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

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

3. What can the amount of information in a message be expressed in?
(a) By the computation that produces it.
(b) By the bits it contains.
(c) By the algorithm that produces it.
(d) By its integral number.

4. Where is DNA found?
(a) In newly forming cells.
(b) Within the cells of every human being.
(c) Within the cells of every living thing.
(d) In the cells of the nervous system.

5. Why is modern society in information overload?
(a) Storing data on computers makes history writing easier.
(b) Electronic information is easier to store than physical information.
(c) Companies and people fear litigation.
(d) The expectation today is that all information should be preserved.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is a fundamental problem in quantum mechanics?

2. What can a computable number be compressed into?

3. "Entropy" was first used by what individual to describe the unavailability of energy?

4. Where does the Internet store memes?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the normal state of molecules in a system? Describe that arrangement.

2. How did Gregory Chaitin characterize random numbers?

3. What was discovered through the study of thermodynamics about the movement of energy?

4. What was Claude Shannon referring to by the term "entropy" and what was its importance?

5. How did Erwin Schrodinger used the concept of "entropy"?

6. What did psychologist George Miller discover about a person's ability to remember?

7. What estimates did Seth Lloyd, a quantum engineer at MIT, make about the power of the universe?

8. What are examples of memes?

9. What was zoologist's Richard Dawkins' theory on DNA?

10. Norbert Weiner based his theory on what system of the human body?

(see the answer keys)

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