attenuation - 2025 ACF Nationals

Tossup

Note to moderator: Read answerline carefully. This process for ultrasound waves in soft tissue can be modeled with the time-fractional Szabo (“SAH-boh”) wave equation, which gives a power-law model of this process. Circuits named for this process include pi pads and T pads, which are named for the shapes in which resistors are connected. A metric for communication link performance is the ratio of this process to crosstalk. This process’s coefficient does not depend on frequency if a transmission line is distortionless. (-5[1])The strength of this quantity equals 10 times the log of [read slowly] “input (10[1])intensity over output intensity.” (10[2]-5[5])This process corresponds to a negative value in decibels, so it is (10[1])the opposite of (10[1])amplification. (-5[2])If the refractive index is complex, (10[1])the imaginary (10[1])part describes this process. (-5[1])For 10 points, (10[1])beam splitters act as devices named for what process, (-5[1])which reduces the intensity of lasers? ■END■ (10[5]0[6])

ANSWER: attenuation [or word forms such as attenuates or attenuating; accept acoustic attenuation or signal attenuation; accept attenuators or attenuator circuits; accept attenuation-to-crosstalk ratio; accept attenuation coefficient; accept extinction or extinction coefficient; accept signal loss; prompt on absorption or absorbing or absorbs until “absorption” is read; prompt on energy loss; prompt on dissipation by asking “what name is given to dissipation when energy is not lost as heat?”; prompt on damping by asking “damping is a more specific form of what process?”]

= Average correct buzz position

Answerline and category may not exactly match the version played at all sites

Back to tossups

Buzzes

Player	Team	Opponent	Position	Value
Benjamin Chapman	Toronto A	Columbia B	80	-5
Colin Veevers	Ottawa	LSE	92	10
Ezra Santos	Chicago B	Virginia	96	-5
Andrew Wang	Illinois A	Rutgers	96	-5
Yashwanth Bajji	Michigan	WUSTL B	96	-5
Matthew Wang	British Columbia	Minnesota	96	10
David Bass	Johns Hopkins	Ohio State	96	-5
Michał Gerasimiuk	Stanford	Virginia Tech	96	10
Karan Gurazada	Texas	Arizona State	96	-5
Alex Akridge	Indiana	Florida	108	10
Ted Gan	Penn State	Toronto C	111	10
Rasheeq Azad	North Carolina A	Harvard	112	-5
Vinu Harihar	UC Berkeley B	Northwestern	112	-5
James Ah Yong	Waterloo B	North Carolina B	118	10
Nikhil Chellam	Northwestern	UC Berkeley B	120	10
Yash Mandavia	Illinois B	Cornell B	124	-5
Adam Fine	Chicago A	Winona State	127	10
Richard Niu	Cornell A	Vanderbilt	136	-5
Joseph Chambers	Virginia	Chicago B	143	0
Julian Bushlow	Cornell B	Illinois B	143	0
Aiden Dartley	Rutgers	Illinois A	143	10
June Yin	WUSTL B	Michigan	143	10
James McCurley	Harvard	North Carolina A	143	0
Calvin Bostleman	Ohio State	Johns Hopkins	143	10
Bryan Ugaz	Arizona State	Texas	143	10
William Groger	Columbia B	Toronto A	143	0
Shiva Tegulla	UCF	Georgia State	143	10
Conor Thompson	Iowa State	Yale	143	0
William Orr	Yale	Iowa State	143	0

Summary

Tournament	Exact Match?	TUH	Conv. %	Power %	Neg %	Average Buzz
2025 ACF Nationals	Yes	19	68%	0%	53%	121.77