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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. By what year was Einstein famous?

2. What did Penrose and Hawking demonstrate concerning General Relativity?

3. Who produced the theory about curved spaces?

4. What does the universe's real-time history determine, according to Hawking and Hartle?

5. When did Einstein receive the Nobel prize?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is vacuum energy?

2. What was considered the foundation of a TOE and why did it go out of fashion?

3. What does it mean for stars to be red-shifted or blue-shifted?

4. Describe imaginary time.

5. What is hard to reconcile with Dirac's discoveries in quantum mechanics?

6. Who worked on quantum mechanics in the 1920s, and what discovery was made?

7. What does Hawking believe the possibility of intelligent beings' existence depends on?

8. What kind of history might the universe have, according to quantum mechanics?

9. What changed about the way we view zero point fluctuations in the 1940s?

10. What new sort of symmetry was discovered in the 1970s?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Hawking states that the human race must be able to better itself since it will be dealing with an "increasingly complex world." Write an essay that supports or negates this argument. Be sure to include data from Chapters Five, Six, or Seven and at least two other supporting examples from your own research.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the interpretation of General Relativity according to Penrose and Hawking and how this differed from Lifshitz and Khalatnikov. Cite two examples from Chapter Two that expound on Penrose and Hawking's dissimilar interpretation.

Essay Topic 3

Expound on Einstein's involvement, direct or indirect, in WWII. Be sure to discuss the relationship between scientific discovery and practical use. Analyze The Manhattan Project as an example of science and its utilization.

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