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bed_head7
11-02-2006, 05:29
I hope these are okay.

I think I'll start off with an easy one, since the next couple might be kind of hard. At elast I think it is easy. After the capture of Istanbul by the Ottomans, which of course marked the end of the Byzantine empire, the Ottomans became something of a menace to Europe, advancing well into what is European domain, before eventually being repelled by a coalition of European nations. The battle over what city marked the point of farthest advance by the Ottomans, and in what year did this turning of the tide occur? (within a decade will get full credit) [One point total]

We all know Tokugawa was the first Shogun, but the majority of the work done in uniting the country was done by two other men, the first of which was the Daimyo of Owari and the second of which was a general of that Daimyo (Tokugawa was also a general of that Daimyo). After the Daimyo's death, the fight for power came down to two of his generals, neither of which were Tokugawa. Tokugawa threw his support to one of them, and together they brought Japan under their control. This second uniter died fifteen years later, leaving the path clear for the ambitious Tokugawa to take the reins and become the first true Shogun. Name the Daimyo, name the general who finished the process of unification, and for a bonus point, name the other general who fought for control after the Daimyo's death. (I realize the wording is not perfect, but it is sort of hard to ask a question with all of these unknowns.) [Three points total]

What man won the Nobel Prize in 1908 for his discovery that in radioactive atoms, spontaneous disentegration occurred, and that the rate of decay goes as exp(-t)? This man is probably most famous for an experiment he conducted known as the "gold foil experiment," the conclusion of which prompted him to say "It was almost as incredible as if you fired a fifteen-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you". To what was this man referring? [Two points total]


I feel like I need a pop culture one, but this one has a bit of an agenda behind it, and is probably highly unfair to our European participants. Which show, currently on television, has featured or currently features three ex-cast members of Happy Days? [One point]

One we should all know pretty easily now. Name the seven wonders of the ancient world. [One point total, no partial points awarded]

Who is the patron saint of the internet? [One point total]

And to continue with the Olympics theme that barbu has begun, I'll ask a question that I only just learned the answer to while perusing the link in barbu's posting of the answers, so you may all know this as well. Who holds the record for most medals won in the Olympics? [One point]

romeothemonk
11-02-2006, 16:40
hmm, damn.
There are some doozies in here.

barbu1977
11-02-2006, 20:05
Sent, I'm I the only one finding theese hard?

Tubby Rower
11-02-2006, 21:30
Just give me a 0. I won't even send in my answers because I feel as though you may pull something by laughing at them

bed_head7
11-02-2006, 22:51
Sorry about that. I did struggle a lot with difficulty of the questions, while also trying to make them distinct from barbu's questions. And, admittedly, I did not really expect anyone to get more than two on the second question, and the second point there is a really tough one as well.

Rik Meleet
11-02-2006, 23:06
I took my chances.

bed_head7
11-02-2006, 23:08
I went back and checked the civilopedia, and apparently it does not actually mention who started the work that Tokugawa finished, so I guess was remembering incorrectly there. I expect that to make it an easier first point in that question. Some of the other questions are obscure, somewhat by accident. I was having trouble not making them entirely history/science related, so I remembered back to random things my roommate and I have mentioned. He spends even more time online reading about random stuff, which he often times shares with me, hence the patron saint of the internet question and the difficult second and third point in the Sengoku period question.

sz_matyas
12-02-2006, 05:30
Wow, that was an embarrassing 1. Guess I really need to study my worthless trivia

bed_head7
12-02-2006, 07:52
Let me apologize again for the difficulty. I think I made the mistake of picking topics about which I was at some time or another particularly interested in, and picking more obscure facts about them to ask. My interest in them very memorable in my mind, thus easy, when obviously that was not the case. I certainly did not mean to ask questions which would make the majority of you feel like these were unanswerable. Hopefully my next attempt does not go too far in the other direction, because I would not want everyone to get them all right either

akots
12-02-2006, 22:34
That is a very tough trivia. Also, some questions are obscure like about medals in Olympic games (in a single Olympics? Or through the whole history? Most gold or every medal counts? Not that I know anything about it for sure... [lol] ) or about Sengoku period in Japan where really multiple people were involved. Also, I have absolutley no idea about Happy Days and hence am completely clueless about the show question (I do watch TV sometimes, apparently just not enough). Anyhow, some answers sent, hopefully I got one or two right.

