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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. As of July 2001, approximately how many asteroids had been identified?
(a) 2,700.
(b) 240.
(c) 29,000,000.
(d) 26,000.

2. In 1875, why was Max Planck advised against studying physics and urged to study math instead?
(a) A career in math offered greater financial opportunities for him.
(b) Planek knew high-level math but only very basic physics.
(c) It was believed that all the important physics discoveries had already been made.
(d) The government often arrested those who delved in certain branches of physics.

3. Many scientists suspect that Pluto is just a comet of the:
(a) Kuiper Belt.
(b) Neptunian Belt.
(c) Solar Belt.
(d) Orion Belt.

4. James Hutton believed that the natural forces forming the geology of Earth are:
(a) Random and unpredictable.
(b) Now extinct.
(c) Still at work.
(d) Impossible to classify.

5. Which famous scientist was once an unknown patent clerk in Switzerland?
(a) Albert Einstein.
(b) Joseph Lister.
(c) Charles Darwin.
(d) Thomas Edison.

6. Scientists are aware of at least how many galaxies in the universe?
(a) 110 thousand.
(b) 90 trillion.
(c) 20 million.
(d) 140 billion.

7. In 2003, NASA came up with an estimated age of the universe. What was it?
(a) 35 million years.
(b) 731 trillion years.
(c) 103.5 million years.
(d) 13.7 billion years.

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

9. According to the author, humans today have 625 percent more what in their bloodstream compared to previous generations?
(a) Chlorofluorocarbons.
(b) Lead.
(c) Pesticides.
(d) Alcohol.

10. The first eruption of Yellowstone took place how many years ago?
(a) 630 thousand.
(b) 74 thousand.
(c) 19.7 billion.
(d) 16.5 million.

11. A hundred years before Einstein's math analyses confirmed the existence of atoms, this self-educated scientist suggested everything is made up of tiny, unchangeable particles:
(a) Ernest Rutherford.
(b) Hans Geiger.
(c) George Hadley.
(d) John Dalton.

12. The Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico is thought to be the site of what?
(a) Landfall of the largest hurricane in the past thousand years.
(b) Asteroid impact that brought on the extinction of dinosaurs.
(c) First legitimate UFO landing.
(d) Most advanced ancient telescope ever developed.

13. According to the Superstring Theory, the components making up protons, neutrons, electrons, and neutrinos are not regular particles, but instead are:
(a) Super particles.
(b) Gravity pockets.
(c) Vibrating strings.
(d) Super-cooled forces.

14. Vesto Slipher's work at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona led him to discover that distant stars are moving away from us, with the farthest stars moving the fastest, suggesting that the universe is:
(a) Oscillating.
(b) Shrinking.
(c) Stable.
(d) Expanding.

15. In a span of just 20 years, the number of known moons in the solar system grew from:
(a) 30 to more than 90.
(b) 10 to more than 25.
(c) 12 to more than 300.
(d) 60 to more than 500.

Short Answer Questions

1. Halley believed that once scientists figured out the distance from the sun to the Earth, they could then calculate what?

2. Sir Isaac Newton wrote "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy," which explains his laws of what?

3. In addition to being a seventeenth-century astronomer, Christopher Wren designed:

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

5. About how many stars can be seen from Earth using a two-inch telescope?

(see the answer keys)

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