| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| An element named for this person, which was called kurchatovium in the Soviet Union, is now considered to be the first transactinide [[trans-ACK-tih-nide]]. Frederick Soddy and this person developed the disintegration theory of radioactivity. This man’s namesake scattering was observed in a 1909 experiment that disproved the plum pudding model. Ernest Marsden and Hans Geiger performed an experiment supervised by this scientist who discovered the atomic nucleus. For the point, name this physicist who oversaw the gold foil experiment. | Ernest Rutherford (accept Rutherfordium; accept Rutherford scattering; accept Rutherford backscattering; accept Rutherford gold foil experiment) |
| This mathematician was the first to introduce homogeneous coordinates into projective geometry. Johann Benedict Listing independently discovered an object commonly associated with this man a few months earlier, which is also depicted in Roman mosaics. This man names a configuration consisting of two mutually inscribed tetrahedra. In 1858, this man discovered a shape often used in conveyor belts which, when glued to itself, forms a Klein bottle. For the point, name this mathematician who names a surface with only one side. | August Ferdinand Möbius |
| The cover of The Mythical Man-Month was inspired by this site, which can be found on land given by an 1828 land grant bestowed by José Antonio Carrillo. George Allan Hancock donated this area to the county in which it is found and names a park in its vicinity. For the sealing of canoes, the Chumash used the central liquid of this place, which Gaspard de Portola's expedition encountered. Methane creates the characteristic boil-like appearance of the central liquid found in this place. Found in the city of Los Angeles, for the point, what are these tar pits? | La Brea Tar Pits (prompt on "Tar Pits") |
| The "suicide" variant of this technique was first used by paleogeneticists to identify the Yersinia pestis microbe that caused the Black Death. The first form of this technique used the Klenow protein fragment, which was replaced by a temperature-stable enzyme from Thermus aquaticus. This technique was invented at Cetus Corporation by Kary Mullis. The first test created to detect COVID-19 coupled reverse transcription with the "quantitative" form of this technique. For the point, name this lab technique that uses a polymerase to rapidly make copies of a target DNA sequence. | PCR (or polymerase chain reaction; accept q-PCR; accept RT-PCR) |
| A set of quantities named for this man give an alternate name to the score test used to determine if an estimator is near the maximum likelihood. The converse of a result named for this man is obeyed by every supersolveable group; that theorem states that the order of a subgroup divides the order of the group. The stationary points of a function named for this man are the solution to a given optimization problem in the method of "multipliers" named for him. For the point, identify this French mathematician who names a mechanical quantity equal to kinetic energy minus potential energy. | Joseph-Louis Lagrange (accept Lagrangian function; accept Lagrange's theorem; accept Lagrange multipliers) |
| After suing the Burrough Wellcome company over a patent for this medication, Barr Laboratories received approval for a generic form that could be coupled with lamivudine. In 1987, this drug became the first nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitor to be approved by the FDA after clinical trials showed that it helped restore CD4 T-cell levels. Providing access to this drug was the primary goal of PWA Health Group and other buyer’s clubs. For the point, name this antiretroviral medication used to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS. | AZT (or azidothymidine; accept ZDV; accept zidovudine) |
| This company was founded by the "Father of Trusts," Charles Flint, as the Computing- Tabulating-Recording Company. The System/360 line of computers developed by this company pioneered the usage of the eight-bit storage size for bytes. In the late 1960s, scientists at this company invented both the magnetic stripe card and the floppy disk. In 1997, Garry Kasparov lost to this company's Deep Blue, which was the first computer to defeat a world chess champion. For the point, name this company that created Watson, a Jeopardy!- playing supercomputer. | IBM (or International Business Machines) |
| While Woodward and Doering first synthesized this chemical from scratch in 1944, a failed attempt to synthesize it in 1856 created mauveine, the first artificial dye. Due to its side effects, this chemical is now only used when medications such as artemisinins are unavailable. To mask its bitter taste, the British in India mixed this chemical with gin to create the gin and tonic cocktail. For the point, name this early natural remedy for malaria created from the cinchona tree. | quinine |
| Vitruvius noted that exposing water to this element caused its white form to be produced, leading him to advocate for wider use of earthenware. This element’s so-called "sugar" is believed to have caused Saturnine gout when used to sweeten wine. Sweetened grape syrups were controversially proposed as unintentional vectors for consuming this element among the Romans. This element gets its elemental symbol from its historical use in plumbing. For the point, name this toxic heavy metal that was once found in gasoline and paint. | lead (accept Pb) |
| A condition of this organ was self-corrected by Soviet Doctor Leonid Rogozov using only local anesthesia while he was stranded in Antarctica. Treatment of a disease of this organ was first described by Charles McBurney, who names an incision point for surgeries on it. This organ is the remnant of a formerly extended cecum used by early human ancestors to digest foliage. This organ serves as a reservoir for gut bacteria, overturning previous beliefs that it was vestigial. For the point, name this thin, small, worm-like organ located along the large intestine. | appendix (or vermiform appendix; accept Vermix; accept Cecal) |
