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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. 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) James Yorke.
(b) Wallace Stevens.
(c) Stanislaw Ulam.
(d) Enrico Fermi.

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

4. 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 turkey baster.
(c) A six-foot wide magnifying glass.
(d) A twenty-story high pendulum.

5. What was the name of the computer manufacturing and retail division of Royal Typewriter which made the early computers RPC 4000 and RPC 9000?
(a) Royal McBee.
(b) Royal Computing.
(c) Royal Mathematics.
(d) Royal Information Systems.

Short Answer Questions

1. What refers to a computer program or network of computers that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system?

2. In what year did Benoit Mandelbrot recognize the ghost of an idea when he spotted a diagram charted out on the blackboard in Hendrik Houthakker's office?

3. When was Steven Smale born?

4. When was James Yorke born?

5. In mathematics, what is a system which does not satisfy the superposition principle, or whose output is not directly proportional to its input?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Lorenz's work influence James Yorke in Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs"?

2. How did Benoit Mandelbrot describe the ideal data source in Chapter 4, "A Geometry of Nature"?

3. What did Benoit Mandelbrot and Hendrik Houthakker agree on about the chart in Chapter 4, "A Geometry of Nature"?

4. Who is quoted discussing nonlinear problems in Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs"?

5. Describe the weather simulator discussed in Chapter 1, "The Butterfly Effect." What weather conditions did it create?

6. What role do computers and mathematical equations play in ecology and biology as described in Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs"?

7. How is Robert May described in Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs"? What did his work center on?

8. What impact did The Structure of Scientific Revolutions have on the scientific community? What did Kuhn assert in the book?

9. What two technologies contributed to the development of global forecasting in Chapter 1, "The Butterfly Effect"?

10. In Chapter 2, "Revolution" Gleick refers to the pendulum as being the laboratory mouse of chaos, the new science. What metaphorical examples does Gleick give for other great scientists in this chapter?

(see the answer keys)

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