Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The Wednesday Quiz Admits of No Peer

It's:


The new weekly game of knowledge, intuition, inductive reasoning, and willingness to risk public embarrassment in a friendly and moderately supportive environment!!

Ready?  Here goes!  Answers come out on Friday!


1. What's the 13th biggest city in Scotland, and the 4th biggest city in Australia?

2. What did Sir Alexander Fleming discover by accident in 1928 that ended up scoring him a Nobel Prize?

3. What is the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid or comet where it is nearest to the sun?

4. What's this?


5. What character says
Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
Thy father was the Duke of Milan and
A prince of power....


Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was Duke of Milan; and thou his only heir
And princess no worse issued.

6. What's the name of these buildings?



7. He co-founded cubism, his vast body of work has the highest monetary value of any artist, he lived to be 91, and his Guernica is among the most recognized of 20th Century paintings, and he was the subject of a whimsical song by Jonathan Richmond and the Modern Lovers. Who was this lucky man?

8. Whose trademark line was "That's all, folks!"?

9. These are all examples of a painting genre called the _________.


10. One of the most influential physicists of all time, he named and was probably the single most important figure in the development of quantum mechanics. Who is he?


Give it a try, if not for yourself than for the sake of your family name!  Put your answers in the comments!  

21 comments:

Christine M. said...

1. Perth
2. Plutonium
3. Pretty Close point
4. Platypus!
5. Popeye
6. Pretty Tall buildings
7. Pablo Picasso, who was never called an asshole.
8. Porky Pig
9. Pieta
10. Max Planck?

lamanyana said...

1. Perth
2. Sir Alexander Fleming was the discoverer of piñatas, right?
3. Perihelion
4. a Platypus
5. Prospero
6. Pablo Picasso (never got called an asshole)
7. Porky Pig
8. Max Planck
Something like Petronus towers isn't it? (though I'm thrown off by the fact that I'm listening to the Harry Potter books as audiobooks at the moment, and the Petronus is a powerful protective spell in that universe.)
9. Passion Play (not the right answer, but I'll know it when I hear it)
10. Max Planck

gS49 said...

1 Perth
2 Pennicillin
3 Perihelion
4 Platypus
5 Prospero
(I'm sensing a pattern here)
6 Petronis Towers
7 Picasso, Pablo
8 Porky Pig
9 Pieta (not a genre but a subject)
10 Plank, Max

Elizabeth said...

1. Perth, laddie - g'day!
2. Pluto
3. Perigee
4. Platypus
5. Prospero
6. Peter Piper's Penthouse
7. Picasso
8. Porky Pig
9. Pieta
10. Planck

Elaine said...

1. Perth
2. Penicillin
3. Perigee
4. Platypus
5. Puck? snicker
6. I can think of only one P word to fit here, and it's imPolite...Pyramid Towers?
7. Pablo Picasso
8. Porky Pig
9. Pieta
10. Planck

Nichim said...

1. Perth
2. Plutonium?
3. Perihelion
4. Ornithorincus anatinus (Platypus)
5. Prospero?
6. Prodigious Pointinesses
7. Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole
8. Porky Pig
9. Pieta
10. Oooh, Planck!

Ben said...

1. Perth
2. Penecillin
3. Peri-something
4. Platypus
5. Prospero
6. Pair o' Towers
7. Picasso
8. Porky Pig
9. Pieta
10. Pfft... No idea.

Aviatrix said...

Yay! The quiz! I love the quiz!

1. Aberdeen, second guess: Disney Line Mouse Princess cruise ship
2. penicillin, or maybe it was that the real inventor was screwing around on his wife, information which Fleming used for blackmail purposes to claim the discovery for himself
3. perihelion, because I can't remember how to spell ephelion or aphelion? epihelion? Also epidermis is the outer layer of skin.
4. a platypus - has anyone here ever seen a live one, or could it all be a conspiracy by taxidermists and photoshoppers?
5. I actually have no idea what play this is from. I haven't read that many. Falstaff?
6. They have some long generic name like the World Trade Centre or the Business and Commerce Centre. And they're in Kuala Lampur? And they are built on a location believed to be the last resting place of King Surinavaraman IV, along with his huge treasure.
7. I'm going with Pablo Picasso, even though I don't remember him painting any cows. If it were Warhol he would have at least made it Holsteinica.
8. Mel Blanc, as Bugs Bunny among other cartoon characters.
9. Oh man! I spent a day in a European art gallery so I should know this, but after a whole wing of the Annunciation and another one of the Cruxifiction, I stopped reading labels. What's a high-falutin' latinesque word for "taking away a corpse and laying to rest"? I'll go with Mourning.
10. Schrödinger - I think his first name was Ernst. It was either he or Pauli who had the gall to hand in a one-page thesis. He didn't need a hundred pages of padding, just a few equations. I spilled coffee all over my Quantum Mechanics textbook. It was the first time I had ever had coffee, and when it didn't seem to be working as advertised I had a second cup. And then it cut in and I went and did handstands in the student lounge and split the back of my pants. And there are a lot of ψs and φs in the equations.

