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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is attributed to the following quote from Chapter 2, "Revolution": "Of course, the entire effort is to put oneself outside the ordinary range of what are called statistics"?

2. 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?"

3. Who is attributed with the following quote in the beginning of Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs": "The result of a mathematical development should be continuously checked against one's own intuition about what constitutes reasonable biological behavior"?

4. Where was Robert May born?

5. What controversial book did Thomas S. Kuhn publish in 1962?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Lorenz develop ways to reproduce complex behavior in Chapter 1, "The Butterfly Effect"?

2. How is James Yorke described in Chapter 3, "Life's Ups and Downs"? What term did he coin?

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

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

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

6. What was the early life of Benoit Mandelbrot like, as described by the author in Chapter 4, "A Geometry of Nature"?

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

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

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

10. What variable changed the outcome in the experiment described by Thomas S. Kuhn in Chapter 2, "Revolution"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the life and work of Thomas S. Kuhn and the scientific revolution he originated. What book did Kuhn publish and what was its impact on science?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the computer development of the 1960s and the Royal McBee computer used by Edward Lorenz. What did Lorenz develop to aid in computer analysis?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss Albert Libchaber's major contributions in experimental condensed matter physics. How did his discoveries relate to the Rayleigh-Benard systems?

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