THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
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70 Falmouth Street Portland, Maine 04103
43.6667° N 70.2667° W
Altitude: 10 feet below sea level
Founded January 1970
Julian Date: 2458817.16
"4 out of 3 people struggle with math."
-Seen on a t-shirt.
THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
Friday, November 29, 2019
Quiz XIII: Brain of Portland - Gamma
A study in randomness.
A 20-sided die named "Horwindil" chooses the question topics during each
Brain of Portland quiz. We first compile an enumerated list of topics.
Then, we roll the die twenty different times, and each time we choose a
question taken from the topic corresponding to the die roll. Most Brain
of Portland quizzes contain 20 questions. Because it's a holiday weekend,
this one contains ten. One would think that each topic would appear in
ordinary BoP quizzes. And, it would, if we didn't permit repetitions.
Yet, since repetitions are allowed, we will often see some topics more than
once while other topics won't appear at all. It would be highly unusual for
each topic in the list to appear. The topic list is: astronomy,
mythology, mathematics, philosophy, world history, logic, physics, art
history, meteorology, biology, literature, music, geology, chemistry,
psychology, geography, world religions, oceanography, economics and
archaeology.
1. MYTHOLOGY Which one of the following tasks was not part of Hercules'
labors?
a. Abducting Cerberus
b. Cleaning the Augean Stables
c. Fetching the Girdle of Hippolyta
d. Slaying the gorgon Medusa
2. MYTHOLOGY Which constellation figure was the child of Poseidon and
Euryale?
a. Orion
b. Aquarius
c. Virgo
d. Taurus
3. ASTRONOMY Which statement concerning Algol Variables is true?
a. they pulsate with a period of 2 - 3 weeks
b. they are eclipsing binaries
c. they are only visible in the winter
d. they are red supergiants
4. GEOGRAPHY The Faroes are a group of 22 islands located between which
two countries?
a. Iceland and Norway
b. England and Ireland
c. Australia and New Zealand
d. Finland and Sweden
5. HISTORY Approximately 10 million people died in combat in World War I.
About how many died in the influenza epidemic that followed World War I?
a. 2 - 4 million
b.5 - 7 million
c. 10 - 13 million
d. 20 - 40 million
6. MUSIC Who composed "Akhnaten," an opera set in ancient Egypt?
a. Rossini
b. Beethoven
c. Philip Glass
d. Scarlatti
7. LOGIC Frank has to choose one of three rooms in which to spend the
night. He knows that one room contains a few dozen venomous serpents;
another room houses two lions that haven't eaten in eight weeks; and in the
last room a psychopathic killer has just entered. Which room does he
choose?
8. PHYSICS The broom is an example of a _________ class lever
a. first
b. second
c. third
d. zeroth
9. CHEMISTRY What is the most common type of hydrogen isotope?
a. protium
b. deuterium
c. tritium
d. hydrogen has only one isotope
10. PHILOSOPHY Who said, 'There is beauty in everything, but not everyone
will see it?"
a. Lao Tzu
b. Confucius
c. Nietzsche
d. Derrida
ANSWERS
1. d. Slaying the gorgon Medusa
Hercules' great grandfather Perseus killed the gorgon Medusa long before
Hercules embarked on this labors. Genealogy note: as Zeus sired both
Perseus and Hercules, Perseus was also Hercules' half-brother!
2. a. Orion
A bit of clarification. Orion's mother was not one of the two immortal
gorgons who shared ab abode with their ill-fated sister, Medusa. This
Euryale was the daughter of King Minos and Androgeneia of Phaistos.
3. b. they are eclipsing binaries
Variable stars are those that exhibit a varying level of brightness. Quite
often, these variations will be periodic, such as with Algol variables.
Such variables are eclipsing binaries. Like all binaries, they revolve
around a common barycenter. However, their orbital plane is aligned with
Earth's so that we observe a brightness reduction whenever one of the stars
moves in front of the other. The more significant brightness change
results from the passage of the secondary (dimmer) star in front of the
primary (brighter). They are named for Algol, the eclipsing binary in
Perseus.
4. a. Iceland and Norway
The Faroes islands comprise a North Atlantic archipelago located about
midway between Iceland and Norway. The Faroes are an autonomous
territory of Denmark.
5. d. 20 - 40 million
It is not the Black Death, but the Spanish Flu of 1918 that has the dubious
distinction of being the most devastating illness in recorded history.
Even though 1918 was noteworthy as having been the year the Great War
ended, it also marked the beginning of a flu pandemic that killed more
people that the War, itself.
6. c. Philip Glass
Glass composed the opera about the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten in 1983.
7. He chooses the room with the lions. If they haven't eaten for eight
weeks, they've both died from starvation.
8. c. third
In third class levers, the effort is between the load and the fulcrum.
Barbecue tongs and fishing rods are other examples of third class levers
9. a. protium
Most of the hydrogen consists of only one proton, but no neutrons.
10. b. Confucius
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