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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 did Bertrand Russell address conflicting results produced by the Principia Mathematica? the problem of these recursive paradoxes by simply making them against the rules of his formal system.
(a) He made them against the rules.
(b) He implemented exceptions into the system.
(c) He ignored them since they were infrequent.
(d) Russell altered the Principia Mathematica to adjust for conflicting results.

2. What is a bit?
(a) The average size of piece of information.
(b) The smallest amount of useful information.
(c) A micron of information.
(d) The size of a datum.

3. What culture was the first to use a written language?
(a) Egyptian.
(b) Italian.
(c) Chinese.
(d) English.

4. There was no "looking up" of information prior to what invention?
(a) Writing.
(b) Pen and ink.
(c) Publishing houses.
(d) Printing machines.

5. Eliminating noise in Shannon's model meant looking at language in terms of what factor?
(a) Possibility.
(b) Randomness.
(c) Frequency.
(d) Probability.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why did Lovelace publish her mathematical arguments anonymously?

2. Where was knowledge stored prior to the written word?

3. Who devised a way to multiply and divide numbers by adding or subtracting their logarithms?

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

5. How was the telephone superior to the telegraph?

Short Essay Questions

1. In modern times, what innovation has had the most impact on language?

2. What did Claude Shannon create from examining the statistical makeup of the English language?

3. What were the two stages of a "bit" as conceived by Claude Shannon?

4. What are the two "wordbooks" that Gleick refers to in this chapter?

5. What innovation was made in the 17th century by Scot mathematician John Napier?

6. What culture developed the earliest known method of writing language with the use of pictures to represent things?

7. Who first at the concept of "bandwith" and in what context was it first conceived?

8. How was the "telephone number" born?

9. While Shannon worked on secret cryptography projects for the US government during World War II, what theory about information did he conceive?

10. What was the purpose of Cawdrey's wordbook, "A Table Alphabeticall?"

(see the answer keys)

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