2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion

[Justice William Brennan]

Please post any thoughts about specific questions in this thread.

[DavidB256]

I thought that the tossup on "commutator" was a tad transparent. The tossup on "quantifiers" was probably the first time that I've ever enjoyed a logic question. Dropping "Penrose–Hawking theorems" in power in the tossup on "singularities" seemed far too early, especially considering the increased attention that Penrose has recently received. Giving an explicit definition of Majorana fermions in power in the tossup on "fermions" seemed far too early. The tossups on "cremation," "water," "restriction enzymes," and "random walks" were among my favorite buzzes ever.

[Arabidopsis failiana]

I'd like to see the specific questions posted here because my memory/notes might not be right, and my apologies if anything is wrong.

On the "Black Hills" tossup, I was very confused. The tossup seemed to clue the Fetterman Fight, which happened in Wyoming (and not very close to the Black Hills based on some maps I looked at), but my answer of "Wyoming" was ruled incorrect. From what I heard, this tossup seemed wrong.

The "Tulsa" tossup seemed not very good. My recollection of the second clue was that it said that it was the first man-made disaster where the American Red Cross helped with relief efforts, but the Red Cross helped with lots of other stuff, including the Johnstown flood, which I would definitely consider to be a "man-made disaster." The next clue was something about using airplanes that caused a big buzzer race.

On the Palm Sunday bonus, we said "parade" for "procession" - is there a reason that these terms are different in this context? They seem pretty much the same to me, but I don't know if "procession" is a specific defined term.

There was a bonus part with the answer "testifying," we said "bearing witness," this is not something I know anything about but I'm wondering if that specific term needs to be required?

Finally, there was the Mapuche protest that you already know about.

[Votre Kickstarter Est Nul]

On the "Black Hills" tossup, I was very confused. The tossup seemed to clue the Fetterman Fight, which happened in Wyoming (and not very close to the Black Hills based on some maps I looked at), but my answer of "Wyoming" was ruled incorrect. From what I heard, this tossup seemed wrong.

The "Tulsa" tossup seemed not very good. My recollection of the second clue was that it said that it was the first man-made disaster where the American Red Cross helped with relief efforts, but the Red Cross helped with lots of other stuff, including the Johnstown flood, which I would definitely consider to be a "man-made disaster." The next clue was something about using airplanes that caused a big buzzer.

Finally, there was the Mapuche protest that you already know about.

Hey! Thanks for the comments. I’m currently traveling so I’ll say a quick thing but I’ll be back with substantive responses Wednesday or thereabout.

The Fetterman Fight clue says “troops from this place” rather than where the fight actually took place. I pretty much just used Pekka Hämäläinen’s Lakota America for all this; it’s on my dead laptop so I’ll try and find my sources when I get home. None of this is to say that makes it necessarily a good clue, but until I get home again it’s hard for me to have better thoughts.

Tulsa is my b. I—stupidly—didn’t realize how well known this was. As for the man made, thats also just something I didn’t process in the moment. The article I read used man made to mean something like a massacre or riot and I just went with it without realizing man made is ambiguous. Mapuche was also just me forgetting to add that to the answer line.

This ended up being sorta long, but I hope it is helpful for now until I’m home again and can actually reanalyze my thoughts for the Fetterman Fight clue.

[Arabidopsis failiana]

Can the tossups on the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the exile of Juan Peron be posted here as well if possible? The Czechoslovakia tossup gave a prompt on the Prague Spring close to the end when it seemed like that answer didn't fit with the clues at that point. The Peron tossup led to a neg with Dirty War (which is definitely wrong, I'd just like to see the clues in the tossup).

[VSCOelasticity]

I thought that the tossup on "commutator" was a tad transparent.

What made it transparent to you? I suppose it is like tossing up the Poisson bracket in mechanics (not a lot of answer space for "this operation" in quantum), but it doesn't look like it played too poorly IRL. From what I can see on advanced stats, it seems that I made an error of naming Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff in the lead-in after the TU played hard at the playtest mirror. Other than that, the TU seems to have a decent buzz distribution. I do admit this is a TU that lends itself to either be powered or not converted at this difficulty, but there were some good buzzes between the end of power and FTP. Did anyone else have similar concerns on this TU?

Dropping "Penrose–Hawking theorems" in power in the tossup on "singularities" seemed far too early, especially considering the increased attention that Penrose has recently received.

Yeah, you're right, and it definitely cliffs there on the advanced stats! This is a good reminder that previous DB hits are not a measure of difficulty. Sorry about that, I'll be adjusting that question.

Giving an explicit definition of Majorana fermions in power in the tossup on "fermions" seemed far too early.

Agreed. I'll get a new middle clue.

The tossups on "cremation," "water," "restriction enzymes," and "random walks" were among my favorite buzzes ever.

I'm glad you enjoyed the random walks tossup :)

[DavidB256]

I thought that the tossup on "commutator" was a tad transparent.

What made it transparent to you?

I don't know enough quantum mechanics to give a good answer to your question, but I buzzed after thinking "ok it's a thing that acts on two quantum operators and has cool mathematical properties" and then sitting for a clue or two. If you have data showing that the tossup played well, then I have no issue with it.

[Muriel Axon]

I've been going through and fixing some of my questions based on data from this mirror, but I particularly wanted to apologize for the question on 'holomorphic functions,' which in retrospect contained blatant negbait for answers like 'conservative' or 'path-independent.' I've fixed it for future mirrors (I think).

