APPLAUSE
University Challenge.
Asking the questions -
Jeremy Paxman.
Hello, the long and winding road
ends tonight.
There were 130 teams of students
who wanted to be here
and 28 of them qualified to appear
on the series.
After 2,835 questions, only the best
two remain.
In a little under half an hour, one
of them will lift the trophy
and it'll be like V-E Day all over
again in either Cambridge or Oxford.
Now, the team from
Peterhouse - Cambridge have defeated
Glasgow University,
St George's London
and the University of York twice.
They also beat
St John's College - Oxford,
their opponents tonight, when they
met in the quarterfinals
but this is the match that counts,
of course.
With an average age of 20,
let's meet the Peterhouse team
for the last time.
Hello, I'm Thomas Langley.
I'm from Newcastle upon Tyne
and I'm studying 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
The team from
St John's College - Oxford
have beaten Bristol University,
Queen's University Belfast,
St Catharine's College - Cambridge
and the universities
of Newcastle and Liverpool.
The only fly in their ointment was
their last encounter with Peterhouse
but who knows how it'll play out
tonight.
With an average age of 19,
let's meet the St John's team for
the final 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
Right, fingers on the buzzers,
here's your first starter for ten.
The author John le Carre,
the conductor Daniel Barenboim
and the director Billy Wilder have
all been recipients of a medal
for outstanding service for
the German language
and international cultural
relations...
The Brothers Grimm.
No, I'm afraid you lose five points.
It's named after which writer
and statesman born 1749?
Bismarck.
No, it's Goethe. Ten points
for this.
Meanings of what four-letter word
include a tidal wave
of unusual height...
Neap. No, I'm afraid you lose five
points.
..the diameter of a tube or
cylinder,
a deep vertical hole dug,
for example, to obtain water
and in the words of Ambrose Bierce,
"A person who talks when you wish
him to listen."
Well.
No, it's a bore.
LAUGHTER
Ten points for this.
What did the Canadian science writer
David Levy
describe as being like cats -
"They have tails and they do
precisely what they want."
Along with
Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker,
he discovered such an object
in 1993.
The following year...
Comets.
Comet is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Right, you get a set of bonuses on
Asia, Peterhouse.
Straddling the border with Pakistan
and about 7,500m high,
Mount Noshaq, in the Hindu Kush,
is the highest mountain
in which country?
So, it's not Nepal.
It could be India. Hindu Kush
sounds...
It's not Nepal. Is it Bangladesh?
India or China. Not Tibet? No,
Tibet's not a country. India.
Shall I try India? Yeah.
India. No, it's Afghanistan.
Almost 7,000m high,
Khan Tengri, in the Tian Shan, is
the highest mountain in Kazakhstan.
It lies at the juncture of the
borders of that country
and which two others?
Russia... Kyrgyzstan and China or
Russia and China.
I don't know.
China and Kyrgyzstan.
China and Kyrgyzstan.
Correct. More than 5,800m high,
Mount Hkakabo is the highest
mountain in which country?
It lies close to the borders with
China
and the Indian state
of Arunachal Pradesh.
Is it Bangladesh? Bangladesh is very
flat. Is it flat? Erm...
Bhutan?
No, out towards Everest.
It could be Bhutan.
I'll try it. Bhutan.
No, it's Burma or Myanmar.
Ten points for this.
Since independence from Britain
in 1960,
which countries' presidents and
military rulers have included
Yakubu Gowon, Sani Abacha
and Goodluck Jonathan.
Nigeria. Nigeria is right.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses are on royal
medical cases,
according to Clifford Brewer's
2000 book The Death Of Kings.
In each case, identify the king from
his medical history.
HE SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY
Firstly, Cushing's syndrome,
uraemia, chronic nephritis,
amyloid disease
and a gravitational ulcer
of the leg.
Henry VIII, I think. Yeah.
Henry VIII. Correct.
Pulmonary embolism,
deep venous thrombosis,
bronchopneumonia
and a fractured clavicle.
Fractured clavicle.
So, they probably fell. Could that
be jousting? Yeah.
Who died from jousting?
Well, Henry VIII... It's not...
A medieval king -
Henry the something?
Do any of us have any other ideas?
Lung complaints and falling.
Edward IV.
Edward IV.
No, it's William III.
And finally, bronchopneumonia,
terminal dementia and porphyria.
George III. Yeah.
George III. Correct.
Ten points for this.
