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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 15 and Epilogue.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who devised a way to multiply and divide numbers by adding or subtracting their logarithms?
(a) John Napier.
(b) Thomas Fincke.
(c) Isaac Newton.
(d) Aristotle.

2. How did 17th-century scholar Robert Burton react to information?
(a) He felt overwhelmed by the amount of news from each day.
(b) He enjoyed receiving the information of the day.
(c) He looked forward to reading the newspaper each day.
(d) He thought a lot of the information was meaningless.

3. What happened to the library that once held all known information?
(a) It was burned when Alexandria was conquered.
(b) It was abandoned at Oxford when it was felt that there was too much information to store.
(c) It was buried during an eruption of Etna.
(d) It was destroyed when Sparta burned.

4. A psychologist named George Miller noticed that people seem to be able to easily remember up to how many items at a time?
(a) Seven.
(b) Twelve.
(c) Five.
(d) Ten.

5. Who first thought of constructing a machine that could calculate logarithms?
(a) Issac Newton.
(b) Galileo.
(c) Charles Babbage.
(d) John Napier.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was changing language at the time the first English dictionary was developed?

2. What did mathematician Gregory Chaitin propose about Shannon's concept of entropy as uncertainty?

3. It had long been noted that physical traits were inheritable and that they had something to do with what other human element?

4. What was John von Neumann's theory on the energy cost of information?

5. The telegraph invented by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail was based on what function?

(see the answer key)

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