University Challenge.
Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.
APPLAUSE
Hello. By the end of
tonight's match,
we'll know the first
of the four teams
who'll be competing in the
semifinals of this competition.
Both teams playing for that place
already have one quarterfinal
victory behind them so whoever wins
tonight will go through,
while the losers will get one last
chance to stay in the contest.
The team from
St John's College, Oxford
came out of round one with
255 points to Bristol's 125.
And then in the second round
they defeated Queens, Belfast
by 180 points to 100.
Things were going swimmingly
in their first quarterfinal against
St Catharine's College, Cambridge
until around the halfway mark but
then they seemed to doze off a bit
and secured victory by only
a five-point margin
with 175 points to 170.
With an accumulated score of 610,
let's meet them for the fourth time.
Hi, my name is Alex Harries.
I come from South Wales
and I'm reading history.
Hello, my name is Charlie Clegg.
I'm from Glasgow and
I'm reading theology.
And this is their captain.
Hi, my name's Angus Russell.
I'm from Mill Hill in North London
and I study history and Russian.
Hi, I'm Dan Sowood.
I'm from Uxbridge in Middlesex
and I'm reading chemistry.
APPLAUSE
Now, the team from
Peterhouse, Cambridge
beat Glasgow University by
185 points to 155 in round one,
and the medics of St George's,
London in the second round
by a stronger margin of 195 to 90.
They met the University of York
in their first quarterfinal match
and were trailing
for the first ten minutes
but then managed to take the lead
and were ahead at the gong
by 185 points to 165.
So, with an accumulated score of
565 points,
let's meet the Peterhouse team
for the fourth time.
Hello, I'm Thomas Langley.
I'm from Newcastle upon Tyne
and I'm reading history.
Hello, I'm Oscar Powell.
I'm from York and I'm reading
geological sciences.
And this is their captain.
Hello, I'm Hannah Woods.
I'm originally from Manchester and
I'm studying for a PhD in history.
Hello, my name's Julian Sutcliffe.
I'm from Reading in Berkshire
and I'm also reading history.
APPLAUSE
So, you all know the rules.
Fingers on the buzzers.
Here's your first starter for ten.
Meanings of what five-letter word
include a commemorative coin with
values since 1990 of &#163;5,
an artificial replacement for the
external part of a...
Crown.
Correct.
So, you get the first
set of bonuses, St John's.
They're on the opening lines
of three essays.
Name the author in each case,
please.
Firstly for five,
"I was often, when a boy,
wonderfully concerned to see
"in the Italian farces,
"a pedant always brought in for
the fool of the play."
This line in translation opens an
essay in which writer's collection
of the late 16th century?
Ooh, what's the French guy?
Mont... Not Montague...
Montaigne. Montaigne. Montaigne.
Montaigne.
Correct. His essay, Of Pedantry.
From a long work of 1689, secondly.
"Since it is the understanding
that sets man above the rest
"of sensible beings, and gives him
all the advantage and dominion
"which he has over them."
Possibly Montesquieu
but I'm not sure.
I think that's a little early
for Montesquieu.
It might be Locke's second
Treatises On Government.
It could be Locke. Locke.
It is Locke, correct.
Well done, yes.
And thirdly, from an essay of 1941.
"As I write, highly civilised
human beings are flying overhead,
"trying to kill me."
Ooh. Might be JB Priestley.
Priestley?
Possibly Priestley,
possibly HG Wells.
Possibly even Orwell. Yeah.
I thought it might be Orwell.
Do you want to go for Orwell?
He wrote a lot of essays. Orwell.
Orwell.
It is George Orwell. He did indeed
write a lot of essays.
APPLAUSE
Ten points for this.
What was Rossini's last
operatic composition?
Although rarely performed on stage,
its overtures gained worldwide...
William Tell.
Well done, yes.
APPLAUSE
Right, a set of bonuses on physics.
Named after a German physicist,
which law is a special case
of Planck's law of radiation
and states that for a black body,
the wavelength corresponding to
maximum radiation of energy
is inversely proportional to
the temperature of the body?
Oh, right... So...