Don't forget, Michael, I want points!

Aviatrix said...

Oh wow. I did so badly I didn't even notice there was a secret letter. But I had fun!

PB said...

1. Perth
2. penicillin?
3. perihelion (if that's right, I'll be fairly amazed with myself - just stuck the Greek words for 'around' and 'sun' together, and apparently it's a word according to Safari's spell check)
4. platypus
5. Prospero (from The Tempest)
6. Don't know
7. Picasso
8. Porky Pig
9. Pieta
10. Max Planck?

UnwiseOwl said...

1. Perth, dude. I was worried when I only read the first part of that clue.
2. Penicillin, and he developed it along with the Baron of Adelaide, Mr. Florey.
3. I was going to say apogee, but seeing a pattern here I'm going to go with perigee.
4. That's a fraud, a fake, those Australians...if they think they can fool the Royal Geographical Society with a stich job like this they're sorely mistaken!
5. Prospero himself, I suspect.
6. Plutocracy Penthouses, Philadelphia?
7. Pablo Picasso
8. P-P-Porky Pig
9. Passion?
10. Max. Planck

Wooh, a good week.

mrs.5000 said...

1 Perth
2 penecillin
3 uh, pere...peri...perehelion? Or summat like that.
4 A platypus!
5 Prospero
6 bah. The Padoozywatzit Towers. Of Kuala Lumpur.
7 Picasso
8 Porky Pig
9 Pieta
10 bah. Ross Perot. ha ha ha plop.
All for the sake of the name 5000.

Mm mud said...

My turn- the letter cueing is really helpful!

1. Perth (only coz it needed to be 'p')
2.Penicillin
3.Perihelion (Epihelion is the farthest)
4. Platypus (actually a mammal)
5. Some italian character who's name begins with P
6.Petrona towers, Malaysia
7. Pablo Picasso
8. Some cartoon character
9. Couldn't have told you...didn't study art history
10 Planck - The contributor of Planck's constant (h) as a relation between Energy of a photon and its frequency (f) as E = hf => unit of h = Joules-sec

Anonymous said...

1. Perth
2. Penicillin
3. Perigee
4. Platypus
5. Prospero
6. Gosh, I don't even know where this is.
7. Picasso
8. Porky Pig
9. Pieta
10. When I see this guy's name I'm gonna be embarrassed.

Anonymous said...

@UnwiseOwl: I thought at first that #1 had two separate answers, so I started listing lesser Scottish cities and it went like this: "Aberdeen, Perth -- wait. Perth! Ohhhh!"

UnwiseOwl said...

Aye, me too ;)

Michael5000 said...

1. The Scottish & Australian citys are PERTH.

2. Fleming discovered PENNICILIN

3. Earth recently passed its PERIHELION (A PERIGEE is the closest point in an orbit around the ~Earth~, technically, but that seems like real nit-picking to me)

4. a PLATYPUS

5. PROSPERO, from The Tempest; the connection with the recent post is coincidental.

6. The PETRONAS TOWERS, Kuala Lampur, Malaysia

7. Pablo Picasso

8. Porky Pig

9. Pietà

10. Max PLANCK


...and that's 4 1/2 points to Aviatrix, who likes points. And it's worth mentioning that gs49 NAILED IT!

Thanks for playin', y'all.

Elaine said...

Ben and ALL of the 5000's seem to have a serious problem with spelling Penicillin. Don't try to forge a prescription, you guys; you'll get nailed.

Aviatrix said...

Was the half point for Mel Blanc or Lumpy Koala? Or just because I like points?

Michael5000 said...

Mel Blanc. And I have a big smile not only because you wanted to know, but because I correctly anticipated that you would want to know.

Michael5000 said...

Elaine: I am a doctor, you know...