[tpmorrison]

I really enjoyed this set! Can I see the tossup on probability density functions?

[aseem.keyal]

I really enjoyed this set! Can I see the tossup on probability density functions?

16. Approaches to estimating this function often seek to minimize the mean integrated squared error. The Parzen–Rosenblatt window is a common non-parametric method used to estimate this function using kernels. This function for the sum of two continuous random variables is equal to the convolution of this function of those variables. For the standard normal distribution, this function is (*) 1 over the square root of 2 pi, times e to the quantity “negative x squared over 2.” The integral of this function from negative infinity to x gives the value of its “cumulative” analog at x, and the integral of this function over the entire space must equal 1. For 10 points, name this function that gives the relative probability that a continuous random variable takes on a given value.
ANSWER: probability density function [or PDF; prompt on probability distribution]
<Ayush Parikh, Other Science>

[tpmorrison]

I really enjoyed this set! Can I see the tossup on probability density functions?

16. Approaches to estimating this function often seek to minimize the mean integrated squared error. The Parzen–Rosenblatt window is a common non-parametric method used to estimate this function using kernels. This function for the sum of two continuous random variables is equal to the convolution of this function of those variables. For the standard normal distribution, this function is (*) 1 over the square root of 2 pi, times e to the quantity “negative x squared over 2.” The integral of this function from negative infinity to x gives the value of its “cumulative” analog at x, and the integral of this function over the entire space must equal 1. For 10 points, name this function that gives the relative probability that a continuous random variable takes on a given value.
ANSWER: probability density function [or PDF; prompt on probability distribution]
<Ayush Parikh, Other Science>

Ah okay, I didn't catch the word "integrated" in the first clue so I thought maybe it was non-unique, but it's good. Great question!

[Votre Kickstarter Est Nul]

Can the tossups on the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the exile of Juan Peron be posted here as well if possible? The Czechoslovakia tossup gave a prompt on the Prague Spring close to the end when it seemed like that answer didn't fit with the clues at that point. The Peron tossup led to a neg with Dirty War (which is definitely wrong, I'd just like to see the clues in the tossup).

During this period, Rawson Prison was the site of a massacre of 16 members of a group that agitated for this period’s end by killing Pedro Aramburu. After this period, that group also murdered José Rucci, who had overseen the splitting of the CGT during it. During this period, a woman’s corpse was stolen and buried in Milan. Right-wing supporters of a leader opened sniper fire on left-wing supporters of him at an (*) airport at the end of this period; José López Rega ordered that massacre and operated the Triple A death squad after this period. The Montoneros fought to end this period, which was triggered by the Revolucion Libertadora. For 10 points, name this period in which a populist Argentinian leader was out of power.
ANSWER: Juan Perón’s exile [accept any answers indicating the period of time between Juan Perón’s terms; accept answers indicating the period Juan Perón was deposed or overthrown; prompt on Argentina’s military junta by asking “between whose terms?”]
<Emmett Laurie, World History>

You were far from the only person to neg with Dirty War (I count 7, and not all sites recorded negs). This is being rewritten to Peron, since it garnered an amusing 94% neg rate. I hope I don't sound too defensive, but—and you explicitly said this wasn't your concern—I will note that I don't think any of the clues are ambiguous. I'm not quite sure what exactly happened, but it doesn't really matter since I won't be arguing with the numbers. Sorry if I tripped anyone up by writing a question that would function best with a description acceptable tag but didn't include one.

Note to players: description acceptable. A man kneels on the ground while raising his arms upward at the unseen drivers of a car during this event in an anonymous Magnum Photos picture. Long-haired mánička (“MA-nitch-ka”) protested this event by painting over street signs or turning them 180 degrees. Seventeen died outside the Central Radio Center during this event. Following this event, minor protests over a hockey game saw a colleague of (*) Ludvík Svoboda exiled, whereupon he became a forest inspector. Disagreement with the “Action Programme” sparked this event, which began a “normalization” period that ended one man’s “socialism with a human face.” After this event, Alexander Dubček (“DOOB-chek”) was flown to Moscow and soon replaced with Gustáv Husák. For 10 points, name this military event that saw the Brezhnev Doctrine invoked to end the Prague Spring.
ANSWER: Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia [or Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia; accept Operation Danube; accept Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia; prompt on ending the Prague Spring by asking “what event was responsible for ending the Prague Spring?”] (The first line refers to Josef Koudelka.)
<Tracy Mirkin, European History>

[Arabidopsis failiana]

Can the tossups on the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the exile of Juan Peron be posted here as well if possible? The Czechoslovakia tossup gave a prompt on the Prague Spring close to the end when it seemed like that answer didn't fit with the clues at that point. The Peron tossup led to a neg with Dirty War (which is definitely wrong, I'd just like to see the clues in the tossup).

During this period, Rawson Prison was the site of a massacre of 16 members of a group that agitated for this period’s end by killing Pedro Aramburu. After this period, that group also murdered José Rucci, who had overseen the splitting of the CGT during it. During this period, a woman’s corpse was stolen and buried in Milan. Right-wing supporters of a leader opened sniper fire on left-wing supporters of him at an (*) airport at the end of this period; José López Rega ordered that massacre and operated the Triple A death squad after this period. The Montoneros fought to end this period, which was triggered by the Revolucion Libertadora. For 10 points, name this period in which a populist Argentinian leader was out of power.
ANSWER: Juan Perón’s exile [accept any answers indicating the period of time between Juan Perón’s terms; accept answers indicating the period Juan Perón was deposed or overthrown; prompt on Argentina’s military junta by asking “between whose terms?”]
<Emmett Laurie, World History>

You were far from the only person to neg with Dirty War (I count 7, and not all sites recorded negs). This is being rewritten to Peron, since it garnered an amusing 94% neg rate. I hope I don't sound too defensive, but—and you explicitly said this wasn't your concern—I will note that I don't think any of the clues are ambiguous. I'm not quite sure what exactly happened, but it doesn't really matter since I won't be arguing with the numbers. Sorry if I tripped anyone up by writing a question that would function best with a description acceptable tag but didn't include one.