Black body radiation. I can't think.
It's not, it's not...
Is it something like Helmholt,
maybe? Or Humboldt.
It's not Boltzmann.
It's not Boltzmann?
I don't know if there is a physicist
called Humb...
Is it definitely not Boltzmann?
I don't think it is.
I'd go for Helmholt.
I don't know but...
Helmholt.
What? Wien's law. No idea.
Secondly, whose law states that
the energy per unit surface area
radiated by a black body
per unit of time
is directly proportional to the
fourth power of its temperature?
I've used that to calculate
insulation in exams
but I don't know what it's called.
You don't learn what they're called.
I have no idea. Go for...
Helmholtz does exist. Helmholtz.
CHUCKLING
Does Helmholtz definitely exist?
Humboldt also exists but I think
he's a zoologist,
so go for Helmholtz.
We're going to go for
Helmholtz again.
No, it's... Have you thought of
a career in stand-up, Oscar?
It's Stefan-Boltzmann law. Oh!
Stefan's law.
The intensity, finally,
or power per unit area
arriving at a given location
from a black body is proportional
to the distance from the location to
the source raised to what exponent?
Oh, deary me. OK, let's go squared.
Or is it cubed, though?
It sounds like one of those
inverse-squared laws.
I have no... Squared?
Just go squared. Power of two.
Power of two.
No, it's minus 2. The inverse
square. Oh, it's an inverse square.
Right, ten points for this.
What is the common name of members
of the family Petromyzontidae?
They are jawless vertebrates with
bodies resembling eels...
Lampreys.
Correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Right, these bonuses are on
Katherine Chidley,
the 17th-century agitator and
religious controversialist.
Firstly, in a tract of 1641,
Chidley compared officeholders in
which national organisation to,
quote, "Those locusts which ascended
out of the bottomless pit"?
Might be Houses of Parliament.
Or Church of England maybe.
Oh, yeah. Church of England? Yes.
Church of England.
Correct.
Chidley is generally identified
as a leading member
of which reformist grouping?
Active from the 1640s,
its publicists included
Richard Overton and William Walwyn.
Levellers. Is it the Levellers? Yes.
The Levellers.
Correct. In 1653, Chidley organised
a petition to Parliament that
reportedly garnered over 6,000
female signatures but was refused,
quote, "For they being women and
many of them wives, so that the law
"took no notice of them."
The petition was in defence of
which leading Leveller?
I've no idea. I can't think of any.
It's not Walwyn. Can you...?
My 17th century is poor.
Maybe it is Walwyn. I've no idea.
Walwyn. Walwyn?
Walwyn.
No, it's John Lilburne. Oh.
Time for a picture round.
For your picture starter,
you're going to see
an example of a particular form
of poetic stanza annotated to show
the paradigmatic rhyme scheme
and meter.
For ten points I want you to give me
the name of this type of stanza.
Epic hexameter but...
Would any of you like to buzz
from St John's?
Iambic pentameter.
No, that's rhyme royal.
The first of Chaucer's
Troilus And Criseyde.
We'll take the picture bonuses
in a moment or two,
a starter question in the meantime.
Give the nine-letter name
of the trigonometric function,
the abbreviation of which begins
the name of one of the highest
active volcanoes in the world,
the French name for the country
between Ghana and Liberia...
Cotangent.
Correct.
Both teams failed to identify
rhyme royal for the picture starter
which was introduced into
English poetry by Chaucer.
Nonetheless, you, Peterhouse,
have got the picture bonuses
because you got a starter right.
Three more stanzaic forms, again,
annotated with the paradigmatic
rhyme scheme and/or meter.
In each case, I want the name
of the form you see.
Firstly for five...
That is Italian. Is it something
to do with Petrarch maybe?
What's Italian? Petrarchan sonnet.
That's the only thing I can think.
But is it a sonnet though?
there's, like, six lines?
Do we have anything we can guess
that's sensible? No.
Shall we just go for Petrarch?
We're going to guess
Petrarchan sonnet.
No, it's terza rima, invented by
Dante for the Divine Comedy.