Pleasure, punishment, thrill,
liability and atonement
are among nouns that commonly follow
what Latin-derived adjective?
Meaning "accomplished by the
substitution of some other person,"
its first five...
Vicarious.
Vicarious is correct.
APPLAUSE
You get bonuses on Queen Victoria
and English literature.
Peterhouse, first off,
of which poet, who died in 1892,
did Victoria say,
"Such a man we may not see again for
a century or,
"in all his originality,
ever again"?
Tennyson. Correct.
"Next to the Bible, it is my
comfort."
Of which work by Tennyson did
the Queen say that?
Usually known by
a two-word Latin title,
it's a Requiem for his friend
Arthur Henry Hallam.
Oh, what's it called? I can't think.
The one with all the quotable
things. It's not...
It's not, no. It's Latin.
I'm going to have to pass
on this one.
Pass.
It's In Memoriam.
"It is beautiful, it is mournful,
it is monotonous."
Referring to In Memoriam,
which literary figure wrote that
in a letter to Elizabeth Gaskell
in 1850?
Might it be Charlotte Bronte because
Gaskell did a biography of her?
Do we have any better ideas?
Let's try that.
Charlotte Bronte.
Correct.
Right, another starter question now.
It's a picture starter.
You're going to see the titles of
selected publications
of a scientist in their original
language of publication.
Ten points if you can identify the
scientist.
Erm, Kepler.
Yes, it is Johannes Kepler.
Let's see the English translation.
There it is.
Now, for each of your picture
bonuses,
you are again going to see
the titles of selected publications
of a scientist in the original
language of publication.
In each case, all you have to do is
to identify the scientist
from their works. Firstly for five.
So, they're French.
Let me try and translate it though.
Lavoisier, possibly. No, no, no...
So, that's
Calculation Of The Mass Of The Air.
The Arithmetic Triangle.
New Experiences Touching Emptiness.
Descartes. Maybe, or...
Didn't Lavoisier write stuff
about... Yeah.
Let's do that. OK, Lavoisier.
Lavoisier.
No, it's Pascal. Let's see
the titles in English. There we are.
And secondly.
OK, erm...
HE READS GERMAN TITLE ALOUD
I'm not good at German. Over the...
Do we know any German scientists,
Oscar? Yeah, we do.
No, no, no, just let me think.
Erm, erm...
OK, this is...just make one up.
It's not Einstein.
Who isn't Einstein?
Planck.
Max Planck. It is Max Planck. Let's
see it. There it is.
And finally...
OK, so that's in Latin.
No, or is it Italian?
Is that Galileo?
The Starry Messenger.
Yeah. Go for it.
Galileo. It is Galileo.
APPLAUSE
"Do you know any German scientists,
Oscar?" Honestly.
LAUGHTER
Ten points for this.
Hydrogen and helium are the two most
abundant elements in the universe.
What molecule would result from
combining an atom
of the third most abundant element
with one of the fourth?
The compound in question is
a colourless, odourless, toxic gas.
Carbon dioxide.
Anyone like to buzz from St John's?
Is it nitrous oxide?
No, it's carbon MONOXIDE.
Ten points for this.
Often used to indicate a letter S
that existed in earlier forms of
the language but has now been lost,
which diacritical mark appears on
the second letter
of the French words for head, beast
and...
Oh, a... I'm sorry...
..a Chinese hat.
I'm sorry, if you buzz, you must
answer straightaway.
A circumflex.
Circumflex is correct and I'm afraid
you're going to lose five points,
St John's, for that.
Right, your bonuses, Peterhouse,
are on Greek letters.
Which Greek letter is used both for
the Mobius function in number theory
and for the coefficient of friction
in mechanics?
Mu. Correct.
Which Greek letter is used in
measure theory to denote an algebra
on which the Borel measure
is defined?
It also represents
the Pauli matrices
in quantum mechanics.
Erm, I don't know.
Pauli exclusion principle. What...
Kappa. Who knows?
Kappa.
No, it's sigma.
Which Greek letter is used in lower
case for a function of two variables
named after Leopold Kronecker and in
upper case
for the difference between
successive terms in a sequence?
It's delta, isn't it? Yeah.
Delta. Delta is correct.
Ten points for this.
What optical phenomenon can result
from movement
out of a gravitational field or from
the cosmic expansion of space,
or from...
Redshift.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
You get a set of bonuses,
Peterhouse, on prime numbers.
2011 was the most recent year to be
a prime number,
what'll be the next one?