Swingue
12-02-2006, 23:25
My god, these are really hard to get. I am curious about the answers

bed_head7
13-02-2006, 12:44
I will put up some answers and perhaps some good reference links for a couple of them (if I have the time for that one) in about 12 hours or so, if anyone else is itching to make a submission.

bed_head7
14-02-2006, 02:14
For the first question regarding the Ottomans, the answer I was looking for was the Battle of Vienna in 1683. DavidC noted that the (naval) Battle of Lepanto could be viewed as having been an earlier turning point, though I would argue that the victory was not used as Vienna was to actual push back the Ottomans. After the Battle of Vienna, combined European forces managed to clear much of Hungary of the Ottoman presence, which had slowly grown over the previous 200 years. Rik, kryszcztov, akots, and Whomp each receive a half point for right city but wrong date, one point to Swingue for Vienna and 1710, which was not quite a decade or even two, but was second closest to the mark, and DavidC receives full credit plus a bonus half point for answering Vienna 1680 as well as noting the Battle of Lepanto.

The rise of the Shogunate question was, admittedly, ridiculous. Anyway, the correct answer for the Daimyo is Oda Nobunaga, who unified the province of Owari under his rule over the course of the decade after his father's death. He managed to due so despite the efforts of Shibata Katsuie, who aided Nobunaga's brother initially. At the conclusion of it all, the life of Katsuie spared, and he went on to become one of Nobunaga's most valuable retainers, along with Toyotomi Hideyoshi. These are the two who used Nobunaga's sons as their pawns in the struggle for power after death, with Hideyoshi being the winner and Katsuie the loser.

The relationship between Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu arose after the remarkable Battle of Okehazama, in which forces of the Imagawa clan, led by Imagawa Yoshimoto, sought to take advantage of the disorder in the Owari province and take it as their own. Nobunaga, only able to gather a force of a few thousand, as compared to the tens of thousands of the invasion force, was in dire straits. Outnumbered ten to one, Nobunaga took advantage of a thunderstorm to sneak part of his force through the wooded hills while the rest of his force was left behind as a diversion, and attacked the main camp directly. In the chaos, the commander's tent was left unguarded, and Imagawa Yoshimoto and most of the rest of the generals were killed. Tokugawa was among those who survived, and in the disorder that was the Imagawa province of Mikawa, Tokugawa was able to take control and form a relationship with Nobunaga. Nobunaga, with a secure ally now to his east, could now look west without concern about his rear. Over the next two decades, much of Japan would come under his control, before being betrayed by one of his retainers. There is speculation that Hideyoshi may have contributed to the intrigue, knowing that he would be able to take advantage.

After Nobunaga's death, Hideyoshi and Katsuie each picked a son of Nobunaga's to support, and each had other influences in the Oda clan. The conflict escalated, ending with the Battle of Shizugatake, where Katsuie's forces were destroyed and Hideyoshi now had power. Hideyoshi, however, was born of low class, and thus much of the rest of his life was concerned with trying to find a way around his background to get imperial recognition. Anyway, Ieyasu and Hideyoshi were initially at odds, and fought a few skirmishes, but the two eventually made an agreement where Ieyasu would get the lands of the Hojo while ceding the Imagawa lands to Hideyoshi. In this way, Japan came to be under their control by 1590, and when Hideyoshi died in 1600, there was no stopping Tokugawa Ieyasu, who with the lands of Hideyoshi now his had all of Japan under one flag.

DavidC and akots each get one point for correctly identifying Nobunaga as the Daimyo, and Rik gets a half a point for answering Nobunaga as a general. Most answered no clue.

For the third question, I was looking for Ernest Rutherford, who only akots managed to easily identify, though a couple others did name him. A couple answer Rontgen, but he was responsible for x-rays, not radioactive decay. For the second part of the question about the gold foil experiment, I accepted anything that mentioned nuclei and mostly empty space of atoms. The experiment consisted of firing alpha particles, as I recall (though sz_matyas said beta and akots said gamma) at an essentially atom thick sheet of gold. The huge majority went right through, but Rutherford was very suprised to see some of the paths of the alpha particles deflected and some bounced right back, delivering evidence that atoms are mostly empty space, with the mass concentrated in a dense nucleus. Swingue gets a half for an explanation of the quote not quite on the mark. krys, sz_matyas, and romeo get one point for identifying either Rutherford or the experiment. barbu gets one and a half, and would have had full credit had he not suggested that Rutherford was Bohr's assistant. DavidC and akots both get full credit for correct identification of both.