Those are the first lines of it.
Secondly...
So, that's, "St Agnes' Eve
"Ah, bitter chill it was!"
Da-da-da-da-da-da...
Is that pentameter? Maybe.
There are five feet.
So what's the foot then?
Da-da, da-da... Iambic pentameter.
No... It's the rhyme scheme. No.
It's about the rhyme scheme.
Yeah, I know but what's...
I don't know rhyme schemes.
OK, sorry, yes.
Heroic couplets, that's a thing.
OK. They're not couplets though.
I don't know. We don't know!
That's a Spenserian stanza,
invented for The Faerie Queene,
adopted there by Keats for
The Eve Of St Agnes.
Finally...
So, OK. Coleridge.
"It is an ancient Mariner..."
They've all been named after them.
RHYTHMIC TAPPING
Coleridgian quatrain?
OK, let's guess that!
Coleridgian quatrain.
Well, of course it is Coleridge,
yes.
It's the start of
The Ancient Mariner, isn't it?
But it's a ballad stanza, that form.
Right, ten points for this.
Now commonly referring to the
Acme paragon or peak of perfection,
which three-word Latin phrase
was the supposed inscription
on the Pillars of Hercules...
Ne plus ultra.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
These bonuses could give you
the lead again.
For them, you will hear a clue
to the three-letter abbreviation
of the name of a constellation
but the answer is going to be
its full name.
So, if the clue were a river
that flows through Cambridge,
from CAM you would get the answer
Camelopardalis. Perhaps.
First, an abbreviation of the
physical quantity that has
dimensions of length cubed.
That's volume so it would be VOL.
Vol, vol...
Vol. Constellations?
Um...
Don't know vol. No idea. Voltipex.
No, you've got VOL correctly
but it's Volans,
the flying fish in the southern sky.
Next, a defunct electron positron
an particle accelerator
whose 27km tunnel is now occupied
by the Large Hadron Collider.
Oh, that's...
Is that not just LH...?
No, it's the one that went
before it.
But is it CMS? Possibly.
That's... Something with CMS.
Cassiopeia? OK, let's try.
Cassiopeia.
No, it's Lepus, from LEP for hare.
And finally, the Greek character
that represents optical depth
and proper time and names
the heaviest lepton.
Is it... Heaviest lepton.
That's the tau neutrino. TAU.
TAU, Taurus. Oh, yes. Taurus.
Taurus is correct from TAU.
Yes, well done.
Right, ten points for this.
"By his cruelty and lack of
character
"he has shown himself incorrigible
without hope of amendment."
These words are from Parliament's
Articles Of Accusation
against which English king?
He was forced to abdicate...
Charles I.
No. You lose five points.
He was forced to abdicate in favour
of his 14-year-old son.
James II.
Neither of you got it then.
It's Edward II.
Right, we're going to take
another starter question.
Ten points for this.
What single-word term is defined as
the angular distance in degrees
of an astronomical body
from the celestial equator
measured positively northwards
along the hour circle,
passing through the body?
Declination.
Declination is correct.
APPLAUSE
These bonuses are on an
Italian family, Peterhouse.
The Popes Callixtus III and
Alexander VI were members
of which family that was prominent
in political and church affairs
in Italy during the Renaissance?
The Borgias.
Correct. Which son of Alexander VI
attempted to establish his own
principality in Central Italy?
Machiavelli cited him as an example
of the new prince.
Um, nominate Langley. Cesare Borgia.
Correct. Cesare's sister Lucrezia
married into three prominent
Italian families.
Her first husband, Giovanni,
belonged to which family that ruled
Milan for almost a century?
It's... It's Sforza or Visconti....
I think it's Sforza by now,
by Machiavelli.
I mean, Gian Galeazzo Visconti's
family... Yeah, that's Sforzas.
Sforza? Sforza.
Sforza, yes, correct.
Ten points for this.
For what do the letters T-E-L stand
when representing a chemical
compound that for much of
the 20th century was the chief
anti-knock agent for petrol?
Tetraethyl lead.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses are on mythology,
St John's.
