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

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

2. What concept originated by Thomas S. Kuhn refers to the routine work of scientists experimenting within a paradigm, slowly accumulating detail in accord with established broad theory and not actually challenging or attempting to test the underlying assumptions of that theory?
(a) Science of commonality.
(b) Psuedoscience.
(c) Bland science.
(d) Normal science.

3. 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) Pufferfish effect.
(b) Hummingbird effect.
(c) Butterfly effect.
(d) Kangaroo effect.

4. What work by Edward Lorenz greatly impacted the thinking of James Yorke, as described in Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs"?
(a) "Period Three Implies Chaos".
(b) "Fractals Everywhere".
(c) "Physical Review Letters".
(d) "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow".

5. What did Foucault use as a way to demonstrate the earth's rotation, according to the author in Chapter 2, "Revolution"?
(a) A softball.
(b) A twenty-story high pendulum.
(c) A turkey baster.
(d) A six-foot wide magnifying glass.

6. The National Weather Service is one of the six scientific agencies that make up what division of the U.S. Government?
(a) The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
(b) The Interior Department.
(c) The U.S. Coast Guard.
(d) The U.S. Navy.

7. When was Benoit Mandelbrot born?
(a) 1900.
(b) 1941.
(c) 1924.
(d) 1876.

8. According to Gleick in Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs," what will lead to an increased, steady state in the idealized population?
(a) A lower parameter.
(b) A fraction parameter.
(c) A higher parameter.
(d) A multiplier parameter.

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

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

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

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

13. What refers to a change in the basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science?
(a) Paradigm shift.
(b) Theoretical physics.
(c) Fractal basin boundaries.
(d) Gradient.

14. In his paper, Kuhn argues that rival paradigms are ______, meaning that it is not possible to understand one paradigm through the conceptual framework and terminology of another rival paradigm.
(a) Indistinguishable.
(b) Incorrigible.
(c) Incomprehensible.
(d) Incommensurable.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Where is Stephen Smale from?

2. When was James Yorke born?

3. 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"?

4. 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"?

5. In the 1950s and 1960s what two technologies were maturing together, according to the author in Chapter 1, "The Butterfly Effect"?

(see the answer keys)

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