It's an interesting idea for a new way to present the information as a tossup and I thought it was cool, and I definitely appreciated the creativity with the history answerlines in this set, even though in this case with loosely-defined periods like this can sometimes be a little hard to figure out what the question is looking for. And for the record it was Itamar who had the privilege of negging this one.

Note to players: description acceptable. A man kneels on the ground while raising his arms upward at the unseen drivers of a car during this event in an anonymous Magnum Photos picture. Long-haired mánička (“MA-nitch-ka”) protested this event by painting over street signs or turning them 180 degrees. Seventeen died outside the Central Radio Center during this event. Following this event, minor protests over a hockey game saw a colleague of (*) Ludvík Svoboda exiled, whereupon he became a forest inspector. Disagreement with the “Action Programme” sparked this event, which began a “normalization” period that ended one man’s “socialism with a human face.” After this event, Alexander Dubček (“DOOB-chek”) was flown to Moscow and soon replaced with Gustáv Husák. For 10 points, name this military event that saw the Brezhnev Doctrine invoked to end the Prague Spring.
ANSWER: Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia [or Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia; accept Operation Danube; accept Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia; prompt on ending the Prague Spring by asking “what event was responsible for ending the Prague Spring?”] (The first line refers to Josef Koudelka.)
<Tracy Mirkin, European History>

In our room, the other team buzzed sometime during "socialism with a human face" and said "Prague Spring", and at that point the answer of "Prague Spring" seems incorrect with the clues in that sentence. (I think that if you consider the invasion to be a part of the Prague Spring, the other clues can still correctly describe the Prague Spring, but it's not true to say that "disagreement with the 'Action Programme' sparked the Prague Spring"). I guess the usual principle in this case is to continue prompting on a less specific answer even when the clues don't fit that less specific answer anymore. After the prompt they said "Soviet invasion of Prague" and were prompted again and then said "Soviet invasion of the Czech Republic" which was ruled incorrect.

[Cheynem]

I thought the Peron exile tossup was cool but hard--I was about to neg with "Peron's last term in power" before my teammate got the question. I agree that making the question just on Argentina or Peron is probably better. I don't know how many people think of "Peron's exile" as a specific period per se (to be clear, I agree the clues are unambiguous, just that the answerline might be too hard at this level).

[Borrowing 100,000 Arrows]

Can I see the poetry tossup on Jews? The lead-in on Charles Reznikoff felt to me like real neg-bait. I buzzed with something like _people in court_ and got negged. I guess you were referencing his work Holocaust? But, the description sounded just like his much more famous work Testimony. And, in any event, both are transcripts of people in court.

[aseem.keyal]

Can I see the poetry tossup on Jews? The lead-in on Charles Reznikoff felt to me like real neg-bait. I buzzed with something like _people in court_ and got negged. I guess you were referencing his work Holocaust? But, the description sounded just like his much more famous work Testimony. And, in any event, both are transcripts of people in court.

15. These people are the subject of a long Objectivist found-poem created by chopping up twenty-six volumes of interviews with them into verse; that poem is by Charles Reznikoff. Another poem compares being one of these people to “a gift” and states that “If you refuse, / Wishing to be invisible, you choose / Death of the spirit.” That poem titled for being one of these people is by Muriel Rukeyser. Another poem compares the title character to “An engine / Chuffing me off like” one of these people before stating “I think I may well (*) be [one of these people].” The speaker concludes “the dead nations never rise again” in a Longfellow poem titled for a cemetery for these people in Newport. The speaker of Silvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” compares herself to, for 10 points, members of what ethnoreligious group that includes writers like Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth?
ANSWER: Jewish people [or Jews; or Yehudim; accept Holocaust victims or survivors] (The poem in the first clue is Holocaust.)
<Taylor Harvey, American Literature>

[VSCOelasticity]

I thought that the tossup on "commutator" was a tad transparent.

What made it transparent to you?

I don't know enough quantum mechanics to give a good answer to your question, but I buzzed after thinking "ok it's a thing that acts on two quantum operators and has cool mathematical properties" and then sitting for a clue or two. If you have data showing that the tossup played well, then I have no issue with it.

Thanks for clarifying! The question doesn't mention two operators until midway through, so I'm okay with that. I asked because the buzz points could look okay, but the question could still play poorly despite "looking okay" if it's transparent to many people and the question essentially reduces to a game of chicken.

[db0wman]

Could I see the bonus on markdown/documentation/Python? I thought it was very easy but would like to see it before I make any other critiques, since my team wasn't the one that received it.

[entropy]

i really liked the set! could i see the please see tus on sibelius, white teeth, affinity chromatography, and time? thanks!

[Muriel Axon]

Could I see the bonus on markdown/documentation/Python? I thought it was very easy but would like to see it before I make any other critiques, since my team wasn't the one that received it.