In Greek mythology, what collective
name is given to the giant offspring
of Gaia and Uranus,
a group that includes
Hyperion and Iapetus?
Titans.
Correct.
The title character of a play
by Aeschylus.
Which son of Iapetus is associated
with a myth in which Zeus punishes
him by removing fire from the earth?
Prometheus. No.
Prometheus stole the fire.
Oh, is it the guy who's
the equivalent of Loki
in Norse mythology? Like the...
Trickster god. Trickster god, yeah.
Try Hermes. Hermes.
No, it's Prometheus.
Another son of Iapetus appears
in the title of which 1957 work
by Ayn Rand?
Described by one critic as,
"Longer than life and twice
as preposterous."
Is it Atlas Shrugged?
Atlas Shrugged.
Oh, Atlas Shrugged.
Atlas Shrugged is correct.
Ten points for this.
What two-word name denotes
the upland region of
south-central France,
bounded by the lowlands
of Aquitaine...
Massif Central.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
You get a set of bonuses on
the Baltic Sea, Peterhouse.
Slightly larger than the total area
of the Outer Hebrides,
what is the largest island
in the Baltic Sea?
Around 80km east of mainland Sweden,
it has its administrative centre
at Visby.
Gotland.
Gotland is correct.
Secondly, the town of Bergen
and the port of Sassnitz
are situated on which island
in the southern Baltic,
the largest island of Germany?
Where did the Goths come from?
Um... I don't know. I can't
remember. I'll know it, no doubt.
Pass.
It's Rugen or Rugia.
Part of the Muhu Archipelago,
the island of Saaremaa
is the largest in the territory
of which country?
I think it is the one at the very
top. What's at the very top?
Is it Latvia? Estonia. Estonia.
Is it Estonia? Is a Estonia
on the top? I think it's Estonia.
Yeah. Estonia.
Estonia is correct.
We're going to take
a music round now.
For your music starter question
you're going to hear
a piece of classical music by
a German-born composer.
Ten points if you can identify
the composer.
FEMALE OPERATIC SINGING
Offenbach.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
That piece from Offenbach's
Tales Of Hoffmann is a barcarole -
a form based on the songs
of Venetian gondoliers.
Your music bonuses are three more
examples of classical barcaroles.
I simply want you to identify
the composer of each.
Firstly, for five,
this German composer.
CLASSICAL PIANO MUSIC PLAYS
Schumann possibly.
It's a piano piece.
Schumann? Let's go with Schumann.
Schumann.
No, that's by Mendelssohn,
the Gondolier's Song.
Secondly, this French composer.
CLASSICAL PIANO MUSIC PLAYS
Possibly Faure. Faure.
It's not Chopin.
Is it definitely not Chopin?
I don't think so.
It doesn't sound... Faure? Faure.
Faure.
It is Faure, yes.
His Barcarole No.4 In A Flat Major.
And finally, this Central European
composer.
PIANO MUSIC PLAYS
Dvorak?
Yeah, it's possible.
Yeah, probably Dvorak.
Dvorak.
No, it's Chopin.
Right, ten points for this.
Which novel of 1886 includes
Michael Henchard and Donald Farfrae
among its characters?
The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
These bonuses are on artistic
techniques, St John's.
What term of French origin is used
for the technique of inlaying
individual pieces of enamel
or other decorative material
in a pattern separated by
fine metal wires or strips?
Veneer could be French origin. Yeah.
Veneer.
No, it's cloisonne.
Name after an Anglo-Saxon king
of the ninth century,
which item of jewellery in
Oxford's Ashmolean Museum
is one of the earliest examples
of intricate cloisonne work,
consisting of enamel and quartz
secured in a gold frame?
Alfred.
The Alfred Jewel is right.
Cloisonnism -
a style of painting based on
the appearance of cloisonne -
is particularly associated
with which French artist
in works of the 1880s, such as
The Vision After The Sermon
and Yellow Christ?
Gauguin. Yes. Gauguin.
Correct. That gives you the lead.
With another ten points at stake,
all of you on this starter question.
