

I liked this tossup in general. I didn't play any mirrors, but at least I enjoyed reading it on my own. Simon Magus was quite hard though, and wouldn't have surprised me to see it pop up at ACF Nats.

[Carlos Be]

This is a bit late, but in The White Tiger, Balram kills Mr. Ashok by stabbing him with the broken end of a whiskey bottle, not by beating him with it.

[Borrowing 100,000 Arrows]

I would take issue with the characterization of ABA in the autism tossup as the "gold standard" for treatment. ABA is really controversial: https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/d ... n-therapy/ is the third link on google when you search 'aba autism', and it has a 'criticism' section on its wikipedia page. Many autistic adults who had ABA therapy as children, or parents who did it with their autistic children, have since spoken out about it and labelled it variously as not helpful, traumatizing, or abusive, and the autistic self-advocacy network opposes its use (source: all the way at the bottom of https://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan ... tatements/). I think it would be more accurate to highlight both its popularity and the controversy surrounding it.

I think this is a really valuable post that should be discussed.

I just wanted to say that I think that this post is misleading. It's pretty controversial to suggest that ABA controversial. Peer-reviewed studies have consistently shown that it is the most effective means of treating autism, and these are also the techniques that every psychologist, including my mother (shouts out mom), learns in grad school for treating autism. The people leveling criticisms against these techniques seem skeptical both of the efficacy of psychotherapy, and the notion that autism needs to be treated. I don't think we should give credence to bizarre pseudo-scientific views that are outside the mainstream in the mental health community.

[Ciorwrong]

So I'm re-reading through the set finally and I just noticed this bonus:

12. Though compounds with this relationship have similar chemical and physical properties, they rotate
plane-polarized light in opposite directions. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this relationship between the two compounds in a racemic mixture in which four different R groups are
bound to a chiral center. Compounds with this relationship are mirror images of each other.
ANSWER: ​ _enantiomer_​​ s [prompt on ​ isomer​ s]
[10] This method, which is used to isolate a single enantiomer, can be carried out using column chromatography or
recrystallization.
ANSWER: _chiral ​ resolution_
[10] Louis Pasteur conducted the first chiral resolution on a racemic mixture of tartaric acid by using this technique,
in which an ordered solid precipitates out of solution.
ANSWER: re​ _crystallization_​​ [or ​ crystal​​ growth; prompt on ​ precipitation​ ]

Why does this bonus say recrystallization in the second part if the last part is recrystallization? I was also kind of confused on the first part of this bonus because it said chiral center and I think I said conformer or something stupid. My idiocy aside, this seems like a harder easy part for this tournament unless recrystallization is actually the easy part which I guess would be okay if it did not say recrystallization in the second part.

[aseem.keyal]

So I'm re-reading through the set finally and I just noticed this bonus:

12. Though compounds with this relationship have similar chemical and physical properties, they rotate
plane-polarized light in opposite directions. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this relationship between the two compounds in a racemic mixture in which four different R groups are
bound to a chiral center. Compounds with this relationship are mirror images of each other.
ANSWER: ​ _enantiomer_​​ s [prompt on ​ isomer​ s]
[10] This method, which is used to isolate a single enantiomer, can be carried out using column chromatography or
recrystallization.
ANSWER: _chiral ​ resolution_
[10] Louis Pasteur conducted the first chiral resolution on a racemic mixture of tartaric acid by using this technique,
in which an ordered solid precipitates out of solution.
ANSWER: re​ _crystallization_​​ [or ​ crystal​​ growth; prompt on ​ precipitation​ ]

Why does this bonus say recrystallization in the second part if the last part is recrystallization? I was also kind of confused on the first part of this bonus because it said chiral center and I think I said conformer or something stupid. My idiocy aside, this seems like a harder easy part for this tournament unless recrystallization is actually the easy part which I guess would be okay if it did not say recrystallization in the second part.

The repeated mention of recrystallization was something I caused when editing down this bonus to be easier for the 10/17 mirrors. I caught the error after those mirrors and fixed it, so there's no repeat in the current version of the set.

[coldstonesteveaustin]

In the Fatimah tossup, Husayn is her younger son, not her eldest.

edit: technically second son if you count her miscarried son Muhsin as her third