This language uses a triple backtick to create a code block. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this lightweight plaintext-to-HTML language co-invented by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz. A “GitHub Flavored” version of it is used to create most GitHub READMEs.
ANSWER: Markdown
[10m] A common use of Markdown is to create pages that serve this purpose for a project. Inline comments and README files have this purpose, which serves to make code easier to understand and use.
ANSWER: documentation [or docs]
[10e] Markdown is used to write text in Jupyter Notebooks, which were spun off from an interactive shell for this language. Guido van Rossum led the development of this language, which uses indentation to denote code blocks.
ANSWER: Python

(apologies for the lack of formatting)
I adjusted the bonus between last weekend's mirrors and this weekend's. Before, it was Markdown (m) / documentation (e) / Rust (h), with the first two parts being basically as is. It was one of the bonuses with the poorest conversion in the entire set, so I changed Rust to Python (and tried to make Markdown slightly harder) to give it a clear easy part. Predictably, Python had much better conversion. Less predictably, Markdown and documentation also had better conversion at today's mirrors than at last weekend's.

[cwasims]

This set was quite good overall - a nice return to a regular-season QB tournament for me. A few tossups that I think weren't ideal:

It might have just been first-tossup-of-the-day syndrome, but I thought the species tossup was confusing - I negged early (with "animals and humans") but the remainder clued some things from Darwin's Dangerous Idea among other Darwin-related things. I don't think the distinction between species is really the philosophically interesting part about Darwin's views or a particularly obvious way of thinking about them, and I was at a loss at to what the answer was supposed to be for basically all of those clues.

I guess a disadvantage of gaining knowledge from past QB questions, but I really only knew about Alice Coltrane's use of the harp - while the harp is certainly less common (or however the question worded it) than the piano in jazz, the harp is still a very mainstream instrument in other musical contexts and so that clue seemed pretty neg-baity if you didn't know about the piano side of her career.

The Sibelius tossup had a clue referencing the Mahler quote that the "symphony must be like the world" as opposed to Sibelius's more "restrained" approach - it would've been good for the tossup to clarify (as John Lawrence discovered by doing a Google search when I asked him about it) that these quotes are from letters between Sibelius and Mahler. Otherwise, this clue seemed a bit strange and non-uniquely-identifying as I was hearing it. I really enjoyed the classical music overall, though.

I also appreciated the mention of the more famous Chris Sims, who I think has rarely come up in QB - there was a second when I forgot what VAR was called, but thankfully I came up with the answer in time.

[db0wman]

Could I see the bonus on markdown/documentation/Python? I thought it was very easy but would like to see it before I make any other critiques, since my team wasn't the one that received it.

This language uses a triple backtick to create a code block. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this lightweight plaintext-to-HTML language co-invented by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz. A “GitHub Flavored” version of it is used to create most GitHub READMEs.
ANSWER: Markdown
[10m] A common use of Markdown is to create pages that serve this purpose for a project. Inline comments and README files have this purpose, which serves to make code easier to understand and use.
ANSWER: documentation [or docs]
[10e] Markdown is used to write text in Jupyter Notebooks, which were spun off from an interactive shell for this language. Guido van Rossum led the development of this language, which uses indentation to denote code blocks.
ANSWER: Python

(apologies for the lack of formatting)
I adjusted the bonus between last weekend's mirrors and this weekend's. Before, it was Markdown (m) / documentation (e) / Rust (h), with the first two parts being basically as is. It was one of the bonuses with the poorest conversion in the entire set, so I changed Rust to Python (and tried to make Markdown slightly harder) to give it a clear easy part. Predictably, Python had much better conversion. Less predictably, Markdown and documentation also had better conversion at today's mirrors than at last weekend's.

Thanks for the quick response! I think markdown would have been fine as a medium, and documentation may have played poorly since it's hard to describe and also "this purpose" doesn't point me towards documentation specifically (meaning it might be skewing down conversion in its current form).

While I have the floor, I'd like to remark that the leadin to the Strait of Gibraltar tossup is pretty well-known and several people with whom I spoke knew it, as well as three out of four members of my team.

[DavidB256]

Could I see the bonus on markdown/documentation/Python? I thought it was very easy but would like to see it before I make any other critiques, since my team wasn't the one that received it.

This language uses a triple backtick to create a code block. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this lightweight plaintext-to-HTML language co-invented by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz. A “GitHub Flavored” version of it is used to create most GitHub READMEs.
ANSWER: Markdown
[10m] A common use of Markdown is to create pages that serve this purpose for a project. Inline comments and README files have this purpose, which serves to make code easier to understand and use.
ANSWER: documentation [or docs]
[10e] Markdown is used to write text in Jupyter Notebooks, which were spun off from an interactive shell for this language. Guido van Rossum led the development of this language, which uses indentation to denote code blocks.
ANSWER: Python

(apologies for the lack of formatting)
I adjusted the bonus between last weekend's mirrors and this weekend's. Before, it was Markdown (m) / documentation (e) / Rust (h), with the first two parts being basically as is. It was one of the bonuses with the poorest conversion in the entire set, so I changed Rust to Python (and tried to make Markdown slightly harder) to give it a clear easy part. Predictably, Python had much better conversion. Less predictably, Markdown and documentation also had better conversion at today's mirrors than at last weekend's.