In mathematics, Apery's theorem
has searched the irrationality
of the Riemann zeta function
when evaluated at which
integer argument?
One.
Anyone like to buzz?
Pi.
No, it's three. Ten points for this.
Listen carefully,
giving two answers in
French or English.
From 1364 to 1793, Charles and Louis
were two of the four regnal names
born by French kings.
What were the other two?
Francis and Henry.
Correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
You retake the lead and the bonuses
this time are on biology,
Peterhouse.
All three answers begin
with the same Greek prefix.
Firstly, what name is given to
the final period of mitosis,
the reconstruction of the nuclei
which follows the anaphase?
Telophase. Telo? Yes, telophase.
Telophase.
Correct.
Meaning end germ or bud,
what term denotes a large cell
that produces lines of smaller cells
at the growing end of embryos
in segmented animals?
It's not cholemia. What was...?
Telo something. I don't know
any other telo words. Telosome?
Yeah, or telocyte.
Telosome might be better if you
think you've heard of it.
Shall I try it? I think telocyte
might be a bit simple just
because... Cyte just means cell.
Telosome.
No, it's teloblast.
And finally, what name is given
to the compound structure
found at the end of a chromosome
in eukaryotes?
Telomere.
Correct. Another starter question
now and it's going to be
a picture one.
For your picture starter
you're going to see a painting.
For ten points, I want the name of
the artist and the subject depicted.
The Martyrdom Of Saint Sebastian
and El Greco.
That is correct, yes.
Your picture bonuses
are three more depictions
of the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian,
all by Italian artists.
For five points each,
I want the name of the artist.
Firstly, whose this by? Hmm.
It's High Renaissance
so possibly Raphael.
Yeah. Yeah? Go Raphael.
Raphael.
No, that's by Titian. Secondly.
It looks like Caravaggio. Yeah.
It may not be but, yeah. Caravaggio.
No, that's by Guido Reni.
And finally...
I'd go for Botticelli.
It's certainly...
It's Botticelli or Leonardo.
No, I think it's Botticelli.
Botticelli, OK. One of those two.
Shall we go...? Botticelli.
It is Botticelli, yes.
Right, level pegging.
Ten points for this.
Giving views across to Wales,
Blackdown is the highest point
in which range of limestone hills?
They lie close to the cathedral city
of Wells and include caves,
such as those at Wookey Hole.
Wenlock. Wenlock Hills.
Anyone like to buzz from St John's?
Quickly.
The Cotswolds.
No, they're the Mendips.
Ten points for this.
What mammal did Ted Hughes
describe as, "Four-legged yet
"water-gifted to outfish fish,
with webbed feet and long..."
Otter.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
You retake the lead and your bonuses
are on the 18th-century engineer
James Brindley.
Firstly for five,
from the late 1750s,
Brindley played a prominent part
in the construction of which canal?
It links coal mines at Worsley
with Manchester and Salford
and its named after the duke
who commissioned it.
The Bridgwater Canal.
Correct. Brindley designed the
Harecastle Tunnel
at Kidsgrove in Staffordshire.
More than 1.5 miles long,
it forms part of which canal,
named after two major rivers?
Can we make an educated guess?
In Staffordshire.
Staffordshire, so...
I don't know any rivers
in Staffordshire.
The Tyne. The Tyne? I don't know
where the Tyne is.
I don't know, just pass. Pass.
That's the Trent and Mersey Canal.
And finally, a museum dedicated to
Brindley's life and work is in
which North Staffordshire town,
where he worked as a millwright?
It's now sometimes known as
the Queen of the Moorlands.
Places in Staffordshire.
Bodmin? I'll just guess something.
Leek.
Leek is correct. About four
and a quarter minutes to go
and ten points at stake for this.
"Something went wrong in the lab
today. Very wrong."
That is the tag line
of which 1986 film by David...
The Fly.
The Fly is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
You get a set of bonuses on
British rodents, Peterhouse.
What short word follows
common, field and bank
in the popular names of small
rodents of the genera Microtus
and Myodes?
I thing that is vole. Vole.
Correct.
