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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 2, Mathematics and the Exact Sciences.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. From ________'s law of falling bodies, it was known that the heights would be proportional to the squares of the velocities at impact.
(a) Voltaire.
(b) Galileo.
(c) Poleni.
(d) Descartes.

2. In the hands of ________, history led not to an understanding of God's will but rather to an understanding of human nature.
(a) Boyle.
(b) D'Alembert.
(c) David Hume.
(d) Kant.

3. In Chapter 2, what was the name of the path of a body that is dragged over a resisting horizontal surface by a cord of which one end moves along a straight line found?
(a) Isoperimeters.
(b) Brachistachrone.
(c) Cycloid.
(d) Tractrix.

4. What was the name of the priest of the Congregation of the Oratory, who was also a philosopher, mathematician, and member of the French Academy of Sciences?
(a) Chatelet.
(b) Descartes.
(c) Nicolas Malebranche.
(d) Newton.

5. What was the name of the problem of finding the shape of a surface of maximum area for a perimeter of given length as found in Chapter 2?
(a) Cycloid.
(b) Involute.
(c) Brachistachrone.
(d) Isoperimeters.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Chapter 1, who claimed that his "principle of least action" proved the existence of God?

2. In 1819, who gave a clue to the source of this pessimism when he wrote that "the power of our analysis is practically exhausted"?

3. According to Chapter 1, who made Newton into a supreme rationalist whose laws of motion were a priori deductions of pure thought?

4. What was the name of the philosopher who had a passion for humanity, a desire to "do good," and a penchant for reform, according to Chapter 1?

5. Vis viva was thought by its creator ________ to be the dynamic quantity that was conserved in the universe, according to the narrator in Chapter 2.

(see the answer key)

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