THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM

70 Falmouth Street Portland, Maine 04103

43.6667° N 70.2667° W

Altitude: 10 feet below sea level

Founded January 1970

Julian date: 2458752.5

2019-2020: XIX

"Always remember that you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think and loved more than you know." -Christopher Robin

THE DAILY ASTRONOMER

Friday, September 27, 2019

Quiz IV: Brain of Portland - Alpha

Brain of Portland has returned!

Once a month -I think- we'll post a Brain of Portland quiz that will encompass a variety of topics: astronomy, mythology, geography, history, physics, chemistry, philosophy, mathematics, literature, geology, biology, logic, meteorology, art history, music, space exploration, oceanography, psychology, economics, and religion. We have recruited Horwindil, the 20-sided die we use on April Fool's Day, to select the topics.* Each topic is assigned a number between 1 - 20, inclusive. As each Brain of Portland quiz will contain only 20 questions, some topics will appear more than others UNLESS we just happen to roll each number once (a highly improbable scenario).

These Brain of Portland quizzes lead up to a behemoth Brain of Brains quiz that we'll post toward the end of our school year in early August. This quiz is based on the popular "Brain of Britain" quiz that is broadcast on BBC Radio 4, generally in the winter/spring.

1. HISTORY If current UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson actually heeds the calls for his resignation within the next couple of months, he will earn the dubious distinction of being the UK Prime Minister with the shortest tenure. Which UK Prime Minister holds the record for serving the longest?

a. H.H. Asquith

b. William Pitt the Younger

c. Sir Robert Walpole

d. Sir Winston Churchill

2. MYTHOLOGY Who kept Odysseus trapped on her island for seven years and promised him eternal youth if he agreed to remain there forever?

a. Atalanta

b. Calypso

c. Circe

d. Galatea

3. ASTRONOMY Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system. Which moon is the second largest?

a. Io (moon of Jupiter)

b. Europa (moon of Jupiter)

c. Moon (moon of, well, Earth)

d. Titan (moon of Saturn)

4. MATHEMATICS: The image above shows a 20-sided die. (Not Horwindil, who refuses to pose for a photograph). A 20-sided die is an example of one of the five Platonic solids. What is the shape name for a 20-sided die?

a. Dodecahedron

b. Tetrahedron

c. Icosahedron

d. Octahedron

5. SPACE EXPLORATION: Which spacecraft -that humans have launched- is currently at the greatest distance from the Sun?

a. Voyager 1

b. Voyager 2

c. Pioneer 1

d. New Horizons

6. RELIGION: Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of what?
a. water

b. knowledge

c. air

d. marriage

7. ECONOMICS: When the federal government's expenditures for a fiscal year are greater than its revenue (please stretch your imagination for this one), the result is what?

a. a budget deficit

b. a national debt

c. a budget surplus

d. none of the above

8. GEOGRAPHY: The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean Sea to which body of water?
a. the Dead Sea

b. the Red Sea

c. the Aegean Sea

d. the Indian Ocean

9. CHEMISTRY: Which ONE of the following isn't a Noble Gas?

a. helium

b. neon

c. boron

d. xenon

10. ART HISTORY: The scene taken from the Bayeux Tapestry (above image) depicts which historical event?

a. The Battle of Hastings

b. The Battle of Agincourt

c. The Battle of Bannockburn

d. It doesn't depict a historical event: it is an artistic rendering of the arrival of Beowulf

11. MUSIC: Fidelio, Op. 72, is the only opera composed by______________

a. Mozart

b. J.S. Bach

c. Rachmaninoff

d. Beethoven

12. GEOLOGY: What is the name of the current geological epoch?

a. Holocene

b. Pleistocene

c. Pliocene

d. Miocene

13. LITERATURE: The "qulls of the fretful porpentine" line is spoken in which Shakespearean Play?

a. Othello

b. Hamlet

c. King Lear

d. Much Ado About Nothing

14. HISTORY _____________ won the Peloponnesian War in the year ___________ BC

a. Sparta; 404

b. Athens; 413

c. Sparta; 413

d. Athens; 404

15. LOGIC You visit a town with only two barbers who serve everyone in town. One barber (A) has a neat haircut and a clean shave. The other barber's (B) hair is a mess and his beard poorly cut. Which barber do you visit?

a. A

b. B

c. neither

d. it doesn't matter

16. PHYSICS The period of a simple pendulum (one with a string of negligible mass) is approximated by a formula in which 2 and pi are multiplied by the square root of the quotient of the pendulum length divided by what?