Often depicted with its prehensile
tail wrapped around an ear of grain,
Britain's smallest rodent,
Micromys minutus,
has what common two-word name?
Harvest mouse. I think so.
Harvest mouse.
Correct. The common or hazel
is the only British member
of the family Gliridae.
By what eight-letter name
is it known?
Wait a minute, is it spelt...?
Oh, yes, sorry, dormouse. Dormouse.
Correct. Ten points for this.
"It is better that ten guilty
persons escape,
"than one innocent suffer."
Who wrote those words
in the 1765 work,
Commentaries On The Laws Of England?
Blackstone.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses on European languages,
St John's.
I need you to spell the answer
in each case.
What is the past participle of the
French verb boire, meaning to drink?
BU. B-U.
Correct.
What is the past participle
of the German verb essen,
meaning to eat?
Gegessen. G-E-G-E-S-S-E-N.
Correct.
Finally, what is the past participle
of the Spanish verb dormir,
meaning to sleep?
Dormo, I think.
D-O-R-M-O, I think.
OK, D-O-R-M-O.
No, it's D-O-R-M-I-D-O. Dormido.
Right, ten points for this.
What three-letter prefix begins
words meaning
a clever, pithy saying,
an inscription on a tomb and a...
Epi.
Epi is correct.
These bonuses are on
vector calculus, St John's.
Which vector operator is obtained
as the dot product of the
del operator with a vector field?
Any idea? Um...
Di...di...Divergence.
Nominate Sowood. Divergence.
Divergence.
Correct. Which vector operator is
obtained as the cross product of
the del operator with a
vector field?
That's curl. Nominate Sowood. Curl.
Correct.
Represented by the symbol
del squared, which operator is...
Laplacian. Nominate Sowood.
Laplacian.
Correct. That gets us level pegging.
Ten points for this.
A research institution serving
the University of Wisconsin
gives its name to which
anticoagulant drug,
originally introduced
as a pesticide?
Warfarin.
Correct. Your bonuses this time
are on a Christian sacrament.
From the Greek for thanksgiving,
what term denotes the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,
also known as the Communion?
Eucharist.
Correct. Meaning remembrance,
what literary term denotes the
recollection of things past and also
refers to the part of the Eucharist
that recalls Christ's sacrifice?
I don't know. It's not Communion.
Commemoration.
Come on, let's have it, please.
Commemoration.
No, it's anamnesis.
And finally, in Roman Catholic
doctrine, what name is given
to the conversion of the bread
and wine in the Eucharist
into Christ's body and blood?
Transubstantiation.
Correct. Ten points for this.
Emi Koussi in the Tibesti Mountains
is the highest point in
which desert?
Its lowest point is in the
Qattara Depression in
north-western Egypt.
Sahara.
Correct. You get a set of bonuses,
this time on an historical figure.
Count Palatinate of the Rhine
and the Duke of Cumberland
were two of the titles of a royalist
commander during the Civil Wars.
By what name is he better known?
Prince Rupert.
Correct. After the Restoration,
Rupert became the first governor
of which North American
commercial entity?
Still in existence,
it's known by the initials HBC.
The Hudson's Bay Company.
Correct. 100km from the border with
Alaska, Prince Rupert is a port
and railway terminus
in which Canadian province?
Alaska, so Columbia? Come on.
British Columbia.
Correct. Ten points for this.
GONG
Sometimes paranoia...
And at the gong,
St John's College, Oxford have 150.
Peterhouse, though, have 195.
APPLAUSE
Well, St John's, you're going to
have to go through all this again
if you're going to get to
the semifinals.
You need to win, remember, two.
You've won one, now you've lost one
but it was a very close match.
Thank you very much for playing.
We look forward to seeing you again.
Peterhouse,
many congratulations to you.
You like living a bit dangerously
but you're through to the
semifinals. Congratulations to you.
I hope you can join us next time
for another quarterfinal match,
but until then it's goodbye from
St John's College, Oxford.
ALL: Goodbye.
Goodbye from Peterhouse, Cambridge.
ALL: Goodbye.
It's goodbye from me. Goodbye.