So, erm... OK, find something that
isn't a multiple of three,
that's a good bet. 2035?
That's...
No, that's a number from five. Just
wait... Oh, yeah, of course.
So...
17...isn't.
19? 2017.
2019 is...
because 19... No, no.
Yeah, yeah, 2019 is. Go for...go for
2017. I don't think we know.
2017.
2017 is correct, yes.
LAUGHTER
What was the final year of the
20th century to be a prime number?
So, it's not 1999.
It could be 1997.
What would that be? Oh, I don't
know.
Shall I try it? Or '93? Not '95,
that's a five.
What about '93? I don't know.
I don't know. Go for... Seven is
just weird, go for 1997.
1997.
No, it WAS 1999.
Oh. What was the first year of the
21st century to be a prime number?
2001? 2001?
If 1999 is prime, that one is
a multiple of three.
Go for it.
2001.
No, it was 2003.
Right, ten points for this.
What common name is shared by the
large rodents
castor canadensis and castor...
Beaver. Beaver is right.
APPLAUSE
These bonuses are linked by
Mesopotamian architecture.
Thought to derive from an Assyrian
word meaning pinnacle,
what term denotes a stepped pyramid
with terraces
characteristic of Mesopotamian
cities from around 2200 BC?
Ziggurat. Correct.
With a ziggurat-like tower said to
be perhaps the most extraordinary
in the county, if not the country,
St Mary's church in
Burgh St Peter
stands close to the River Waveney
and a protected wetland area
in which county?
Oh, sorry, I completely zoned out.
I don't know actually. Wetlands.
Norfolk?
Norfolk. Correct.
A descendant of the rector who built
the ziggurat tower
is buried in the churchyard of
St Mary's. What was his surname?
It entered the English language
after he was ostracised
when working as a land agent in
County Mayo in the 19th century.
It's not hooligan. It's someone
who's rejected a lot.
Pariah?
No, that's... That's not the word.
I don't know. Shall we try hooligan?
Yeah, maybe.
We're going to try hooligan.
No, it was Boycott. Charles Boycott.
We're going to take
a music round now.
For your music starter, you'll hear
a piece of classical music.
Ten points if you can identify the
composer, please.
CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS
Ravel.
No. You can hear a little more,
Peterhouse.
Elgar.
No, it's Rachmaninoff.
It's one of his variations on the
Rhapsody On A Theme by Paganini.
So, music bonuses in
a moment or two.
Ten points for this starter
question.
Ignoring the proportions of bands,
stripes and crosses,
the flags of France, Finland,
Thailand, Poland and Indonesia
all appear if smaller rectangles
are drawn in specific positions
on the flag of which...
Norway. Norway is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Right, here we go, back to the music
round now.
That was one of Rachmaninoff's
variations
on Paganini's 24th caprice.
For your music bonuses, you're going
to hear three more works
that are variations on themes by
other composers.
This time, however, you'll hear the
original work as well.
For the points, you'll need to give
me both composers.
In each case you'll hear the
original work first
followed by the variation.
I'll need your two answers in that
order, please.
CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS
THEY CONFER
NEW SONG
Beethoven and Haydn.
No, it's Beethoven
and Robert Schumann.
Secondly.
CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS
NEW SONG
THEY CONFER
Liszt and Mozart. No, Mozart
and Liszt. Mozart and Liszt, sorry.
No, it's Bellini and Liszt.
And finally.
CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS
THEY CONFER
NEW SONG
THEY CONFER
Mozart and Chopin.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Right, we're going to take another
starter question now.
The addition of which two initial
letters transforms words
meaning a high mountain into one
meaning
the outer covering of the skull,
a generic word for beer into
a graduated series
and a spirit distilled...
SC. Correct.
You get a set of bonuses on Scotland
in the 1690s, Peterhouse.
In 1696, the Parliament of Scotland
passed an act
that provided for a school in every
parish.
In what year did
Forster's Education Act
make similar provision for England
and Wales?
You can have ten years either way.
Was that 1870, Forster's?
Yeah. Shall I try it?
1870.
Correct.
In 1697, the Edinburgh student
Thomas Aikenhead
became the last person to be
executed in Britain
for what offence?
Its name comes from the Greek
for speak profanely
and until the Reformation, it was
generally subsumed into heresy.
Blasphemy. Correct.
The late 1690s saw the failure of
a scheme
to establish a Scottish colony on
the Isthmus of Darien
close to the border of two
present-day
Latin American countries,
please name either one.
