January 7
Quick Hits
Questions
In Norse mythology, who is the mother of Loki? The Poetic Edda references Loki using the matronymic derived from this person’s name instead the expected patronymic - which in Loki’s case would have made him a “Fárbautason.” It is unclear why that choice was made, but confusion regarding that might explain how Stan Lee and Jack Kirby chose this name to represent the frost giant who was revealed in the Marvel Comic series Journey into Mystery to be Loki’s father. That became the case onscreen as well, with the character below (played by Colm Feore) serving as an antagonist in the first Thor film. The attributes of this Norse figure are unclear, but an alternative name for her, Nál, means “needle,” which is thought to link her to trees, and not to sewing - or singing, for that matter, despite the most notable real-life person with this name being an accomplished musician.
The “many-worlds interpretation” is the usual theory cited behind the different “multiverse” storylines seen in fiction (as is the case with the television series Loki, starring our friend Loki). The theory implies that each possible quantum outcome is realized and creates its own new universe, as if a branch off a tree belonging to an antecedent reality (see below, from Loki). This concept originated with the paper “Theory of the Universal Wavefunction,” which was the 1957 PhD thesis of what physicist? In the paper, he argued that the observer, the measuring instrument, and the system being measured are a single and combined quantum system, setting aside the Copenhagen interpretation’s argument that the act of observation collapses the wave function in favor of an argument stating that the act of observation causes the combined system’s wave function to turn into a quantum superposition that “creates” two new branches of “reality” that subsequently do not interact (got that?).
Hupmobile is a long-defunct line of automobiles (1909-1939). Quite likely the most famous Hupmobile is shown below, though in recreated form. At an August 1920 meeting, representatives from eleven cities of varying sizes, including Chicago, Cleveland, Dayton, Muncie, Rock Island, and Decatur, met at a Hupmobile auto dealership owned by Ralph Hay. There, they reached an agreement to form an organization that today is known as what? The meeting was hardly impromptu, but it seems that more planning went into making sure there was sufficient beer than there was sufficient seating, so the gathering was conducted while attendees sat in cars like the one shown.
At four points in his life (at least), this man was accused of sodomy - once with a woman, three times with men - and he would serve time in prison following two of those accusations. The story that this man crucified someone for creative inspiration seems to have been a rumor, but, even so, this man admitted to the murders of several people - including his brother’s killer, an innkeeper, and a goldsmith - making it hard to see him as the “welcoming” type, despite his name. Oddly, an 1838 work about this man’s life fails to mention most everything above, focusing instead on the creation of what is likely his most ambitious and famous work. What man?
Judy Garland and Fernanda Montenegro are the first two members of a very specific trio. Who completes the group?
Disregarding the Federal District, what is the smallest of Mexico’s states (shown)? When speaking about the pre-Columbian era, this word denotes a city and state in central Mexico whose people were longstanding enemies of the Aztecs, as they engaged in a seemingly perpetual war with that empire for two centuries - with some scholars speculating that the numerically superior Aztecs allowed such a situation to exist for so long because the people of this state served as a regular source for human sacrifices. Perhaps the Aztecs should have been more aggressive; while the people of the state of this name initially opposed the invasion of Hernán Cortés, they eventually would come to assist it, providing both a safe territory where the conquistador’s army could recuperate and manpower that helped in the final siege to conquer the main Aztec altepetl of Tenochtitlán in 1521.
In 1989, the Anchor Brewing Company released an experimental “Sumerian beer” (see below, redacted). The unhopped, 3.5% ABV concoction was said to have a dry taste with a body likened to the steam beers that Anchor already had made popular. Anchor’s recipe included honey, malt, and bappir - a substance that they interpreted to be twice-baked barley bread mixed with date syrup. The reason that they had to engage in such guesswork is that the brewery was attempting to recreate the “beer” that was described in the Hymn to what Mesopotamian goddess? Composed around 1800 BC, the Hymn is a poetic recipe of how a (thought to be alcoholic) beverage consumed by ancient Sumerians was made and Anchor would name their attempt (presented in clay pots at its initial offering) in honor of the deity.
The Avenue in the Rain (shown) is probably the famous painting by what American impressionist? Unlike some of his compatriots, like Mary Cassatt and Theodore Robinson, this man spent the vast majority of his career in the United States, following trends in art through their work and through correspondences with Robinson in particular. Prior to the second Trump administration, The Avenue in the Rain was a regular feature in the Oval Office for many years, as seen in the second photo.
The name by which this man is known today translates as “Orderer of the Realm.” During his time in service to both Tughril Beg and Alp Arslan, this man organized the administrative state for the diverse lands that those Seljuk leaders conquered, recounting how he did so in his work Siyāsatnāmeh (Book of Politics). Many of the institutions that this man established lasted into the 20th century, and, as a result, several historians regard him as the most important state-builder in Islamic history. When Alp Arslan was assassinated in 1072, this man’s power grew further, to where it fairly can be said that he became the de facto ruler of the Seljuks for the next two decades, meaning that when the Seljuk Empire reached the height of its expansion during the reign of Malik Shah I (see the map below), it did so under this man’s guidance. Who was this truly grand vizier?
The German heavy metal band Powerwolf has a song that says that these “Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” while a certain band’s second top ten single was titled for these, with that song’s lyrics warning the listener to “Don’t get too close / It’s dark inside.” The novel originally titled Бесы probably more correctly is titled this word in translation, as the title is meant to convey actors, and not being acted upon, though the name that Constance Garnett gave to her 1916 version continues to persist. If you singularize this word, examples of it from physics include Loschmidt’s (where the velocities of all particles in a system are reversed), Szilard’s (applying a more famous example of one of these to information theory), and one discussed by a French scientist in his 1814 A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities. Philosophical examples of these include the one named for John Searle, which was conceived by John Haugeland and foreshadowed the “zombie” of David Chalmers, and an “evil” one discussed in 1641’s Meditations on First Philosophy. Either a singular or plural word answer is acceptable - what word?