I played, and really enjoyed, the original version of this question. I was able to answer "Markdown" from my experience using R Markdown in statistics classes and knew about Rust from my time spent surfing Stack Overflow. I am surprised that "documentation" failed to play as a good easy part; anyone who has ever taken a CS class has had the importance of documentation drilled into their head. Maybe introducing intentional name transparency by cluing Doxygen could have made "documentation" a more convertible easy part? Maybe cluing something about Rust's current popularity among software engineers could have made it easy enough to be included? However, both versions of the question are great examples software engineering content that I love to see come up in quiz bowl.

[Heiliger Dankgesang]

Could I please see the cigarettes bonus? One of my teammates and I have been wondering about something in the Altria part.
Overall, this set was very fun to play and we really enjoyed it. Thanks for writing it!

[scorrevole]

This set was quite good overall - a nice return to a regular-season QB tournament for me. A few tossups that I think weren't ideal:

It might have just been first-tossup-of-the-day syndrome, but I thought the species tossup was confusing - I negged early (with "animals and humans") but the remainder clued some things from Darwin's Dangerous Idea among other Darwin-related things. I don't think the distinction between species is really the philosophically interesting part about Darwin's views or a particularly obvious way of thinking about them, and I was at a loss at to what the answer was supposed to be for basically all of those clues.

I guess a disadvantage of gaining knowledge from past QB questions, but I really only knew about Alice Coltrane's use of the harp - while the harp is certainly less common (or however the question worded it) than the piano in jazz, the harp is still a very mainstream instrument in other musical contexts and so that clue seemed pretty neg-baity if you didn't know about the piano side of her career.

The Sibelius tossup had a clue referencing the Mahler quote that the "symphony must be like the world" as opposed to Sibelius's more "restrained" approach - it would've been good for the tossup to clarify (as John Lawrence discovered by doing a Google search when I asked him about it) that these quotes are from letters between Sibelius and Mahler. Otherwise, this clue seemed a bit strange and non-uniquely-identifying as I was hearing it. I really enjoyed the classical music overall, though.

I also appreciated the mention of the more famous Chris Sims, who I think has rarely come up in QB - there was a second when I forgot what VAR was called, but thankfully I came up with the answer in time.

Thanks for the feedback - I do think it's inarguable that piano is more common than harp and definitely in the jazz world I think she's more known as a pianist than a harpist, so part of me feels like this clue isn't an issue, but I'll try to look into ways to reword this. Wanted to include the Mahler–Sibelius quote because I've seen it in so many program notes for Mahler and/or Sibelius over the years I was wondering why it never came up in quizbowl, and I guess this general issue is why - will look into the wording on that as well.

i really liked the set! could i see the please see tus on sibelius, white teeth, affinity chromatography, and time? thanks!

This composer’s penultimate symphony features no accidentals for its first two minutes, before the introduction of F-sharps and C-sharps clashing with the brass’s first entrance on a C-major chord. In the 2000s, Sir Colin Davis recorded his third cycle of this composer’s symphonies for LSO Live. Mahler stated that “a symphony must be like the world” in contrast to this composer’s more restrained style, shown by the “cold spring water” of his Sixth Symphony mostly in Dorian mode. This composer’s last symphony employs a heroic C-major theme for solo (*) trombone named for his wife. At the end of this composer’s Fifth Symphony, long pauses separate six tutti chords that are derived from a “swan theme.” This composer’s C-major Seventh Symphony is in one movement. For 10 points, name this composer of The Swan of Tuonela and Finlandia.
ANSWER: Jean Sibelius
<Michael Yue, Music>

Yeah now that I look at it that clue definitely needs a rewording.

Near the end of this novel, one character seeks out a bench with his surname carved into it with the blood of his father. A soldier in this novel fails to kill a Nazi scientist in Bulgaria who cries blood during World War II. That soldier and his best friend bring their wives to O’Connell’s pub for the first time at the end of this novel. (*) Irie (“EYE-ree”) has sex with a family friend on his prayer mat 25 minutes before she sleeps with his twin brother at the house of Joyce and Marcus Chalfen in this novel. At the end of this novel, a member of the Islamic fundamentalist group KEVIN attempts to shoot FutureMouse but is stopped by Archie Jones. For 10 points, name this novel about Bangladeshi and Jamaican immigrant families in London by Zadie Smith.
ANSWER: White Teeth
<Nitin Rao, British Literature>

Bio-Rad sells a protein expression system that includes subtilisin protease both to cleave and to perform this technique on the proteins. A “weak” form of this technique works best for systems with a low association constant; that form of this technique may also be used in fragment-based drug design to screen fragments for specificity. Boronates may be employed in this technique to purify glycoproteins containing 1,2-cis-diol groups. Glutathione, maltose, and imidazole may all be used as eluents in this technique due to their competitive (*) binding with GST, MBP, and nickel ions, respectively. Cobalt ions may also be used in place of nickel in that “immobilized metal” form of this technique. For 10 points, name this chromatography technique in which proteins and biomolecules are purified from solution by their strong, specific interactions with a stationary matrix.
ANSWER: affinity chromatography [accept affinity after “chromatography” is read; or IMAC; prompt on chromatography, liquid chromatography, column chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, HPLC, fast protein liquid chromatography, or FPLC; prompt on protein purification, protein identification, or protein detection by asking “what specific technique is used for those goals?”; do not accept or prompt on other forms of chromatography that are non-liquid]
<Sam Botterbusch, Chemistry>

The spontaneous breaking of a symmetry associated with this quantity was demonstrated in a spin chain of trapped 171-ytterbium-plus ions; that experiment was the first to realize systems named for this quantity that were hypothesized by Frank Wilczek. The exponential of negative i times the Hamiltonian times this quantity over h-bar is the unitary, non-Hermitian operator that changes a state’s value for this quantity. In special relativity, if delta-s-squared is positive between two events, they are said to be (*) “like” this quantity. Loschmidt’s paradox is the conflict between the symmetry associated with inverting this quantity and the second law of thermodynamics. Charge, parity, and this quantity combine to form an exact symmetry of nature. For 10 points, the “arrow” of what quantity points toward the future?
ANSWER: time [accept time translation symmetry; accept time reversal symmetry; accept time crystals; prompt on T]
<Jonathen Settle, Physics>

Could I please see the cigarettes bonus? One of my teammates and I have been wondering about something in the Altria part.
Overall, this set was very fun to play and we really enjoyed it. Thanks for writing it!