Panama. And...?
Either one. Oh, either one?
Panama.
The other one's Colombia, of course.
Right, ten points for this.
This Changes Everything,
Capitalism Versus The Climate
is a 2014 work by which Canadian
author and social activist?
Her previous books include
The Shock Doctrine and No Logo.
Naomi Klein. Correct.
Your bonuses are on terms that
contain the name
of the Old Testament figure Onan.
For example, bonanza and
mellisonant.
Don't go there!
LAUGHTER
In each case, give the term from the
definition.
Firstly, for five points, a literary
term indicating the repetition
of similar vowel sounds in the
stressed syllables of nearby words.
It is distinct from full rhyme and
alliteration
in that the consonants differ.
Assonance. Correct.
In physics, a large amplitude
oscillation of a system
in response to a small driving
force.
In medicine, the same term denotes
the intensified sound
heard during auscultation or
percussion of the lungs.
Resonant.
Resonance. Resonance.
Resonance. Correct.
Proposed by the US psychologist
Leon Festinger in 1957,
a two-word term denoting the
discomfort or aversion
created by holding inconsistent or
conflicting ideas or beliefs.
Cognitive dissonance.
Correct. Ten points for this starter
question.
Give your answer as soon as your
name is called.
In which European city is
the Mother Teresa cathedral
located on the...
Tirana.
No, I'm afraid you lose five points.
..located on the
Boulevard Bill Clinton.
It's the capital of a country
recognised by more than 100
of the UN's 193 member states.
I'll tell you, it's Pristina, in
Kosovo. Ten points for this.
In plane geometry, what six-letter
term describes a polygon
in which every line segment between
two vertices
remains inside or on the boundary of
the polygon
and in which no interior angle is
greater than 180 degrees?
Simplex.
Anyone like to buzz from St John's?
Complex.
It's convex. Ah.
Right, ten points for this.
The name of what religious concept
may be spelt by concatenating words
meaning a strap attached to the
bridle of a horse
and a commercial flower also know as
the clove pink?
It's reincarnation.
Ten points for this.
The pia mater,
the arachnoid mater and...
The meninges.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Right, you get bonuses on complex
analysis.
Firstly, for five points, from Greek
words meaning whole and form,
what term denotes a complex function
that is differentiable
at every point of a given open set?
Homogeneous.
No, it's a holomorphic function
or holomorphism.
Secondly, what name is commonly
given to the holomorphic function
defined as the infinite sum over all
non-negative integers N
of terms of the form Z to the power
of N,
divided by N factorial where Z
is a complex number?
I've absolutely no idea.
HE CHUCKLES
Pass.
Exponential, that is.
And finally, what is the radius of
convergence
of the exponential function defined
on the complex plane?
I don't know what that means.
I don't know what that means.
Pi, pi.
LAUGHTER
Pi.
No, it's infinity. Oh, OK.
Right, we're going to take another
picture round now.
For your picture starter, you're
going to see a self-portrait
by a prominent artistic figure
and author of three artistic
manifestos.
For ten points, I want the name of
the figure
and the artistic movement that those
manifestos define.
Man Ray and Dadaism.
No. Anyone want to buzz from
Peterhouse?
No? It's...
Man Ray and photo... No, no.
It's Andre Breton and surrealism.
So, picture bonuses in a moment
or two.
Ten points at stake for this starter
question.
"A gentle knight was pricking on the
plaine."
Of which poetical work is this the
first line
of the first stanza of the first
canto?
It was first published in 1590.
The Faerie Queene.
Yes.
APPLAUSE
Now, you'll recall that we were
referring to Andre Breton
and surrealism earlier.
He wrote three surrealist
manifestos.
Your bonuses are three works of art
whose creators also wrote manifestos
that defined early 20th-century
artistic movements.
Five points in each case if you can
give me the name of the artist
and the movement.
Firstly, this British artist and the
movement.
This is futurism. Erm...
A British futurist artist, possibly
Henry Moore
might have dabbled with it.
I'll try that.
Henry Moore and futurism.
No, that's Wyndham Lewis
and it's vorticism,
which while close to futurism,
is different.
Secondly, this Italian artist
and the movement for which he wrote
two technical manifestos.
This is futurism and...
Oh, what's his name? Is it Mazzini?
It begins with a Z, doesn't it?
Shall we go for Mazzini? Yeah.
Mazzini and futurism.
