View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What popular sci-fi show does Hawking refer to when discussing its differences with humanity in a millennium?
(a) Torchwood.
(b) Star Trek.
(c) Doctor Who.
(d) Star Wars.

2. What question does Hawking ask about extraterrestrials?
(a) If they were out there, why would they want to contact us?
(b) If they were advanced, why haven't they spread across the galaxy?
(c) If they are real, why haven't we discovered them?
(d) If they were smart, why haven't they contacted us?

3. How could time travel be possible?
(a) If circular reasoning existed.
(b) If speed was inverse to time.
(c) If time travel loops existed.
(d) If wormholes existed.

4. How does Hawking describe exploring the galaxy?
(a) Quick and methodical.
(b) Fast and furious.
(c) Slow and easy.
(d) Slow and tedious.

5. What can p-branes predict?
(a) The rates of consumption that the real-particle pair indicates.
(b) The rates of emission that the molecules emit.
(c) The rates of condensation that the virtual-particle trio indicates.
(d) The rates of emission that the virtual-particle pair indicates.

Short Answer Questions

1. What kind of explanation does Hawking give for how it might be possible to travel through time?

2. What barrier could wormholes break?

3. What outline of cosmic strings is flat?

4. What will be preserved if this equation determines the wave function?

5. What does Hawking compare to brains in the complexity versus speed trade-off?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Hawking claim might happen if children could gestate outside the womb?

2. What does Hawking think he can prove about space-time paths?

3. How many books are published a year, and what does Hawking have to say about the good ones?

4. How do cosmic strings relate to space-time?

5. What are wormholes?

6. What does it mean for Hawking to think one can "move" positive vacuum energy?

7. What did the physicist John Wheeler mean when he said, "a black hole has no hair"?

8. What did Strominger and Vafa postulate in 1996?

9. What is a time travel "horizon"?

10. What is the grandfather paradox?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 750 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample