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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is one possible way that the three dimensions we observe could have been "stretched out"?
(a) The big bang.
(b) Vacuum energy.
(c) Quantum fluctuations.
(d) A false vacuum event.

2. What problem of cosmology was the inflationary model created to deal with?
(a) The universe is too large to support its own expansion.
(b) The cosmic background radiation is uniform, and shouldn't be.
(c) The cosmic background is not uniform, and should be.
(d) The universe is too small to support its own expansion.

3. What does the second law of thermodynamics state about entropy for a closed system?
(a) It varies with external temperature.
(b) It always increases.
(c) It is conserved, and never changes.
(d) It always decreases.

4. Which team of researchers discovered the process for altering Calabi-Yau spaces by rupturing them?
(a) Hawking and Fermi.
(b) Yau and Tian.
(c) Bohr and Feynman.
(d) Greene and Morrison.

5. String theory claims that super particles _____.
(a) Are the only non-string particles.
(b) Do not exist.
(c) Are massless.
(d) Come in pairs.

6. How are black holes are widely believed to have originated?
(a) Through the phase transition of normal elementary particles.
(b) Spontaneously from quantum foam.
(c) From the collapse of a star.
(d) From the collision of stars.

7. Which of the following will occur after the collapse of the universe as predicted by string theory?
(a) The universe will expand again.
(b) The universe will become a single black hole.
(c) The universe will be mirrored in another dimension.
(d) The universe will cease to exist.

8. About how long after the big bang were stars formed?
(a) One hundred billion years.
(b) 50 billion years.
(c) One thousand years.
(d) One billion years.

9. What property of both black holes and elementary particles is still unknown?
(a) Their internal structures.
(b) Their supersymmetric partners.
(c) Their relationships to strings.
(d) Their spin.

10. What is supergravity?
(a) The relativistic effect of two particles occupying the same location.
(b) The gravitational conditions inside a black hole.
(c) A combination of general relativity and supersymmetry.
(d) The gravitational force felt at the Planck scale.

11. Who provided the computer programming to process the results of the Morrison-Greene experiment?
(a) Aspinwall.
(b) Tian.
(c) Yau.
(d) Rutherford.

12. Riemannian geometry describes the following objects: _____.
(a) Six-dimensional manifolds.
(b) Curved spaces.
(c) N-dimensional spheres.
(d) Finite, unbounded spaces.

13. The discovery of the tearing of space-time came from cooperation between experts in physics and _____.
(a) Astronomy.
(b) Engineering.
(c) Cosmology.
(d) Mathematics.

14. By what factor is the minimum mass of a wrapped string in determined?
(a) The size of the circular dimension it is wrapped around.
(b) The string's Planck tension.
(c) The string's winding number.
(d) The vacuum energy of the dimension it is wrapped around.

15. What is a virtual string pair?
(a) A pair of strings created purely in the curled-up dimensions.
(b) A short-lived pair of strings resulting from a normal string splitting momentarily.
(c) A quantum-entangled pair of unwound, massless strings.
(d) A pair of strings that cancel each other out and therefore do no correspond to real particles.

Short Answer Questions

1. About how old is the universe?

2. Tears in space-time are technically termed _____.

3. In M-theory, what role does duality play?

4. According to modern physics, which of the following may cease to exist at the center of a black hole?

5. Which one of the following do physicists believe occurs at the central point of a black hole?

(see the answer keys)

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