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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapters 3-4.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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) Botanists.
(b) Ecologists.
(c) Geologists.
(d) Paleontologists.

2. In mathematics and statistics, a _____ is a quantity that serves to relate functions and variables using a common variable when such a relationship would be difficult to explicate with an equation.
(a) Parameter.
(b) Paradigm.
(c) Divisor.
(d) Fraction.

3. 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) Richard Feynman.
(b) Thomas S. Kuhn.
(c) Stephen Spender.
(d) Edward Lorenz.

4. What is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language?
(a) Biology.
(b) Meteorology.
(c) Philosophy.
(d) Information theory.

5. James Yorke is credited with creating what term in reference to science?
(a) Chaos.
(b) Pandamonium.
(c) Rambling.
(d) Frantic.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the profession of Benoit Mandelbrot's mother?

2. In Chapter 4, "A Geometry of Nature," Houthakker explained to Mandelbrot the diagram in his office represented eight years of what?

3. Who is attributed with the following quote in Chapter 4, "A Geometry of Nature": "And yet relation appears, a small relation expanding like the shade of a cloud on sand, a shape on the side of the hill"?

4. What, according to the author, are created out of things that have come to an end?

5. When was Thomas S. Kuhn born?

(see the answer key)

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