This quiz is over, and Stephen W Perry emerges as the winner!
Congratulations, the honour and glory is yours for the rest of the
day! Mark Brader comes in second, and Pete Gayde makes it to the
bronze position thanks to having the first tie breaker correct.
Here is the full scoreboard:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total 1st Tie 2nd Tie
Stephen P 1 1 - - 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 - 9 - -
Mark B 1 1 - 1 1 1 - 1 - 1 1 - 8 - -
Pete G 1 1 - - - 1 1 - 1 1 1 - 7 X -
Bruce B 1 1 - 1 - 1 - - 1 1 1 - 7 - -
Joe M 1 - - - 1 1 1 1 1 1 - 7 - -
Joshua K 1 1 - 1 1 1 1 - - - 1 - 7 - -
Calvin - - - - 1 1 1 1 1 1 - - 6 - -
Dan B 1 - - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 1 - 6 - -
Chris J - - - 1 - 1 1 1 - - - - 4 - -
Here are the questions and the answers.
> 1. Superheroes: Captain America, Green Lantern, Hulk, Silver Surfer,
> Spiderman
Intended answer: Green Latern. He is from DC Comics, the others are from
Marvel
I also approved Silver Surfer "only alien in the group".
> 2. Numbers: 168, 1440, 3600, 6200, 86400
Intended answer: 6200, no particular relation to time. (Also not divisble
by 24.)
168 - Hours per week. 1440 - Minutes per day. 3600 - Seconds per hour.
86400 - Seconds per day.
> 3. Events in European history: 1569, 1772, 1793, 1795, 1939
I should probably have made the hint a little more precise, to say
that they all relate to the same country.
1569 - This saw the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,
which formalised Poland and Lithuania as a single state. They had been
united by a personal union for 183 years. This is the odd one.
1772 - First partition of Poland by Russia, Prussia and Austria.
1793 - Second partition of Poland by Russia and Prussia
1795 - Third partition of Poland by all three wipes Poland of the map.
1939 - Poland divided again, this time by Nazi Germany and USSR.
> 4. Phonetics: [b], [g], [k], [n], [t]
Inteded answer [n] - this is a nasal, not a stop.
I did not approve "the others use 'e' in their sounds; bee gee kay en tee",
because the items listed were phones (whence the brackets) and not
letters. And the hint said Phonetics.
> 5. Geographical science: AL, CA, MN, NE, OR
Intended answer OR.
AL = Alabama/Aluminium, CA = California/Calcium, MN = Minnesota/Manganese,
NE = Nebraska/Neon, OR = Oregon
I grudgingly accepted NE on the ground "Bounded on all sides by other
US states." However, I did not accept NE "because it has no lake or ocean
boundary". A map inspection shows that part of the border to South Dakota
is on the Lewis and Clark lake.
> 6. Cars: Hyundai, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota
Intended answer: Hyundai, from South Korea, all others are from Japan.
>7. Music: Cosi fan tutte,
> Don Giovanni,
> Il barbiere di Siviglia,
> La clemenza di Tito,
> Le Nozze di Figaro
Intended answer: Il barbiere di Siviglia which is by Rossini. The others
are all by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
I also approved "Le nozze di Figaro", "4 acts, not 2".
> 8. Literature: And Then There Were None,
> Evil Under the Sun,
> Murder on the Orient Express,
> The Nine Tailors,
> Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
Intended answer: "The Nine Tailors", which is by Dorothy Sayers. The
others are by Agatha Christie.
> 9. Computing: Amber Lake, Bulldozer, Ivy Bridge, Nehalem, Sandy Bridge
Intended answer: Bulldozer. All are CPU chips, but Bulldozer is AMD.
The others are Intel.
> 10. Religion: Brahma, Kami, Lakshmi, Shiva, Vishnu
Intended answer: Kami. The others are Hindu deity. Kami is Shinto.
> 11. Islands: Crete, Timor, Ireland, Tierra del Fuego, Saint Martin,
Intended answer: Crete, not divided by an international border.
Timor - Indonesia & East Timor, Ireland - Ireland & UK,
Tierra del Fuego - Chile & Argentina, Saint Martin - France & Netherlands.
This question was inspired by question in one of the quizzes recently
reposted by Mark.
This picture is from Puerto Edén. This very remote settlement in the
Patagonian fiords is the last outpost of the Kawéscar people who used
to live on these lands and waters. There are no roads leading here, but
Navimag pass by with their ferries four times a week en route between
Puerto Natales and Puerto Montt. People come out with their boats to
load and unload goods and people. They do have 4G coverage.
> H:
http://www.sommarskog.se/temp/H.jpg
This is from the Río Hurtado valley, some 350 km north of Santiago as the
crow flies. Rain is erratic in this area, and that is why the mountains
are bare. But the ground as such is very fertile, so add water and it
starts to grow like crazy, and the vegetation along the river is very dense.
> P:
http://www.sommarskog.se/temp/P.jpg
The Atacama desert meets the Pacific Ocean at the original site for Pisagua.
(The modern Pisagua is 2 km further south, but that, too, is almost a
ghost town after the demise of the nitrate boom). This is one of the few
places along the coastal range where a river bed has managed to cut through
the coastal range. Just don't ask me where the water is.
> T:
http://www.sommarskog.se/temp/T.jpg
Tyresta National Park is just south of Stockholm and I often to there
in summer. They say that this type of nature of pines growing on a thin
soil on rocky ground is unique to the area around Stockholm and the south
of Finland. The rock is from very old mountain, and normally mountains
that old are covered by a thick layer of soil. But during the ice age,
the land was pressed below sea level. When the ice withdrew, the open
sea flushed away all the soil, and the rock came into the open. As the
land kept bouncing back, it is again above sea level, but the amount of
soil assembled on top of it is thin.
So this is the odd one.
> V:
http://www.sommarskog.se/temp/V.jpg
The vulcano Villarrica as seen across the lake of Villarrica from the
city of Villarrica. On the other side of the lake, at foot of the vulcano
more or less, lies Pucón, which, according to my guide book, has the
highest concentration of tourist facliities in the Americas south of
Costa Rica. I never made it myself to Pucón, though.
> First tie breaker: Which country are the four pictures from?
Chile. Kudos to Pete Gayde for spotting this. This was a very difficult
question, but I was still surprised over some of the answers. New Zealand?
I can't think of how neither H or T would fit in there.
> Second tie breaker: From which country is the odd one?
Sweden. One entrant suggested that T could be anywhere. And maybe it can.
For me, this is a very common scene, but as I said above, I am told that
it is unique to this part of the world. But maybe the story is that if you
find a scene like this elsewhere in this world, it would be on higher
elevations in a mountain range, and not in a coastal landscape.
Thanks to everyone for playing!