2020 Terrapin Open: Errata

[gimmedatguudsuccrose]

Please post any errata, typos, packetization errors, feng shui issues, etc. in this thread.

[Zealots of Stockholm]

I don't remember which packet, I think it was in the first 7 or so. But there were back to back "2 answers required TUs," which doesn't seem like a huge deal, but should perhaps be separated given there are only a few of them across the set.

[kearnm7]

I have a small error in one of the bonuses from Round 10:

7. In one version of this practice, slaves would be instructed to get drunk on pure wine and then forced to sing disgusting songs in order to demonstrate to viewers the importance of drinking moderately. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this practice in which men would hold a daily banquet with their fellow soldiers. In contrast to the more widespread ​symposia, this event involved mixing the wine with water to dilute it.
ANSWER: ​syssitia [accept ​pheiditia​ or ​philitia]

Symposia effectively always—unless one was drinking in the "Scythian" fashion—involved the mixing of water and wine. Here's a reference from the Oxford Classical Dictionary, which is generally considered the authority on these sorts of things:

Water was mixed with the wine in a central crater to a strength determined by the president (usually three or four to one, or about the strength of modern beer).

I might also say that this clue from Packet 5 is an error:

The A, B, and D subgenomes of its common species, ​Triticum aestivum, are a hybridization of wild (*) goatgrass and its emmer species.

I powered this—despite never having previously gotten a live science tossup at any tournament—because I knew that triticum is the Latin word for wheat. Perhaps I should be rewarded for that knowledge, but I can imagine how those with actual science knowledge might have been quite annoyed at that buzz.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Yeah, that triticum clue was mad dumb. If Michael weren't so fast that would have been my first power on a hard bio tossup ever.

[VSCOelasticity]

I think both questions were executed well, but Packet 11 currently having a tossup on Raman spec that clues surface enhanced Raman spec along with a bonus on electrons/plasmons/polarons is bad feng shui.

[Amizda Calyx]

I might also say that this clue from Packet 5 is an error:

The A, B, and D subgenomes of its common species, ​Triticum aestivum, are a hybridization of wild (*) goatgrass and its emmer species.

I powered this—despite never having previously gotten a live science tossup at any tournament—because I knew that triticum is the Latin word for wheat. Perhaps I should be rewarded for that knowledge, but I can imagine how those with actual science knowledge might have been quite annoyed at that buzz.

My bad, I should have anticipated this being known to history/humanities people. No one got it there at the first site as far as I can tell so I didn't think it would be an issue.

[Auks Ran Ova]

If you'd like more anecdotal evidence, I only didn't immediately buzz on Triticum because I was surprised to hear it there and waited for another clue just to be sure I wasn't making a mistake.

[Carlos Be]

12. These objects are rank-1 tensors. For 10 points each:
[10] Name these mathematical objects that can describe quantities with components for each direction, like the electric and magnetic fields.
ANSWER: ​vector​s [accept ​vector​ field]

This question seems to suggest that vectors and vector fields are the same thing. They are not.

[VSCOelasticity]

Very small nitpick: ESA/NASA apparently wants to be needlessly confusing, because it looks like the "eLISA" detector mentioned in the gravitational wave frequency tossup (good idea!) appears to be just "LISA" now since funding for it has been increased.

[VSCOelasticity]

The partition function for an n-particle system with this property is the single particle partition function to the nth power, without the usual factor of one over n-factorial. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this property. The wave function for quantum particles with this property can be a product of single particle wave functions rather than a symmetric or antisymmetric combination.
ANSWER: distinguishability [or distinguishable particles; do not accept or prompt on “indistinguishability” or “indistinguishable”]

The lead-in should read "for a system consisting of n particles with this property" because it is the particles that are distinguishable, not the system itself.

[jmarvin_]

The only thing I noticed that could plausibly be called "errata" was that, in the Imagined Communities tossup, the concept of "homogenous empty time" was mentioned before mentioning that this concept is borrowed from Benjamin, leading me at game speed to buzz and attempt to remember which Benjamin book that comes from. I think this question could be adjusted to avoid such a situation by rearranging that sentence to mention Benjamin before saying "homogenous empty time" without disrupting the pyramidality in any serious regard.

Edit: Two other things I remembered, namely that corvus should probably be part of the corvid answerline in some capacity (even as it is a genus, not a family), and that shindo should be acceptable for Korean folk religion (my teammate was very unfairly negged on a sick buzz on this topic because of this).

[Kevin]

Packet 12, TU4: The grammar of the original position tossup completely fell apart in the sentence before FTP.

[ErikC]

To repeat a point I made on discord, I really think that an answer of just "Manley" should be prompted for Michael Manley or Norman Manley, for similar reasons as prompting on Trudeau or Roosevelt. They are even closer historically then those examples, being only 16 years apart. Norman was technically not "Prime Minister" but a Premier, but IIRC that bonus part said premier anyways so it didn't rule either one out.