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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What shape did Aristotle think the Earth was?

2. Heisenberg and Erwin Shrodinger developed what reformulation of standard mechanics?

3. What question is among the unanswerable questions children ask, according to the Introduction?

4. Who published a paper on Brownian motion in 1905?

5. Who said, "God does not play dice."

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the uncertainty principle?

2. What is one way that scientists determine that subatomic particles exist?

3. Scientists start with observations and mathematics to answer the fundamental questions and then do what?

4. Why might our present day ways of thinking about the universe seem ridiculous in the future?

5. What do religious explanations to fundamental questions of the universe reveal?

6. What model of the atom persisted until the 1960's?

7. What will happen if the expansion of the universe stops?

8. When looking at the sky on a clear night what do you see and how far away is it?

9. What was the Ancient Greek view of the universe?

10. In 1687 Newton published mathematical formulas that do what?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

A thesis is a main point, or argument, that an essay or book is intended to support. If there was a thesis for this book, what would it be and why? Please cite examples from the book.

Essay Topic 2

What do the arrows of time symbolize? What are their purposes? Which one is most important in our universe? Which one would Hawking say is most important? Why? Please use the text to support your answers.

Essay Topic 3

Based on your reading of the book, why does humanity try to understand the universe and what progress has humanity made in understanding it? Please support your answers with examples from the text.

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