Previous tossup - Next tossup

Round 5: Tossup 17

Note to moderator: Read answerline carefully. Scholars led by Gautama Siddha chronicled members of this profession during the Kaiyuan Era like Shi Shen and Gan De. Alfonso X of Castile’s patronage of “tables” used in this profession earned him the epithet “the wise.” The multi-gear Antikythera (“an-TEE-kuh-THEE-ruh”) mechanism was probably used by members of this profession. The Almagest ("ALL-muh-jest") was expanded upon in (-5[2])catalogues (-5[1])called Zij (“zeej”) by members of this profession based at an institution founded by Ulugh (-5[1])Beg in (*) Samarkand. Armillary Spheres were used by a member of this profession who uttered “and yet it moves” during a trial (10[1])on his support for heliocentrism. For (10[1])10 points, members of what profession worked in observatories? ■END■ (10[3])

ANSWER: astronomy [or astronomers; accept stargazing or observing stars; accept astrologist or astrology; accept reading the stars; prompt on mathematicians or mathematics or geometry or arithmetic by asking “what specific profession did they use math in?”; prompt on descriptions of time keeping or timekeepers with "what specific profession did they study in order to keep time?”; prompt on diviners or divination or omen tellers or omen telling or augurs or augury; prompt on navigation or navigators; prompt on science or scientist]
<History - Other, Vikram Narasimhan> | VAULT II Packet 05
= Average correct buzzpoint

Back to tossups

Buzzes

PlayerTeamOpponentBuzzpointValue
Cameron VanceGeorgia AKentucky60-5
Keaton Finan (Finan Homeschool)WashingtonNew York60-5
Ritam Setu (St. Mark's)Texas BGeorgia C61-5
Liam Cumby (Autrey Mill)Georgia BTexas A75-5
Samrat Vibhuti (Challenger-Strawberry Park)CaliforniaNorth Carolina9710
Aarya JoshiTexas AGeorgia B10310
Hanna WuKentuckyGeorgia A11310
Luke Coughlin (Autrey Mill)Georgia CTexas B11310
Neel JayaramanNew YorkWashington11310

Summary

TournamentEditionMatchHeardConv. %Power %Neg %Avg. Buzz
VAULT II at Georgia Tech2026-01-24✓6100%33%50%91.17
Triangle Cup2026-03-13✓2100%50%100%95.00
VAULT II at Eden Prairie HS2026-03-13✓3100%67%0%80.00
VAULT II at McGill2026-03-13✓4100%50%0%76.75
VAULT II at UCSB2026-03-13✓5100%40%20%83.60
VAULT II Northern UK2026-04-24✓3100%0%67%107.67
VAULT II Southern UK2026-04-24✓4100%50%25%86.00
VAULT II at Harvard2026-04-30✓4100%50%0%72.50
VAULT II at MINT2026-06-19✓5100%0%80%107.80
VAULT II Stanford Online2026-07-17✕8100%75%50%67.63