No, it's Boccioni and futurism.
And finally this French painter
and the movement.
Georges Braque and cubism.
Nominate Clegg.
Georges Braque and cubism.
No, it's Metzinger and cubism.
Right, ten points for this.
Give the name of the member
of the British Cabinet who,
in July 1914, was the counterpart of
the Russian, Sazonov,
the German, von Jagow, and the
Austrian, Berchtold?
Winston Churchill. Anyone like to
buzz from from Peterhouse?
Sir Edward Grey.
Sir Edward Grey is correct.
APPLAUSE
Foreign Secretaries.
OK, your bonuses now are on 1697,
a good year for British art,
apparently.
Born in London in 1697,
which artist lobbied parliament for
legislation
to safeguard artists' copyright
following the many piracies of his
series entitled A Harlot's Progress?
The Engraver's Copyright Act of 1735
is often named after him.
Hogarth. Correct.
Born in 1697, the
1st Earl of Leicester, Thomas Coke,
was a noted art collector who built
which Palladian mansion in Norfolk?
His collection is still housed there
and it's largely intact.
I think it's Holkham Hall. Yeah.
Holkham Hall. Correct.
Also born in 1697, which artist
lived in England from 1746 to 1755
and painted many views of the Thames
although he's primarily associated
with Venetian scenes?
Canaletto. Yeah.
Canaletto. Canaletto is correct.
Ten points for this starter
question.
What physical quantity can be
measured by units including
the svedberg, shake, lustrum,
gigaannus and aeon?
Time. Time is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses are on number theory
in the 18th century, Peterhouse.
In 1749, which Swiss mathematician
published the first proof
of Fermat's little theorem or
primality test?
Gauss - I think it might be. Yes.
Gauss.
No, it was Euler.
First proposed in a letter to Euler
in 1742,
the unproved conjecture of which
German mathematician
is now usually stated as,
"every even number greater than two
is the sum of two primes"?
Which one?
It's Poincare? Is he German? He
sounds French though.
Well, it's not Riemann, I don't
think. OK. I don't...
Poincare.
No, it's Goldbach's conjecture.
In 1770, which Italian-French
mathematician
published the first proof of the
four-square theorem
examined by Fermat and others?
What nationality was this?
Italian-French.
French-Italian? Poincare?
OK. Let's try again.
Poincare.
No, it's Lagrange.
Ten points for this starter
question.
Which composer dedicated his
7th Symphony,
"To our struggle against fascism,
to our coming victory..."
Shostakovich. Correct.
You get a set of bonuses this time
on snakes, St John's.
An arboreal snake
of sub-Saharan Africa,
the dendroaspis polylepis species
has what common name?
It's noted for its large size, speed
and potent venom.
Black mamba, I think.
Black mamba. Correct.
GONG
What word... And at the gong,
St John's College - Oxford have 30,
but Peterhouse - Cambridge have 215.
APPLAUSE
You can do much better than that,
St John's,
as we've seen in many a previous
match
but someone's got to win
and, Peterhouse,
that was a storming performance,
another storming performance
from you. Now, to present the
trophy, he plays football,
he plays the trumpet and he knows
all there is to be known
about group theory
and number theory.
He's a bestselling author
and professor
for the Public Understanding of
Science at Oxford,
he's Marcus du Sautoy.
Hello. Lovely to see you,
thanks for coming.
Well, then, what do you think?
I thought it was a phenomenal
performance.
But I'm really impressed by how many
maths questions there were.
There were an awful lot of maths!
They're probably cursing the fact
that there's a mathematician giving
away the trophy, there were so many.
I suppose maths is part of
knowledge, isn't it? Absolutely.
I was hopping up and down in the
back there
when you were asking all those
questions about prime numbers.
What, you didn't know the answer?
No, I was bursting to come on
and go, "2003!"
Well, look, can I ask you to present
the trophy please to our winners
Peterhouse - Cambridge?
Well deserved.
APPLAUSE
Well done. Thanks very much.
Thank you. And we've got the trophy.
There you go. Thanks.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
THEY CHAT INDISTINCTLY
Well, that's it.
Thanks to all the teams
who've entertained us
over the last several months
and thank you for watching.
I hope you can join us
for the next series,
but until then, it's goodbye from us
and from tonight's winners,
Peterhouse - Cambridge. Goodbye.
How are you feeling?
I'm withdrawing...very heavily.
HE HICCUPS
What does it feel like?
Like I'm...dying as a person.