Edward Bernays’s “Torches of Freedom” advertising campaign attempted to encourage women to flaunt taboos and use these items in public. For 10 points each:
[10e] Name these items whose brands include Camel and Marlboro.
ANSWER: cigarettes [or cigs]
[10h] Among those involved in the campaign was Ruth Hale, the founder of an organization named for this woman that fought for legal recognition of a woman’s right to keep her own last name. This woman began publishing the Women’s Journal as leader of the AWSA.
ANSWER: Lucy Stone
[10m] This company, which makes Marlboro and L&M, introduced the Virginia Slims brand to market cigarettes to women. This company sued Australia and Uruguay over anti-smoking measures.
ANSWER: Philip Morris [or Altria]
<Emmett Laurie, American History>

[Zealots of Stockholm]

The Sibelius tossup had a clue referencing the Mahler quote that the "symphony must be like the world" as opposed to Sibelius's more "restrained" approach - it would've been good for the tossup to clarify (as John Lawrence discovered by doing a Google search when I asked him about it) that these quotes are from letters between Sibelius and Mahler. Otherwise, this clue seemed a bit strange and non-uniquely-identifying as I was hearing it. I really enjoyed the classical music overall, though.

For what it's worth, my teammate was able to buzz on this clue and noted that the mahler/sibelius disagreement over what the symphony should be was central to a class he took on symphonies

[entropy]

thanks @michael! i and other science people at my site felt that affinity chromatography was a hard answerline for this difficulty, and dropping "eluent" in power seems like it could lead to some frauding.

In special relativity, if delta-s-squared is positive between two events, they are said to be (*) “like” this quantity.

i think it's somewhat strange to describe events as timelike [i've only heard "timelike interval" before]; also, i'm pretty sure this clue is only correct if you assume the [+, -, -, -] metric signature.

[henrygoff]

This was a very entertaining and challenging set--many thanks to the writers and editors for putting it together! A few scattered thoughts I had from throughout the day:

-the tossups on Robert Hayden and hotels from Night of the Iguana struck me as very hard for Penn Bowl difficulty, even accounting for the nebulousness of such a definition
-The world lit tossups focusing on ancient, myth-adjacent literature--thinking specifically of Mesopotamia and Mayans here--were interesting ideas, if not my personal cup of tea
-Dropping the title of "I Will Marry When I Want" in the middle of the marriage tossup seemed a bit early, especially because the early clues for it were pretty hard to place
-Narrow Road to the Deep North tossup was really cool!
-Desert Solitaire was a cool clue to add in the National Park Service TU
-In the Shaw bonus, asking for the name of the trilogy felt pretty impossible to convert unless you took a class on Shaw or something. In the Wordsworth bonus, asking for a specific line from the Prelude also seemed pretty brutal
-Conversely, "so now get up" was an incredible idea for a hard part in the Cromwell bonus, and I was nothing short of overjoyed to get it! I've also been waiting forever for Brunette Coleman to come up, good content there :-)

Also, could I see the tossup on Cormac McCarthy? Just want to make sure there weren't any early Blood Meridian clues I didn't recognize--if so, it does not bode well for my upcoming English exam. Thanks!

[aseem.keyal]

Also, could I see the tossup on Cormac McCarthy? Just want to make sure there weren't any early Blood Meridian clues I didn't recognize--if so, it does not bode well for my upcoming English exam. Thanks!

In a novel by this author, a 13-year-old character who claims to be deaf in one ear after being struck by lightning twice proves himself to his companions by shooting a hole through a wallet tossed in the air. A character created by this author stabs a cuchillero to death during a knife and cafeteria tray fight in prison after discussing the difference between two countries with Perez. In that novel by this author, the protagonist has an affair with Alejandra after running away to (*) Mexico from his dead grandfather’s ranch along with his friend Rawlins. This author created a tall, hairless character who furiously plays the fiddle and proclaims that he will never die after murdering a man in the jakes. For 10 points, name this author who created John Grady Cole in All the Pretty Horses, and who wrote about The Kid and Judge Holden in Blood Meridian.
ANSWER: Cormac McCarthy
<Sarah Potts, American Literature>

[Hot Soup]

thanks @michael! i and other science people at my site felt that affinity chromatography was a hard answerline for this difficulty, and dropping "eluent" in power seems like it could lead to some frauding.

I think that's a fair assessment, and the stats do indicate that this was indeed the hardest chemistry TU in the set. I feel fine with it being tossed up at this level as an extremely common technique in biochemistry research, but the relatively low conversion stats would seem to suggest that people were having trouble pulling the name. I would be curious to know what proportion of people who negged were prompted on forms of liquid chromatography (as it became evident from the word "eluent") and failed to pull the full name from the prompt; hopefully the giant list of answerlines was comprehensive enough to catch all possibilities.

