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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was the profession of Benoit Mandelbrot's mother?
(a) Nurse.
(b) Housekeeper.
(c) Writer.
(d) Dentist.

2. When was James Yorke born?
(a) 1937.
(b) 1941.
(c) 1949.
(d) 1932.

3. When was Steven Smale born?
(a) 1943.
(b) 1932.
(c) 1930.
(d) 1938.

4. In the 1950s and 1960s what two technologies were maturing together, according to the author in Chapter 1, "The Butterfly Effect"?
(a) The television and automobile.
(b) The space satellite and digital computer.
(c) The automobile and space stellite.
(d) The digital computer and television.

5. Who does Gleick quote as saying "It does not say in the Bible that all laws of nature are expressible linearily!" in Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs"?
(a) Stanislaw Ulam.
(b) Enrico Fermi.
(c) James Yorke.
(d) Wallace Stevens.

6. Where was Robert May born?
(a) Cairo, Egypt.
(b) Sydney, Australia.
(c) Berlin, Germany.
(d) Tokyo, Japan.

7. In Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs," Gleick writes, "In the emergence of chaos as a new science in the 1970s, _____ were destined to play a special role."
(a) Ecologists.
(b) Geologists.
(c) Botanists.
(d) Paleontologists.

8. Who is quoted in Chapter 1, "The Butterfly Effect" as saying "Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next?"
(a) Edward Lorenz.
(b) Richard Feynman.
(c) Thomas S. Kuhn.
(d) Stephen Spender.

9. What refers to a supercomputer manufacturer based in Seattle, Washington, and founded in 1972?
(a) Bend.
(b) More.
(c) Cray.
(d) Ting.

10. When was Thomas S. Kuhn born?
(a) 1907.
(b) 1912.
(c) 1922.
(d) 1915.

11. For what company had Benoit Mandelbrot been working in economics, studying distribution of various incomes in the economy when he was invited by Houthakker to speak at Harvard?
(a) Xerox.
(b) IBM.
(c) Iterated Systems Incorporated.
(d) ProtoLife.

12. What was the profession of Benoit Mandelbrot's father?
(a) Butcher.
(b) Clothing wholesaler.
(c) Math teacher.
(d) Carpenter.

13. Although James Yorke was a brilliant mathematician, he often referred to himself as what?
(a) A philosopher.
(b) A monk.
(c) A rebel.
(d) A martyr.

14. Who is attributed with the following quote in the beginning of Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs": "The result of a mathematical development should be continuously checked against one's own intuition about what constitutes reasonable biological behavior"?
(a) Stanislaw Ulam.
(b) Steven Smale.
(c) Benoit Mandelbrot.
(d) Harvey J. Gold.

15. In what year did Edward Lorenz create a weather simulator as described in Chapter 1, "The Butterfly Effect"?
(a) 1966.
(b) 1948.
(c) 1960.
(d) 1951.

Short Answer Questions

1. From what institution did Thomas S. Kuhn earn his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics?

2. When was Benoit Mandelbrot born?

3. Who is attributed to the following quote from Chapter 2, "Revolution": "Of course, the entire effort is to put oneself outside the ordinary range of what are called statistics"?

4. What refers to a change in the basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science?

5. According to Gleick in Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs," what will cause the idealized population to end up at the lower level?

(see the answer keys)

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