THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
70 Falmouth Street Portland, Maine 04103
(207) 780-4249 usm.maine.edu/planet
43.6667° N 70.2667° W Altitude: 10 feet below sea level Founded
January 1970
2021-2022: LXXXVI
"Books are beautiful, but please destroy 'The Elements of
Style.' Burn it to ashes, stomp it down into the mantle, shred it into an
aerosol, anoint it with rancid oils and sacrifice it to the deity for whom
you have the least regard. Stack copies into high piles on retreating ice
floes; inter them in un-consecrated ground and let them become the devil's
headache. Of all the insulting books ever foisted onto any community, 'The
Elements of Style' is the worst. It is the hymnal of death worship. The
murder of creativity and the constriction of growth. A book that seeks to
craft a barren wasteland out of one of the world's richest languages.
Thin gruel in place of fragrant wines; cheerless conformity instead of
prodigious invention.
"Apollo bestowed language onto mortals so that we could
know the sacred truth once understood only on Olympus: that the rapture of
words is the finest of all harmonies. We have words so all people can
express their innermost poetry; expound on their profoundest philosophies;
convey their most inspired ideas. Language should be as free and flowing as
a vast network of riverlets meandering off in all directions. With an
excess of a million words and the capability of incorporating words from
all the globe's myriad languages, English is, like Olympus itself,
boundless. Be extravagant with it; embellish richly, embroider
unnecessarily; and lavish it fully. Your language is your world; your realm
of volcanoes and pomegranates. It is far too rich and expansive; far too
broad and exquisite to be folded neatly or cut into slices or rendered
bereft of passion and beauty."
THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
Friday, March 4, 2022
Quiz # 20: Brain of Portland V
Greetings!
Yes, it is that time of the month again: the first Friday and therefore
it's time for another "Brain of Portland" quiz!
These quizzes include a wide array of topics: from mathematics to
mythology; astronomy to zoology and anything above, below and in-between.
This month, we've decided to make it a bit trickier by not including
choices.
After all, "Brain of Portland" is based on the "Brain of Britain" quiz on
BBC 4 which, itself, doesn't offer answer choices.
Maybe we'll revert back to the previous format in April's "Brain of
Portland" quiz. For now, enjoy!
1. Who was/is Britain longest serving monarch?
2. Mercury is one of two chemical elements with names ending in "y."
Which is the other element with that ending?
3. Which is the largest landlocked country in the world?
4. Which planet is surrounded by the Van Allen belt?
5. Which Dickens novel features the characters Miss Pross, CJ Stryver
and Madame Defarge?
6. Which dinosaur is believed to have been the largest?
7. Mount Everest is the highest mountain; K2 is the second highest.
Which mountain is the third highest?
8. Can you name three of the six noble gases?
9. Which 13th century mathematician is often credited as having brought
the Arabic numeral system to Europe?
10. Casablanca is which country's largest city?
11. Who was the Egyptian god of war and the sky and was also the son of
Isis and Osiris?
12. Which is the only Dutch speaking South American country?
13. Which infamous book, banned in Germany since 1945, is due to return to
German bookstores by early next year?
14. "Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into
relief by poor dress." was the first line of which Victorian era novel?
15. "Marsh gas" is another name for which substance?
16. Whose forge was said to have been under Mt. Aetna?
17. In golf, what bird name is used to denote the very rare score of 4
under par?
18. What is the next century year that will include a leap day?
19. With a height of 979 meters, Angel Falls is the world's highest
waterfall. In which country is it located?
20. According to Greek mythology, which god gave language to the mortals?
21. "Fill power" is measurement of the volume per unit weight of what?
22. What is the name of the Platonic solid that contains six sides?
23. Edward Teach is the given name of the early 18th century pirate better
known by which name?
24. Which 19th century composer wrote "The Sorceress?"
25. Under the constellation Ursa Major one will find three star pairs said
to be the three leaps of which animal?
26. Only four people have won two Nobel Prizes. Can you name two of them?
27. "IBEX" is a spacecraft collecting particles from the outer part of the
solar system. What does IBEX stand for?
28. What is the northernmost (country) capital city? (Not including
Greenland)?
29. With four known copies still extant, which document is celebrating
its 800th anniversary this year?
30. Sought by alchemists, what object was believed capable of bestowing
immortality onto any human who found and used it?
ANSWERS
1. Queen Victoria
2. Antimony.
3. Kazakhstan
4. Earth
5. "A Tale of Two Cities."
6. Argentinosaurus huinculensis (Argentinosaurus is also acceptable.)
7. Kangchenjunga (28,169 feet)
8. helium, neon, argon, krypton , xenon, radon
9. Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa is also acceptable.)
10. Morocco
11. Horus
12. Suriname
13. Mein Kampf
14. "Middlemarch" by George Eliot
15. Methane
16. Vulcan's
17. Condor
18. 2400
19. Venezuela
20. Apollo
21. Duck or goose down.
22. A cube
23. Blackbeard
24. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
25. Gazelle
26.
Maria Sklodowska-Curie (1903 Physics; and 1911 Chemistry)
John Bardeen (1956 Physics; 1972 Physics)
Linus Pauling (1954 Chemistry; 1962 Peace)
Frederick Sanger (1958 Chemistry; 1980 Chemistry)
27. Interstellar Boundary Explorer
28. Reykjavík, Iceland (64 degrees N)
29. The Magna Carta
30. The Philosopher's Stone.
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