[eygotem]

I remember being confused at the "Thor's children" bonus part and missing it, due to the indicator being (as I recall) "these people" (which I took to mean a large/general group). Would I be able to see that bonus?

[db0wman]

I remember being confused at the "Thor's children" bonus part and missing it, due to the indicator being (as I recall) "these people" (which I took to mean a large/general group). Would I be able to see that bonus?

This question could also use an answerline directive on Thor's sons or Thor's daughters; I remember the moderator being confused in our room when we directed the former.

[aseem.keyal]

I remember being confused at the "Thor's children" bonus part and missing it, due to the indicator being (as I recall) "these people" (which I took to mean a large/general group). Would I be able to see that bonus?

Though nothing is known about one of these people named Modi, his brother Magni saved their father by lifting the leg of a deceased giant off of his neck. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name these people. The dwarf Alviss was turned into stone in an attempt to marry one of these people.
ANSWER: children of Thor [or equivalents]
[10e] This trickster deity cut off the hair of Thrud, Thor’s daughter with his wife Sif.
ANSWER: Loki
[10h] Magni’s mother, Járnsaxayarn-sax-uh, shares a name with one of these women. Thor injures two of them, Gjálp and Greip, as they try to lift his seat into the roof to kill him. Scholars have debated whether they are also the daughter of Ægir and Rán.
ANSWER: Nine Mothers of Heimdallr [prompt on nine jötnar]
<NourEddine Hijazi, Belief>

[Father of the Ragdoll]

I believe that bonus should accept the Billow Maidens for the last part as well

[VSCOelasticity]

In special relativity, if delta-s-squared is positive between two events, they are said to be (*) “like” this quantity.

i think it's somewhat strange to describe events as timelike [i've only heard "timelike interval" before]; also, i'm pretty sure this clue is only correct if you assume the [+, -, -, -] metric signature.

I've seen the phrase "timelike events" used to describe events inside the each other's light cone, so it's not unnatural to me.

That's a very good point about the metric signature. I'm sorry about that!

[Father of the Ragdoll]

Sorry in advance for the long ass post - just figured I'd do it all at once rather than piecemeal
Rd1
Loved the species tossup - the wording on the Dennett clue was a bit hard to parse in real time but that might be a me issue

Black Hills giveaway felt brutal compared to other questions

The corrupting the youth bonus exemplified something I appreciated with this set's phil as it seemed to largely pull hard parts from very canon and well read things with hard clues rather than a slew of canon expanding answers

On the flip side the Mothers of Heimdall bonus highlighted a problem with this set's belief content where it seemed to lack alternative answers or prompt instructions. In this case instructions for "sons of Thor" or "daughters of Thor" should be given and Billow Maidens should be accepted for the last part

Rd2

The Silenus clue is very nonunique in the garden tossup as Midas is variously described as finding Silenus in a fountain, a spring, a mountain side, a well, or a vineyard. The best I can tell, only Herodatus says it was a garden and the more well known sources for the story (like Ovid) don't specify a location or only mention a well/fountain/spring. If you are buzzing before it says it was owned by Midas an answer of vineyard is arguably the most correct one for that clue since that is where Dionysus first looks in the most well known version of it.

That tossup also should probably take "orchard" and "grove" since the Garden of the Hesperides is most commonly depicted as within Hera's orchard.

Operator tossup looks cool but idk enough to comment on it

The JS Mill part continues the trend I mentioned above - really love that type of hard part for this dif

Bird song bonus is super cool

Sybils should probably prompt on prophetess

Rd. 3

Immigrating to Israel tossup was a cool and well executed idea

Nisus and Euryalus bonus is a cool deep cut on a hyper canonical work

Endowment feels like a slightly soft hard compared to other bonuses

Rd4

Saying Nice model first line of the Kuiper belt tossup really narrowed the answerspace imo

Loved the Black Skin White Masks tossup - well executed even if I didn't get a great buzz lol

Really liked the theme in the King David tossup

Hiroshima maidens needs Japanese name. Jaskaran and I also both knew what was being asked for here but couldn't figure out what was wanted since the question already said Hiroshima so we assumed that Hiroshima would not be in the answer to the next part

Blowing the shofar feels ungenerous with the info given compared to other religion middle parts. Also needs prompt instructions for answers that don't specify what kind of horn

Rd5

Won't complain too much since it got me a power but the Messinian salinity crisis clue felt really out of place in a history tossup that otherwise focused on political disputes

Love the whiskey tossup

Original sin tossup not accepting sin nature feels extremely pedantic if not outright wrong with the clues given

Pickle factory hard part made me happy

Minerva part should probably specify what to do when people realize it's a Palladium rip off and say Athena

Didn't get to play it but the al-Ghazali bonus is really good

Rd6

Loved the Berbers tossup

The Mills clue in the race tossup feels a good deal easier than the Hypatia transracialism controversy the next line, otherwise I really like this

Calling Heracles a god, while technically correct, seemed to artificially inflate the difficulty of the tossup and made multiple people at our site sit on it because we all thought it must be some deity syncretized with Heracles since calling Heracles a god would be confusing to play. If the question focused on Heracles worship more that would make more sense to me or if it was a bonus part where a game of chicken can't happen then I think this would be more justifiable
Calling Zeus Ammon Heracles' father also feels confusing as to what you are asking for (Greek or Egyptian) and saying he is ram headed also feels misleading. He has ram traits but his head is very much a human head

