Cool Zooms, Part XVIII Trivia Quiz

Answer: Astronomy

Gustav Holst urged one-time student, British-born Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin, to pursue a career in music, but she gravitated inevitably toward astronomy. After completing her studies at Cambridge, she was not awarded a degree because of her gender, leaving teaching as her only option. Fortunately, at that juncture she met Harlow Shapley, the Director of the Harvard College Observatory, who admitted her into his newly-established graduate program in astronomy through Radcliffe College. Analyzing the spectral classes of stars, Payne-Gaposchkin noticed that the great variation in stellar absorption lines was due to differing amounts of ionization at different temperatures, not to different amounts of elements in the stars.

Payne-Gaposchkin then turned her attention to the sun and found that helium and particularly hydrogen were vastly more abundant, concluding in her thesis that hydrogen was the overwhelming constituent of stars and the most abundant element in the universe. Since her findings contradicted the consensus among astronomers at the time - which was that the stars had approximately the same elemental composition as the Earth - she was forced to recant her research. Subsequent work verified her efforts, but others later took credit for her work. She continued her trailblazing ways, studying high luminosity and variable stars and galactic structure, as well as mentoring women. The Institute of Physics now awards the Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Medal and Prize for plasma or space physics in her honor.

Question poetically proffered by Humanist who - with an apology to W B Yeats - chooses to "hid(e) his face amid (the) crowd of stars" known as Phoenix Rising.

Answer: The World War II Fighter Plane

According to Ford, the famous American WWII plane inspired automotive stylist John Najjir to suggest the name. (Other stories seem to indicate the free-roaming horse of the western US inspired marketeer, Robert J. Eggert, to offer the name.)

Ford GM Lee Iacocca championed the design project and with chief engineer Donald Frey developed a few early prototypes. The production Ford Mustang was publically unveiled in April 1964 at the New York World's Fair in Flushing. The car soon crushed initial predictions, selling 300% more than expected.

The namesake of the new "pony car" class of automobiles, various generations of the 'Stang have been produced with many options and variants such as Mach I, GT, and Boss.

Phoenix Rising's mike32768 has been a Ford fan for decades, but it's always been a pickup truck for him. A classic 'Stang would be nice, though.

Answer: Assassin's Creed

The original "Assassin's Creed" game saw mild-mannered bartender Miles Desmond kidnapped and put through a series of tests on a machine called the "Animus". This allowed him to view and control the memories of his genetic ancestors. In this case, that ancestor was Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, a member of a secret Order of Assassins. He winds up in a struggle with the Knights Templar in a race to obtain a mind controlling artifact known as the "Apple of Eden".

The game arose out of an attempt to create a sequel for the "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" (2003), which had been a big hit for its creators, Ubisoft. The first proposal put forth produced an assassin who was one of the Prince's bodyguards, however, in that incarnation, the Prince was a non-playing character. Ubisoft was not keen on this outcome and so the storyline was re-developed, now incorporating the Knights Templar. The success of "Assassin's Creed" saw the makers seek fertile storylines that are firmly rooted in historical events, endeavouring to be as accurate as possible, taking only small liberties to enhance their plotlines.

Phoenix Rising's pollucci19 is confident he hit the mark with this question.

Answer: Types of tomatoes

The tomato is the edible, mainly red berry of a Solanum lycopersicum plant. The species originated in western South America and was popularised by the Aztecs and Maya as a foodstuff. Tomato plants were brought back to Spain and Italy by early New World explorers. The three types have varied origins in their names:
bass singer Paul Robeson was an advocate for Black Equal Rights in Russia and the dark red tomato was named in his honor; Mr Stripey is named after the yellow and red striped colours of this tomato; although Ailsa Craig is a landmark dome-shaped rock island in the Firth of Clyde, the tomato is believed to be named after a yacht (in turn named after the island!).

This question was trussed out by Phoenix Rising member 1nn1 who had munched his way through a lifetime of TOM'-ah-toes but has to make do with TOM'-hey-toes when he goes to the US.

Answer: An Aboriginal Elder from the time of White Settlement in the area

Bennelong was a member of the Eora mob, which occupied the Sydney basin when the First Fleet arrived in 1788. He was captured and became friends with Arthur Phillip, the first governor of the colony. He even went to England for several months, but returned because of the weather, and illness. On his return, tensions between black and white bubbled beneath the surface. Bennelong died in 1813, aged about 50.

