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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Part 2, Chapter 7.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Had the universe formed just slightly differently:
(a) Planets would be flat instead of round.
(b) Mankind would not exist.
(c) Our solar system would have ten times more planets.
(d) Earth would have seven moons.

2. What did the French Compte de Buffon claim about the New World (the Americas) compared to the known Old World?
(a) The New World was much more fertile than the old.
(b) Diseases of the New World would be much more deadly than in the Old World.
(c) Everything was smaller and inferior in the New World.
(d) Unusual, enormous species would be found in the New World.

3. While the Compte de Buffon was spouting his theories of the new world, what was Frenchman Georges Cuvier doing?
(a) Writing the first ever description of the enormous mastodon, a new world discovery.
(b) Cataloging edible plant species found in the New World.
(c) Living among indigenous people of the New World and writing down their languages.
(d) Studying the archeology of the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs.

4. Astronomer Edmond Halley approached mathematician Sir Isaac Newton to get his help figuring out why planets:
(a) Spin on their axes.
(b) Vary in size.
(c) Orbit the sun in ellipses.
(d) Are round.

5. In addition to being a seventeenth-century astronomer, Christopher Wren designed:
(a) Eyeglasses.
(b) Clothes.
(c) Swords.
(d) Cathedrals.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Einstein's theories, what is the nature of space?

2. What are so small that the dot on the letter "i" could hold 5 billion of them?

3. In the 1700s, people were finding holes in theories. For example, if the thoughts on erosion were completely correct, then:

4. When French physicist Henri Becquerel accidentally left a packet of uranium salts on a photographic plate, what happened?

5. According to James Ussher, an Archbishop of the Church of Ireland who was alive in the 1600s, Earth had been created:

(see the answer key)

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