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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What game did Shannon plan to teach his computer to play?

2. Schrodinger and others theorized that genes had what role in life?

3. What does the author compare the famous library to?

4. What did Chaitin propose using to express a computable number into another form?

5. What does a closed system made up of a hot part and a cold part attain as the heat passes from the hot part to the cold part?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Dawkins attribute the belief in God to?

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

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

4. What was mathematician Gregory Chatin's concept on entropy?

5. How did Gregory Chaitin characterize random numbers?

6. What did IBM research Charle Bennet write about "information" in the 1980s?

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

8. What was the "Library of Babel" that was described in a story by Jorge Luis Borges?

9. What is the relationship between man and his memes?

10. What are examples of memes?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What were early theories about genetics? What are genes? What were the opinions and theories on genes expressed by zoologist Richard Dawson in his book, "The Selfish Gene"?

Essay Topic 2

What vision for the future did Alan Turing and Claude Shannon share? What was the purpose and functionality of Turing's "imaginary machine?"

Essay Topic 3

Describe Norbert Weiner's views on the work and theories of Claude Shannon. Explain the circumstances under which Weiner coined the phrase "cybernetics". What was George Miller's observation on the capacity for the human mind to retain information?

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