| H. Robert Horvitz shared a Nobel Prize for discovering that this organism always undergoes 131 apoptotic events during its development stage, which produces its full hermaphroditic form of exactly 1,090 somatic cells. Andrew Fire and Craig Mello won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery of RNA interference in this animal, which was the first multicellular organism to have its genome entirely sequenced. The use of this organism for developmental studies was pioneered by Sydney Brenner. For the point, name this model organism, a small nematode worm. | C. elegans (or Caenorhabditis elegans) |
| In order to perform this task, the British Post Office commissioned the ERNIE computer in 1956. Based on a design from Lavarand, Cloudflare uses rows of lava lamps on shelves for this task as part of its web security capacity. Unix’s dev directory utilizes environmental noise to perform this task. A popular algorithm for this task is the Mersenne Twister. True versions of this task rely on natural entropy, whereas pseudo forms use arbitrary data to make seeds. For the point, name this task of creating novel digits, used for computer simulations of dice rolls. | random number generation (accept clear-knowledge equivalents; accept RNG; accept pseudorandom in place of “random”; accept PRNG) |
| One of these events affecting Camp Creek Road damaged the cities of Magalia and Butte Creek Canyon and forced the Pacific Gas and Electric Company into bankruptcy. After the town of Paradise was threatened by one of these events, Donald Trump controversially stated, "I don't think science knows, actually." Scott Morrison was criticized for vacationing in Hawaii during an intense 2019 period of these events that was labeled as a "Black Summer" in Australia. For the point, name these natural disasters that have destroyed millions of acres of California forests. | fires (or wildfires; or forest fires; or bushfires; or firestorms; accept forest burning) |
| During his lifetime, this scientist was renowned for his work with the explosive and toxic compound cacodyl. This scientist discovered that ferric oxide precipitates arsenic out of water, laying the groundwork for modern arsenic poisoning antidotes. With Gustav Kirchoff, this scientist discovered cesium and rubidium. This scientist names a piece of lab equipment with adjustable valves for air and gas flow, allowing for safer control of the flame. For the point, name this German chemist, who names a type of burner used in high school lab flame tests. | Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen |
| A "radius cliff" separates exoplanets smaller than this object from exoplanets equal to or larger than this object. Bode’s [[BOH-duh'z]] law failed to accurately predict the orbit of this object. William Lassell discovered this planet's largest satellite 17 days after Johann Galle [[YOH-hahn GAHL-uh]] became the first to knowingly observe it. Urbain Le Verrier [[oor-BAN luh vair-YAY]] and John Couch Adams correctly predicted the location of this planet in the 1840s after noticing orbital irregularities in its neighbor, Uranus. For the point, name this outermost planet in the Solar System. | Neptune (accept sub-Neptune) |
| This kind of property names the two possible states in a Robert Sedgewick-developed type of self-balancing binary search tree. A model of these phenomena is the CMYK subtractive model, which is the basis for the Pantone matching system, which is used to create most of the world’s printed material. A theorem regarding these properties was proved by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang, who controversially used a computer to show that only four of these are needed to mark the regions of any planar map. RGB system represents, for the point, what properties displayed by individual pixels, which include periwinkle and blue? | colors (or hues; accept four-color theorem; accept red or black before mentioned) |
| Timothy P. Smith was the plaintiff in a case about this device citing the Sherman Antitrust Act's prohibition of monopolies. As part of "Project Purple," Scott Forstall, Tony Fadell, and Jonathan Ive worked on this device. A viral video showcased a "300-page bill" for one of these devices, after which prices were cut by a third on the 8GB model. In 2007, Taiwanese company Hon Hai manufactured the first generation of this device, which was first sold in Australia by Vodafone. For the point, name this development by Apple that came after the iPod. | iPhone (or Apple iPhone; accept iPhone 2G; accept iPhone 1) |
| Jeremy Rifkin has argued that this technology will fuel the third industrial revolution and make assembly lines obsolete. This technology was first developed in the 1980s to enable rapid prototyping. In conjunction with Artec scanners, this technology is used by museums like the MOMA to make souvenir copies of their exhibits. Continuous strings of thermoplastic are used in the most common form of this technology, which is called fused filament fabrication. For the point, name this technology used to create physical objects from digital designs. | 3D Printing (or Additive Manufacturing) |
| Herbert Mataré and Heinrich Welker independently invented a type of these devices drawing from experience developing crystal rectifiers. Julius Edgar Lilienfeld first proposed an idea for one of these devices. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley won the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for the point-contact one of these devices. Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng invented the most commonly used type of these devices at Bell Labs called MOSFET. For the point, name these devices which serve as amplifiers or switches. | transistors (accept field-effect transistors; or FETs; accept MOSFET) |
| James Belich claimed that a period often named for these objects should instead have been named for potatoes. The first known use of these objects by one group was at an engagement near the town of Dargaville in Moremonui. These objects came to replace the taiaha during a period lasting from 1807 to 1837 in which they were employed around Lake Rotorua. Hongi Hika’s forces employed these objects in a conflict occurring prior to the Flagstaff War. For the point, name these European weapons that were used by the Maori in a namesake conflict. | muskets (prompt on “guns” or “weapons” before mentioned) |
| Most of the information collected by this project came from a Buffalo, New York specimen with the code name RP11. The International HapMap Consortium was created to annotate the results of this Francis Collins-led project. To compete with this project, the Celera Corporation launched a privately funded effort that used J. Craig Venter's faster "shotgun" method. This project was completed in 2022 after the T2T Consortium published a map of all 3.1 billion base pairs. For the point, name this international effort to fully characterize the DNA sequence of Homo sapiens. | Human Genome Project (or HGP) |
| In response to allegations that he purposefully displaced minorities; this man compared not doing so to making an omelet without breaking eggs. Accusations that this man designed bridge overpasses to be too low for inner city buses to travel under, thus restricting access to beaches, are leveled at him in the Robert Caro-authored biography The Power Broker. This New York City Parks Commissioner is credited with the expansion of Long Island suburbs by favoring roads over public transit. For the point, name this American urban designer who designed New York City’s highway system. | Robert Moses |
| Heinrich Tietze extended a result named for this number to non-orientable surfaces. An algebra denoted H with this many dimensions was named for its discoverer, Hamilton. A solution always exists, per the Abel-Ruffini theorem, if a polynomial has a degree this number or less. The name of this number is prefixed to the names of special relativistic vectors, since this is the dimensionality of Minkowski space. For the point, name this number, the exponent that results if you twice square a number. | four |
| A shape named for this scientist is defined with the formula r equals a plus b times theta." Using the torque exerted on a lever, this scientist made the first formulation of the center of mass. This scientist inscribed a circle inside of a series of polygons with increasing numbers of sides to calculate pi using the method of exhaustion. This scientist’s principle states that the buoyant force exerted on an object is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced. For the point, name this ancient Greek scientist, who allegedly shouted “Eureka!” while in the tub. | Archimedes of Syracuse |
| Early European devices for this task were designed by Jean de Hautefeuille and James Lind. Simple devices for this task involved hanging a needle from a pendulum over a pane of glass covered in soot. Horizontal pendulums were used for this task in devices made by John Milne. The Han Dynasty polymath Zhang Heng created a bronze device for this task featuring dragons that dropped balls into the mouths of toads. This task is performed today using seismometers and seismographs. For the point, identify this task of identifying movements along tectonic faults. | earthquake detection (accept word forms and clear-knowledge equivalents such as earthquake management) |
| A 1936 act named for this resource and "Domestic Allotment" paid workers to reduce their workflow and revised an act passed a year earlier. Howard Finnell pioneered methods to protect this resource in the Great Plains. Hugh Hammond Bennett was a pioneer in the conservation of this resource as head of the SCS, now referred to as the Natural Resources Conservation Service. This resource was particularly dry in the American prairies during the Dust Bowl. For the point, name this resource that has been conserved to protect plant growth. | soil (accept Earth or dirt) |
| The Laurel Valley Plantation specializing in the creation of this good operated in the city of Thibodaux. The creation of this good involved the use of a vacuum pan to boil a liquid. Purging involved the separation of the crystallized form of this good from another, which was derived from certain stalks that were rolled. Louisiana was the site of up to half of all the plantations that produced this good, which was derived from molasses. Cane juice was derived from the plant used to create this good. For the point, name this sweet good. | sugarcane |
| At this university, Ole [[OH-lee]] Kleppa developed his namesake calorimeter and Ted Fujita [[foo-JEE-tuh]] developed his tornado intensity scale. An experiment performed at this university resulted in the 1953 paper "Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions." Willard Libby developed radiocarbon dating at this university, where the Miller-Urey [[YOO-ree]] experiment was performed. This university’s Stagg Field was the site of CP-1 [["C-P-one"]], the first artificial nuclear reactor. Fermilab is affiliated with, for the point, what Midwestern university? | University of Chicago (accept UChicago; prompt on “U of C”) |
| Much of the design for this devices is based on the pioneering detections of GEO600. For contributions to this device, Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Barry C. Barrish earned the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 2016, this device detected the merger of objects with 14.2 and 7.5 times the mass of the Sun, as well as a pair of black holes. For the point, name this large- scale physics experiment, an observatory designed to detect gravitational waves through laser interferometry. | LIGO (accept Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) |
| The publication of a supposed genome of this animal led Melba S. Ketchum to found the journal DeNovo. A failed experiment in the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest left behind the only trap for these animals. In 2013, ZooBank assigned these creatures the scientific name Homo sapiens cognatus. One of these animals is allegedly shown in the Patterson–Gimlin film. Scientific reviews have repeatedly demonstrated that alleged footprints left by these creatures are hoaxes. For the point, name this apelike cryptid of the Pacific Northwest. | Bigfoot (accept Sasquatch) |
| The city of Yungay was destroyed by the deadliest known one of these disasters, which occurred on the slopes of Peru's Huascarán, also damming the Río Santa. Specialized sheds used to take shelter during these disasters exist at places such as Donner Pass. The Gorkha earthquake in 2015 triggered one of these disasters that killed 22 on Mount Everest's base camp. For the point, name these disasters in which snow rapidly falls down a mountainside. | avalanches (prompt on “landslide” |