His name has not been forgotten, however. The land that the iconic Sydney Opera House sits on is called Bennelong Point, and there is an electorate named after him just upstream from the city. This electorate made political history two centuries later, when the sitting Prime Minister, John Howard, became only the second leader in history to get voted out of his own seat.

Fun Fact. Bennelong Point is perhaps the 'primest of the prime' pieces of real estate in Australia, but before the Opera House was built, it was home to a bus and tram depot!

Phoenix Rising member ozzz2002 has visited the Opera House many times, but has never actually seen an opera there.

Answer: Lyndon B. Johnson

The year was 1966 and the Vietnam War had been in play for four years. Johnson's visit was aimed at shoring up relations with its ally and calling for support in the conflict. The four-day trip saw the President visit Australia's major cities, but it also provided a boost for Australia's then Prime Minister, Harold Holt, whose party was steadfastly committed to the war effort. It has been argued by some commentators that the visit was strategically timed as the Liberal Party, led by Holt, swept to a massive victory in the federal elections that were held a month later. Holt's catch-cry for supporting the war and aiding the US was "all the way with LBJ".

This question was delivered via a motorcade by Phoenix Rising's pollucci19.

Answer: Light meter

To take a photograph, light must hit the sensor in your camera. If too much light is allowed in, you will overexpose the image and vice versa. This is where the exposure trio comes into play and all three components have some influence upon the others. To show how they interact it would be easier to picture the three as a triangle with aperture being the right-hand side, ISO the left-hand side and shutter speed on the base. In this way you can see that aperture touches (affects) both ISO and shutter speed, ISO affects shutter speed and aperture and shutter speed will influence aperture and ISO.

Without going into too much detail, aperture controls how much light is allowed to hit the sensor in your camera, and it will also control how much of the scene that you're shooting is in focus. When you press the shutter button on your camera you expose the camera's sensor to light. How long you hold that shutter open determines how much light is allowed in. Finally, there is the ISO. The ISO adjusts your camera's sensitivity to light, and this is usually numbered. The higher the number, the more sensitive your sensor is to light.

That's as far as I am prepared to go here or I will end up writing a novel. This question was brought to you by Phoenix Rising's pollucci19, who remained totally focused throughout this task.

Answer: There is no difference between the two test populations

In statistics, the null hypothesis forms part of a process known as hypothesis testing. This is a technique that essentially looks at a characteristic of a sample of data to confirm whether any differences seen are due to a true effect in the wider population or just the result of a random occurrence. The comparison can either be against an expected value (in the case of a 'one sample test') or the same characteristic in a second sample of data (known as a 'two sample test'). The null hypothesis represents the default situation and the assumption that no significant effect exists. In the case of a two sample test, it usually takes the form of a statement that, for some characteristic of the population, there is no difference between the two groups being tested. For example, a commonly used null hypothesis is that the difference between the means of the two test groups is zero.

A null hypothesis is always accompanied by an alternative hypothesis, which is mutually exclusive from the null hypothesis and relates to the assumed effect that the researcher is testing - for example, that taking a new drug increases survival rates. The hypothesis testing process then determines whether any difference is statistically significant and therefore whether the null hypothesis can be rejected and the more interesting alternative hypothesis accepted. If that evidence is not found then it is usually stated the experiment has "failed to reject" the null hypothesis.

Phoenix Rising's Fifiona81 failed to reject the opportunity to write this statistical question.

Answer: Cold Fusion

Nuclear fission is the process in which atoms are split apart while fusion occurs when atoms are fused together. Normal nuclear fusion, which occurs at extremely high temperatures (tens of millions of degrees) occurs naturally in stars. For example, our sun fuses hundreds of millions of tons of hydrogen into helium every second.

In contrast, cold fusion is hypothetically meant to occur at or near room temperature. In 1989, two electrochemists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, claimed they had witnessed an excess of heat from a reaction that they attributed to cold fusion, thus sparking great interest and fanfare. However, no other researcher was able to reproduce the experiment.

As enticing as the idea of cold fusion is, as of 2020, research into it has become, in the words of a researcher, a "pariah field" of study. Nonetheless, there are many still seeking success.

One of PR's resident tech geeks, mike32768, loves the idea of "limitless energy" but has heard stuff like this before and has cooled to the idea of room-temperature fusion.

