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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 10.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What type of information is contained in DNA?
(a) Information that is passed from generation to generation.
(b) Information that is limited to the surrounding cells.
(c) Information key to survival.
(d) Information that is unique to that organism.

2. The elements of DNA come in predictable proportions of what shape?
(a) Figure eight.
(b) Double helix.
(c) Double spiral.
(d) Infinity symbol.

3. What was Shannon able to theoretically compute by measuring a message in bits? By measuring information in bits, he could theoretically compute the maximum amount of information that could be transmitted through a given channel.
(a) The maximum amount of information that could be transmitted.
(b) The maximum size a message could be.
(c) The limits of computing.
(d) The virtual size of the message in microns.

4. What machine was constructed by Charles Babbage?
(a) The difference analyzer.
(b) The calculator.
(c) The difference engine.
(d) The computer.

5. What was Claude Shannon fascinated with?
(a) Computing.
(b) Electronics.
(c) Communications.
(d) Cryptograms.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why wasn't Shannon able to teach his computer to play a game?

2. What did a young mathematician named Kurt Gödel conclude about conflicting statements?

3. What about DNA allows it to split and replicate?

4. Why were there so many message errors with the early telegraph?

5. What did cosmologist George Gamow immediately recognize about DNA as a code and proposed that it could be deciphered mathematically?

(see the answer key)

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