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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In statistics, what refers to any statistical relationship between two random variables or two sets of data?
(a) Diversity.
(b) Prediction.
(c) Commonality.
(d) Dependence.

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

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"?
(a) Wallace Stevens.
(b) Robert May.
(c) Enrico Fermi.
(d) James Yorke.

4. What refers to the sensitive dependence on initial conditions; where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state?
(a) Hummingbird effect.
(b) Pufferfish effect.
(c) Kangaroo effect.
(d) Butterfly effect.

5. In mathematics, what is a system which does not satisfy the superposition principle, or whose output is not directly proportional to its input?
(a) Thermolinear system.
(b) Linear system.
(c) Hyperlinear system.
(d) Nonlinear system.

6. When was Robert May born?
(a) 1947.
(b) 1938.
(c) 1935.
(d) 1944.

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

8. According to Gleick in Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs," what will cause the idealized population to end up at the lower level?
(a) A fraction parameter.
(b) A lower parameter.
(c) A higher parameter.
(d) A multiplier parameter.

9. 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) Wallace Stevens.
(d) James Yorke.

10. What were the subjects allowed to glance at one at a time in the experiment from the 1940s described by Gleick in Chapter 2, "Revolution"?
(a) Ink blots.
(b) Playing cards.
(c) Nature photographs.
(d) Postage stamps.

11. 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) Geologists.
(c) Ecologists.
(d) Paleontologists.

12. Where was Hendrik Houthakker born?
(a) London.
(b) Prague.
(c) Amsterdam.
(d) Moscow.

13. Who said that calling the study of chaos a nonlinear science was akin to calling zoology "the study of nonelephant animals" in Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs"?
(a) Stanislaw Ulam.
(b) Wallace Stevens.
(c) Enrico Fermi.
(d) Harvey J. Gold.

14. What can be formed by taking a finite Cartesian product of the Cantor set with itself, making it a Cantor space?
(a) Euclidean space.
(b) Cantor dust.
(c) Fractal.
(d) Helium in a Box.

15. 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.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the mathematical study of changes in the qualitative or topological structure of a given family, such as the integral curves of a family of vector fields, and the solutions of a family of differential equations?

2. James Yorke realized that one of the largest problems with his work was that mathematicians and physicists were often worlds apart because they did not what?

3. What refers to a supercomputer manufacturer based in Seattle, Washington, and founded in 1972?

4. 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?

5. Although James Yorke was a brilliant mathematician, he often referred to himself as what?

(see the answer keys)

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