Answer: Scheherazade

Scheherazade is one of the main characters of the famed "One Thousand and One Nights" which is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales. In the stories King Shahryar marries a virgin woman each night and then has her killed the next morning. Scheherazade offers herself to be married to the king and she tells him stories that entertain him so much that he keeps her alive each day to hear what will happen next. He eventually falls in love with her and she tells him stories for 1,001 nights after which he spares her life.

Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" had four movements: "The Sea and Sinbad's Ship", "The Kalandar Prince", "The Young Prince and The Young Princess" and "Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman".

This storied question was moved into the quiz by Phoenix Rising team member Triviaballer who believes that Scheherazade would have been an excellent Scrabble player.

Answer: Queen's birthday

In the United Kingdom the tradition of celebrating their monarch's birthday began with King George II in 1748.

The monarch in 2020 is Queen Elizabeth II and her official birthday celebrations are conducted on the second Saturday in June. Originally, celebrations were on the second Thursday in June, continuing the day that her father King George VI marked as his celebration day. This was changed to the second Saturday in 1959, seven years after she'd become Queen.

Queen Elizabeth II's actual birthday is 21 April. In the UK, official celebrations for the day include the Trooping of the Colour, and the RAF Red Arrows fly-over the top of Buckingham Palace; thousands gather in the Mall outside Buckingham Palace to celebrate.

The date varies in other Commonwealth countries. In Australia, the monarch's birthday has been celebrated every year since the First Fleet arrived in 1788 on the second Monday in June (in most States). The Falkland Islands celebrate on the actual day of the Queen's birth, while in Canada, a public holiday celebrates both Victoria and Empire Days on the last Monday preceding May 25 (it originated with Queen Victoria's birthday, which was May 24).

This question was carefully planned by Phoenix Rising member VegemiteKid, who enjoyed the opportunity to attend the celebration of the Queen's birthday in the UK with her Mum.

Answer: Greece

Aesop is believed to have been born in Thrace and a slave on Samos in the late to mid-6th century BCE. The fables attributed to him were written down in Greek between the 10th and 16th centuries CE. The words may have changed over the years of retelling, but one characteristic that most of them share is animals displaying human-like qualities. As well as entertainment, many of the fables are designed to teach a moral or lesson.

Phoenix Rising team member lg549 quickly inserted this question into the quiz before the hare woke up and beat her to it.

Answer: Bastet

Isis and her two brothers Osiris and Set were children of the earth god, Geb, and the sky goddess, Nut. The three siblings had a fraught relationship, with Set eventually murdering Osiris. Isis then reanimated the corpse of her brother and husband, leading to the birth of Horus. In some versions, Isis was the mother of Bastet, whose father was Ra (in other versions Bastet was born without a mother). Bastet was originally a lioness and became a cat over time; she was both a fierce warrior for Ra and a protector of women, children...and cats!

This question was plotted by PR member and ailurophile MikeMaster99, who enjoyed trying to scratch the surface of the genealogies of these mythic entities - strange families indeed!

Answer: Persia

Backgammon is a game played between two players, using dice, counters and a board that has designated fields drawn on both halves. It is thought to be one of the oldest games. Dice, counters and a board decorated with the coils of a snake were discovered at Shahr-e Sukhteh in Iran and are believed to be from around 3000BCE. The board looks quite different from a modern day board which has triangles depicting the available fields of play.

The name 'Backgammon' is of unclear origin and is thought to be derived from 'back' and a middle English word 'Gamen' meaning 'game' or play' and seems to be first used around 1650.

This question was brought into play by smpdit who finds snakes and ladders challenging enough, thank you very much.

Answer: 1750s

Broadway is a collective term for the 41 professional theatres situated on or close to this street in New York City's Midtown Manhattan. Broadway is generally applied to theatres with at least 500 seats, while smaller venues are "off-Broadway", no matter where they are situated. Most Broadway shows are musicals.

In 1750, Walter Murray and Thomas Keen began a theatre company here, with Shakespearean plays and "ballad operas". The latter were a form of protest about the Italian operas of the day and contained English dialogue and short songs.

British theatre manager William Hallam sent actors to the colonies in 1752. This company originally began in Williamsburg, Virginia but in 1753 moved to New York. Again, William Shakespeare's plays and light opera were common productions at this time.

This question was produced and directed by Phoenix Rising's psnz.

