View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What question does Hawking ask about extraterrestrials?

2. What will create great problems for unimproved humans?

3. When particles hit p-branes, what are produced?

4. What can p-branes predict?

5. How could time travel be possible?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What will happen as brains increase in size?

3. What does much of the possibility of time travel depend upon?

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

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

6. What are wormholes?

7. What does Hawking believe black holes radiate?

8. What is the main question concerning space-time, if one avoids philosophical discussion and focuses on the laws of physics?

9. What did Strominger and Vafa postulate in 1996?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Using Chapter One as an informative text, write an essay on the early life of Albert Einstein. This essay must mark three important events of Einstein's life from 1879 to 1905. Be sure to elaborate on how these three details are connected to Einstein's future involvement in the scientific community.

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

Describe the history of the theory of curved spaces. What is this theory's relationship to the idea of space-time? Cite two examples from Chapter One that identify key participants, events, or ideas related to this topic.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 763 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample