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

2. How many family groups are the elementary particles divided into?
(a) Two.
(b) Four.
(c) Three.
(d) Five.

3. According to string theory, which of the following cannot occur during the collapse of the universe?
(a) It cannot exert gravitational pull greater than the Planck tension.
(b) It cannot lose energy.
(c) It cannot collapse into one of the extra dimensions.
(d) It cannot be reduced to a size smaller than the Planck length.

4. Which of the following best describes the fate of Kaluza-Klein theory?
(a) It became the mathematical basis of general relativity.
(b) It was updated through the 1970s, and eventually incorporated into string theory.
(c) It was quickly discarded as meaningless, but rediscovered by string theory.
(d) It became widespread for a short time, but receives almost no attention now.

5. Kaluza-Klein theory units which two fundamental forces?
(a) Electromagnetism and the weak force.
(b) Gravity and electromagnetism.
(c) The strong force and the weak force.
(d) Gravity and the strong force.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the standard model of the big bang, which of the following is true of the four fundamental forces during the first moments of the universe?

2. About how old is the universe?

3. What property of both black holes and elementary particles is still unknown?

4. When a Calabi-Yau space collapses, it comes back as a space. What distinction does it have?

5. What is a virtual string pair?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the history of space-time tears in physics.

2. How does a black hole's entropy change?

3. In the context of the big bang, what is symmetry breaking?

4. What is the relationship between the elementary particles and the Calabi-Yau space?

5. Describe the difficulties in studying the entropy of a black hole.

6. What is the major problem preventing string theory from gaining widespread acceptance, and why does this problem persist?

7. Describe Kaluza-Klein theory.

8. Describe the big bang according to string theory.

9. Greene suggests that black holes are very similar to, and might in fact be, elementary particles. What evidence supports this suggestion?

10. What is the origin of M-theory, and what are its basic characteristics?

(see the answer keys)

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