Answer: 36

The 52 white keys on modern pianos represent the musical tones A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, while the 36 black keys represent the semitones (half-step intervals between the tones). Known as sharps and flats, these semitones are needed to play in all the twelve possible keys. Black keys to the right of a white key are sharp and raise the pitch. Black keys to the left are flat and lower the pitch. Black keys are named in reference to their neighboring white keys. They are therefore enharmonic, meaning they have two possible names depending on whether the white key pitch is being raised or lowered, i.e. F#/Gb, G#/Ab, A#/Bb, C#/Db, and D#/Eb (where '#' represents "sharp" and 'b' represents "flat").

Phoenix Rising's JCSon pitched this question to the team, took note of the glazed looks, and scaled the information back a half step.

Answer: Queen Charlotte Islands

The name means "Islands of the Haida people" who have lived on the two main islands, Gordon and Moresby islands, for over 13,000 years. The islands are located in the Pacific Ocean, 25-40 km off the northern coast of British Columbia and just south of the Alaskan mainland.

Europeans first sighted the islands in 1774 (Juan Perez), and again in 1778 (James Cook). In 1787, Captain George Dixon named them the Queen Charlotte Islands after his ship, the Queen Charlotte. His ship, in turn, was named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was the wife of the extant British monarch, King George III.

This question was proclaimed by Phoenix Rising team member 1nn1 who added another item to his impossible-to-fulfill bucket list!

Answer: Touch

The term 'Haptik' was originally used by Max Dessoir, a German psychologist, in 1892 to classify his research on the sense of touch. From the Greek for "suitable for touch", it refers to the ability to actively feel and explore one's environment, rather than sense by mere passive, static contact. An individual's sensory nervous system includes the somatosensory system which in turn is comprised of many bodily sensations referred to as "touch", the fifth sense. This includes not only the sensations of rough or fine touch which allow us to identify objects coming into contact with the skin, but also those of body position and movement, temperature and pain.

Touching involves exploratory actions such as lateral motion, pressure, enclosure and contour following which allow us to judge an object with respect to its size, weight, contour, surface and material characteristics, consistency and temperature, not to mention proprioception (sense of position and movement), force and direction and their comparative changes. Tactile perception is vitally important to visually impaired people and haptic technology helps the blind and allows us to provide tactile feedback for speech therapy as well as touch sensation in virtual environments. Somatotopy is the relation of body surfaces to the brain, giving us a "cortical road map" for these purposes.

Question lightly touched up by Humanist as 'A Question of Balance'.

Answer: Stomach

The Helicobacter pylori is a helix-shaped bacteria found in about 60% of the world's adult population. The bacteria colonises in the stomach, and can attack the stomach lining, causing ulcers or gastritis. While very contagious, the exact transmission from person to person is not known, however the bacterium has been found in the saliva, faeces and dental plaque of infected people, so good hygiene practices of brushing your teeth and hand-washing may limit the spread. Fortunately 90% of infected people never develop symptoms. Most people are infected as children and the prevalence is higher in developing countries.

The bacterium was first identified in 1982 by Australian doctors Barry Marshall and Robin Warren and they proved that the Helicobacter pylori was responsible for the majority of ulcers in the stomach and small intestine, rather than stress or spicy food as previously thought. Their discovery changed what was a chronic, disabling disease into one that was curable and consequently earned Marshall and Warren the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005, "for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease".

This question was hypothesized, researched and developed by Phoenix Rising's leith90, whose greatest discovery to date is that a nine kilogram kitty sitting on her chest is not conducive to breathing.

Answer: Angry

According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, "arrabiata" is an adjective from the late 20th century, derived from the Italian "arrabiare" meaning "make angry". While this dictionary uses the "arrabiata" spelling, a common variant is "arrabbiata".

Arrabbiata sauce is made from garlic, tomatoes and chilli peppers cooked in olive oil and is an accompaniment for pasta, frequently penne pasta (penne all'arrabbiata). The sauce has its origins in the Lazio region of Italy, around the capital city of Rome.

Like the tomato-based sauce, saying "arrabbiata" can be something of a mouthful. The four "a"s in arrabbiata are all pronounced with an open "a" sound like when you say "ah" at the dentist's."

Phoenix Rising's psnz was pleased to add some spice to this quiz and wishes to advise that he always avoids antagonising Italians.