Loved the warm blooded tossup - glad my knowledge of warm blooded sharks finally gets me points

Dushasana probably should have other spellings like Dussasana and Duhsasana since thats a non-negligible pronunciation difference

Loved seeing Ban Zhou come up

Renters tossup probably needs some notes on what to do with "people who are being evicted" - William and I buzzer raced to neg with that on the description of the Desmond book (thankfully William won that buzzer race and spared me the neg)

Eris should probably take Strife since that's a very very common translation of her name (at the very least a prompt seems more than warranted). Enyo should probably be taken before read as well

Love'd the Ba'al bonus - esp the Ugaritic part

Rd8

Kojiki tossup was a pain to play since it's pretty obvious from the get go its Japanese but that made it a game of chicken between people who knew that the Nihon Shoki exists and rewarded people who did not with a quick 15

Idk if this is an issue but using the Epic of Gesar as a clue for Tibet feels a bit non-unique with how well known the Mongolian version is (thank you William for not letting me say Mongols there)

Saying Gia Long makes Vietnam a very soft hard part imo

Rd9

Fossil fuel tossup not taking or giving instructions for petroleum but taking oil is very strange to me

Death tossup felt hard to buzz on until the end but maybe that was just my brain being tired and not parsing well enough

Egyptian religion tossup cliffed hard at Kemetism and then again at ka imo

LOVED the social work bonus even tho I shanked the hard part

Overall I really enjoyed the set, especially the phil and random Brad content. The issues with the belief answerlines didn't ruin them for me but it definitely put a bit of a damper on the day especially as the day went on and I felt more and more like I couldn't just trust the answerlines to have all the correct answers causing frustrating negs and more and more games of chicken with other UT religion/myth players

[Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War]

A few specific notes on prompts/accepts (these are all things I was negged on):

The "charter schools" question should have some sort of prompt for if someone answers "K-12 schools" or "primary and secondary schools" (or even just "secondary schools" if that is applicable for early clues; I'm not sure) in place.

The "burying alive" question should definitely prompt on "sacrifice" or "human sacrifice"; most of the clues were about ritual live burial, and the first few certainly were.

Amusingly, I buzzed on the "stratified lakes" tossup with "meromictic" right before the tossup said "which are called meromictic" and was negged for that. This was at least partly my fault for ever thinking that that would be a primary answerline, but that should probably also be plain accepted, especially if the question literally says it is an alternate name.

There were so many great questions in this set, but for a few I happen to remember: I loved the Black Hills tossup despite way negging it (I regret overthinking the one tossup I have heard on the Black Hills); also loved the Mozart tossup cluing his masses. The woku tossup and Emishi bonus were great content on things usually not asked about in Japanese history that are still very important (discussed greatly in the course I'm taking).

[Muriel Axon]

Amusingly, I buzzed on the "stratified lakes" tossup with "meromictic" right before the tossup said "which are called meromictic" and was negged for that. This was at least partly my fault for ever thinking that that would be a primary answerline, but that should probably also be plain accepted, especially if the question literally says it is an alternate name.

My apologies—I didn't imagine that anyone would give a specific pattern of lake (lack of) mixing, but you're right that that answer would deserve either prompting or acceptance. I'll add a specific instruction if there's another mirror.

[eygotem]

Won't complain too much since it got me a power but the Messinian salinity crisis clue felt really out of place in a history tossup that otherwise focused on political disputes

so you’re saying natural history isn’t history?

[Father of the Ragdoll]

Won't complain too much since it got me a power but the Messinian salinity crisis clue felt really out of place in a history tossup that otherwise focused on political disputes

so you’re saying natural history isn’t history?

Not necessarily, it just felt out of place and possibly more science adjacent. It’s not a huge deal (and maybe not even a problem) it just felt funny at the time

[Votre Kickstarter Est Nul]

Black Hills giveaway felt brutal compared to other questions

This seems fair. I spent the time in between mirrors seeing if I could make sure nothing was too negbaity (still may have failed!), but even though I saw the conversion percentage was a bit low, this thought didn't cross my mind. There's probably no reason it can't end with "mountain range" instead of "region" in the FTP.

Hiroshima maidens needs Japanese name. Jaskaran and I also both knew what was being asked for here but couldn't figure out what was wanted since the question already said Hiroshima so we assumed that Hiroshima would not be in the answer to the next part

That's oversight on my part. The article I learned about them in didn't use one, and for whatever reason it didn't click to me to include this. For what it's worth, only Maidens was required (either Hiroshima Maidens or Atomic Maidens was acceptable). Sorry if the ordering of parts caused confusion.

There were so many great questions in this set, but for a few I happen to remember: I loved the Black Hills tossup despite way negging it (I regret overthinking the one tossup I have heard on the Black Hills); also loved the Mozart tossup cluing his masses. The woku tossup and Emishi bonus were great content on things usually not asked about in Japanese history that are still very important (discussed greatly in the course I'm taking).

Thanks (to this and your comment in the general discussion)!

[Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War]

Amusingly, I buzzed on the "stratified lakes" tossup with "meromictic" right before the tossup said "which are called meromictic" and was negged for that. This was at least partly my fault for ever thinking that that would be a primary answerline, but that should probably also be plain accepted, especially if the question literally says it is an alternate name.

My apologies—I didn't imagine that anyone would give a specific pattern of lake (lack of) mixing, but you're right that that answer would deserve either prompting or acceptance. I'll add a specific instruction if there's another mirror.

No need for apology! And I really liked that tossup; any content on limnic eruptions is good content.