I feel a bit better about this question, as not only did non-Americans struggle, but everyone. Most did not answer, and those that did were not particularly close. Anyway, the answer is Arrested Development, a really great show in my opinion which is being dropped by Fox, and whose (likely) series finale was airing later the night of my question posting. It is just about the only television I have watched since leaving home, and features great writing, though some of the jokes do become a bit tired and it is hard to understand what is going on if you haven't seen all of the episodes, as the jokes are often times rather layered. Anyway, Ron Howard narrates the show, Henry Winkler (the Fonz) was the attorney for the Bluth family (protagonists) in the first two seasons, before being replaced by Scott Baio (Chachi). This poked fun at Happy Days for trying to use Baio to draw a younger crowd, as well as at itself for its general low ratings and willingness to try anything to pick up the ratings.

This one was not too bad. Answers are Lighthouse, Pyramids, Colossus, HG, SoZ, ToA, MoM.
Rik only listed six, but I'll give him the point anyway, along with romeo, barbu, krys, sz_matyas, akots, DavidC, and Whomp.

Only DavidC knew that Isidore is the patron saint of the internet. How that came to be, I do not know, but my roommate told me this a few months ago and I thought it was an interesting bit of trivia.

No one got the last one. As it happens, Larissa Latynina won the most medals total. A few answered Mark Spitz, referring to his feat of most gold medals in one games, but I do not know for sure if he won the most medals periods in any Olympics. There is a lot of room for giving out partial credit, as many guessed it would be a gymnast or a swimmer, and there was some room for interpretation in the way I asked the question so answers referring to individual Olympics or winter Olympics are understandable, but deciding what merits partial credit and what does not is hard, and no one got the answer I was looking for so awarding no points at all seems easiest.

Standings:
DavidC 6.5
akots 4.5
kryszcztov 2.5
barbu1977 2.5
Rik Meleet 2
sz_matyas 2
romeothemonk 2
Whomp 1.5
Swingue 1.5

So, save DavidC and akots, everyone pretty much knew the same stuff and didn't know the rest, so the quiz was obviously poorly made. I will have to work on that for next week.

Socrates
14-02-2006, 02:35
Ah, so you wanted us to tell about this experiment with the gold sheet ? I knew what it was about of course (in fact, that's how I identified Rutherford ;) ), but I didn't understand your question, ie. what you wanted us to tell you. I put that on my imperfect English.

The problem of your quizz, from my point of view, is that almost all the questions were either very easy or totally non-answerable for me. One should expect to encounter mid-scale questions, ie. the ones where you can have a guess or must produce an effort to recall the answer from the back of your mind. :)

Whomp
14-02-2006, 03:55
Once again I feel seriously stupid. Congrats to DavidC for being seriously smart!

akots
14-02-2006, 07:48
Well, I was almost there with the Olympics because I knew it is some Russian gymnast and I also knew Latynina had a lot of medals. Proved to be an intelligent enough guess here.

Now, about the Ottomans, the way the question was asked, it was very unclear. For example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vienna. Year of 1683 is too far away from the fall of Constantinople imho. I was pretty sure, it did not go beyond 16th century. Certainly not to the end of 17th century.

So, what is this Isidore and why is (she?) the patron of the Internet? Just curious.

bed_head7
14-02-2006, 08:49
That does seem fair with the wording of the question, though I would argue that the Ottomans went on to consolidate their power in the Balkans even after the Siege of Vienna, whereas the aftermath of the Battle of Vienna had the influence of the Ottomans severely diminished in that area.

bed_head7
14-02-2006, 08:56
Anyway, maybe we'll just scrap point keeping for this round, and I will try to make the answers more clear.

akots
14-02-2006, 10:35
quote:Originally posted by bed_head7

Anyway, maybe we'll just scrap point keeping for this round, and I will try to make the answers more clear.


No, that is OK, it is actually a fine question. Just a bit too tricky for a simple trivia setup. I'll keep it in mind, I mean that it is more complicated than it seems.

digger760
14-02-2006, 11:14
Hmm are you not listing people who scored 0?

sz_matyas
15-02-2006, 01:29
Yes it was alpha particles, just couldn't remember which was the 2 proton, 2 neutron and which was the electron (doh). Sad thing is I knew Rutherford, and was kicking myself after looking it up. Congrats to anyone who scored above a one, that was ridiculus for me.