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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was one of the innovative concepts that Dawkins proposed in "The Selfish Gene"?
(a) A meme.
(b) The extra gene.
(c) The repressive gene.
(d) The genome.

2. How can memes be altered?
(a) Through manipulation.
(b) After a serious illness.
(c) Through mutation and manipulation.
(d) Through mutation.

3. DNA is made up of of how many different nucleotides?
(a) Eight.
(b) Three.
(c) Six.
(d) Four.

4. What does the size of the algorithm indicate about the number?
(a) Its complexity.
(b) Its computable nature.
(c) Its simplicity.
(d) Its capacity for computation.

5. When were computers first unveiled?
(a) Just before the Korean War.
(b) At the end of the Eisenhower administration.
(c) After World War II.
(d) Pre-World War II.

6. What did cosmologist George Gamow immediately recognize about DNA as a code and proposed that it could be deciphered mathematically?
(a) It was a code and it could be cloned.
(b) It was dynamic and ever-changing.
(c) It was a code and it could be developed to duplicate.
(d) It was a code and it could be deciphered mathematically.

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

8. Is quantum computing a real possibility?
(a) It is not likely.
(b) It is just a dream.
(c) The theory has not been proven yet.
(d) It is a solid theory.

9. What two disciplines of science were forced together by DNA?
(a) Cellular and anatomical biologies.
(b) Medical research and genetics.
(c) Biology and physics.
(d) Molecular and evolutionary biologies.

10. According to Psychologist George Miller, what type of process takes place in the mind relative to the information it receives?
(a) The ranking of important to less important information.
(b) The simplification of information.
(c) The selection of relevant information.
(d) The rejection of too much information.

11. What did Chaitin mean by a "computable" number?
(a) A number that is not a variable.
(b) A number that could be expressed in its square root value.
(c) A number that can be calculated.
(d) A number that could be expressed in a simpler form.

12. What was Rolf Landauer's opinion of John von Neumann's theory on the energy cost of information?
(a) That it was incorrect.
(b) That it was accurate.
(c) That it needed to be expanded.
(d) That it was incomplete.

13. What did mathematician Gregory Chaitin propose about Shannon's concept of entropy as uncertainty?
(a) That the theory was faulty.
(b) It was related to randomness in numbers.
(c) It was related to infinity.
(d) It was related to the dynamism of numbers.

14. What process can measure the limits of the human mind?
(a) Psychoanalytical evaluation.
(b) Information theory.
(c) Knowledge management.
(d) Information technology.

15. Recognizing a famous painting like the Mona Lisa is attributed to what factor?
(a) The meme.
(b) Memory.
(c) Bits.
(d) Education.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Gleick compare the "Library of Babel" to?

2. Why is the belief in God an enduring one?

3. A psychologist named George Miller noticed that people seem to be able to easily remember up to how many items at a time?

4. What are genes?

5. The universe has performed how many "operations"?

(see the answer keys)

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