a. the surface gravity

b. the height of the pendulum's bob's minimum distance from the floor

c. the cube of the surface gravity

d. the temperature

17. GEOLOGY Which country has the greatest number of mountains with peaks over 7,200 meters?

a. Pakistan

b. Nepal

c. China

d. Bhutan

18. ECONOMICS Which economist wrote the book "The Affluent Society?"

a. John Kenneth Galbraith

b. John Maynard Keynes

c. John Bates Clark

d. John Richard Hicks

19. CHEMISTRY How many elements are named after heavenly bodies?

a. 1

b. 2

c. 3

d. 4

20. ASTRONOMY The Sun appears to occupy which constellation on July 4th?
a. Gemini the twins

b. Sagittarius the Archer

c. Virgo the Maiden

d. Taurus the Bull

ANSWERS

1. c. Sir Robert Walpole

He served 20 years. 314 days starting in the year 1721

2. b. Calypso

Calypso was a sea nymph who so loved Odysseus that she kept him on her island of Ogygia for seven years. Athena, who was ardently fond of Odysseus herself, appealed to Zeus to intervene on Odysseus' behalf, for he dearly missed his wife Penelope. Zeus deployed his messenger Hermes to Ogygia to command Calypso to release Odysseus. Though furious at the order, she complied with it and furnished Odysseus with a raft and sufficient provisions for his return journey to Ithaca.

3. d. Titan (moon of Saturn)

Ganymede's radius is 2,634 kilometers. Titan's is 2,574 kilometers. Apart from being slightly larger than Mercury, Titan is also known for being the only known moon to be enshrouded in an atmosphere, albeit a rather toxic one.

Note: Our moon is the solar system's fifth largest moon. It is only larger than one Galilean moon: Europa

4. c. Icosahedron

THE PLATONIC SOLIDS:

TETRAHEDRON: four sided figure; each face a triangle

CUBE: six sided figure; each side a square

OCTAHEDRON: eight sided figure; each side a triangle

DODECAHEDRON: twelve sided figure; each side a hexagon

ICOSAHEDRON: twenty sided figure; each side a triangle

5. a. Voyager 1

Launched on August 20, 1977, Voyager 1 is now about 13.7 billion miles from the Sun. This still-functioning spacecraft is moving away from the Sun at about 34,200 miles per hour.

6. b. knowledge

Saraswati सरस्वती, part of the trinity consisting also of Lakshmi and Parvati, is the goddess of knowledge, music, art, learning and wisdom.

7. a. a budget deficit

Hey, do you sleep well at night and are often afflicted with a sense of profound contentment?

The US budget deficit is now more than $866 billion!

8. b. the Red Sea

Constructed over a ten year period starting in 1859, the Suez Canal is a 120.1 mile long canalin Egypt that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea.

9. c. boron

The noble gases are helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon. They are all known to be of very low chemical reactivity. There are some compounds that do contain a noble gas, such as Xenon tetraflouride and Krypton hexabromine

10. a. The Battle of Hastings

The Battle of Hastings (1066) pitted William, Duke of Normandy, against the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson. The Normans prevailed and William became the famous William the Conqueror.

11. d. Beethoven

An opera with three premieres:

the original premiere in 1805; a reworked premier in 1806 and a finalized version premiere in 1814.

12. a. Holocene

The Holocene epoch started around the time of the last glaciation, around 11,500 years ago.

It is divided into different ages: Greenlandian, Northgrippian and Meghalyan.

13. b. Hamlet

This line was spoken by the spirit of Hamlet's father, who informed his son, Hamlet, that he (Dad) was killed by Claudius, the father's brother. The "quills of the fretful porpentine" referred to how Hamlet's hair would appear were the father permitted to describe purgatory.

14. a. Sparta; 404

Historians tend to divide the Peloponnesian War into three phases. The militarily superior Spartans eventually prevailed.

15. b. B

Since each barber will cut the other barber's hair, it is advisable to visit the barber with the messy hair since he was the one who provided the other barber with the superior haircut.

16. a. the surface gravity

The period of a simple pendulum is equal to 2x pi x the square root of L/g

g = Earth's surface gravity

17. c. China

China has 50 peaks with peaks about 7,200 meters

North American has none

18. a. John Kenneth Galbraith

Originally published in 1958, the "Affluent Society" is considered one of the most influential economic books written in the 20th century

19. d. 4

Helium

Uranium (Uranus discovered 1781; Uranium discovered in 1789)

Neptunium

Plutonium

20. a. Gemini the twins

The Sun appears to move through Gemini the twins during the first part of summer.

*On April 1st, we offer the "April Fool's Show." It is the only time we actually don't know what show we'll present until just before the show starts. We assign 20 different shows a number and then we roll the 20-sided die Horwindil to decide on the program we'll see. Now that Brain of Portland has returned, this die will have a bit more to do during the year.

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