gravitational waves - 2025 NAFTA

Packet 1: Bonus 3

In the presence of an isotropic, unpolarized, stochastic background of these phenomena, pulsar timing arrays have residuals whose correlation follows the Hellings-Downs curve. For 10 points each:

[10m] What phenomena are causing the orbital decay of the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar?

ANSWER: gravitational waves [or gravitational radiation; or GWs; accept stochastic gravitational wave background or SGWb; prompt on waves; reject “gravity waves”]

[10h] Pulsar timing arrays typically use this class of pulsars due to their stable periods. Pulsars in this class are formed by a “recycling” mechanism in which they are spun up by accretion from a companion star.

ANSWER: millisecond pulsars [accept MSPs]

[10e] In 1992, the first confirmed detection of these objects studied timing variations in the millisecond pulsar Lich. The Kepler space telescope used the transit method to detect these objects.

ANSWER: exoplanets [or extrasolar planets; accept descriptions of planets outside the solar system; prompt on planets]

<LK, Other Science (Astronomy)> | NAFTA-Packet-1

Heard	PPB	E %	M %	H %
26	16.92	100%	50%	19%

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Conversion

Team	Opponent	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3	Total	Parts
(give me an) ANSWER: die for baseball	Invective Against Swans	0	0	10	10	E
1000000 Delinquents	Quebecois Olga Tokarczuk be like 'freins de jacob interdits'	10	10	10	30	MHE
BHSU	Chicago !A	0	0	10	10	E
Dielectrical Materialism	A Neg of Beauty is a Joy Forever	0	0	10	10	E
Dour Straits	Vacuous Tortoise	0	0	10	10	E
Execute Order 6 7	The tram is not in service; please use the moving walkway.	10	10	10	30	MHE
Guelph Cloze	You Don't Have the Cards	10	0	10	20	ME
H Charlson's Washed Up Scrubs	No Country for Old Quizzers	0	0	10	10	E
Habitat 67	Six Quizbowlers in Search of Owen Minmo	0	0	10	10	E
In the Mood for Transportation Equipment	Muscle Mass Extinction Event	10	0	10	20	ME
Indiana	Northwestern	10	0	10	20	ME
JHU	Contessa Dora	10	10	10	30	MHE
Licence to Bill	The lion does not concern itself with negging teammates out of their own categories	0	0	10	10	E
Licence to C. Wright Mill	Strange Case of Dr. Joker and Mr. Pennywise	10	0	10	20	ME
Maryland F♯ A♯ ∞	Mike and Psmith	10	0	10	20	ME
Munir Siddiqui Fan Club	Rosslyn Academic Team	0	10	10	20	HE
NYU B or not NYU B (that is the question)	Shipping Down from Ballston	10	0	10	20	ME
Negged Five Times in a Yellow Cab Against the Gottis and Gambinos	The "C" Team	10	0	10	20	ME
Noah Sheidlower	NYU A	10	10	10	30	MHE
Penn State	Catholic University A	0	0	10	10	E
The Fire Neg Time	Middlesex County Fetty Wap Fan Club	0	0	10	10	E
The Saint-Straw that Broke the Camille's Back	Capital One in the Twenty-First Century	0	0	10	10	E
UNC Charity	The Imgur Link	0	0	10	10	E
Untitled Keyal Team	Untitled by Alexander McQueen by Premeditated Chaos by Alexander McQueen by Percival Everett	10	0	10	20	ME
William of Baskerville attempts to investigate John P. Robarts, gets turned away for not having a student card	I fear not the man who has reviewed 10000 cards once, but I fear the man who has reviewed one card 10000 times	0	0	10	10	E
consumption smoothing by borrowing future big law income	Surrealist Subcommandante Marcos be like Esto no es una pipa	10	0	10	20	ME

Summary

Tournament	Edition	Match	Heard	PPB	E %	M %	H %
2026 NAFTA at Stanford	01/17/2026	✕	4	17.50	100%	50%	25%
2026 NAFTA at UBC	01/17/2026	✕	2	10.00	100%	0%	0%
2025 NAFTA Online	02/14/2026	✕	4	25.00	100%	75%	75%
2026 NAFTA at Vanderbilt	02/14/2026	✕	3	13.33	100%	33%	0%
2025 NAFTA at Toronto	09/13/2025	✓	4	15.00	100%	50%	0%
2025 NAFTA at Maryland	09/27/2025	✓	5	18.00	100%	40%	40%
2025 NAFTA at Harvard	10/04/2025	✓	3	13.33	100%	33%	0%
2025 NAFTA at Oxford	10/11/2025	✓	3	10.00	100%	0%	0%
2025 NAFTA at Chicago	11/08/2025	✓	6	20.00	100%	67%	33%
2025 NAFTA at Columbia	11/08/2025	✓	5	20.00	100%	80%	20%
2025 NAFTA at Richmond	12/20/2025	✕	2	10.00	100%	0%	0%