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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. The concept of subtle fluids made its appearance around ________ when demonstration experiments in physics were rapidly gaining in popularity, according to the narrator in Chapter 3.

2. Who was the extraordinary philosopher whose life and career exemplified many aspects of the Enlightenment, although he was not especially prominent as a natural philosopher nor was he the main protagonist in the vis viva controversy?

3. In the preface to his "Histoire" of the Paris Academy of Science, who argued in 1699 that the new "geometric spirit" could also improve works on politics, morals, literary criticism, and even public speaking?

4. In the hands of ________, history led not to an understanding of God's will but rather to an understanding of human nature.

5. In Chapter 3, ________ and ________ were both led to the problem of specific heat by the discovery that a great deal of heat was required to melt ice, even though its temperature remained at the melting point.

Short Essay Questions

1. Who was William Herschel and what planet did he discover?

2. Who redefined physics in the 1720s? Explain.

3. Discuss Christian Wolff's book "Generally useful researches for attaining to a more exact knowledge of nature and the arts."

4. Discuss the periodic fluctuation Bradley found in 1748.

5. Discuss Charles Francois de Cisternai Dufay and his impact in electrical science.

6. Discuss Fontenelle's tie to science and literature as discussed in Chapter 1.

7. Explain why Newton's laws were not adequate to deal with all of the mechanical phenomena studied during the Enlightenment.

8. Briefly discuss the origin of subtle fluid as discuss in Chapter 3 of "Science and the Enlightenment."

9. Discuss the product of the Philosophical Letters.

10. Discuss the two concepts that were studied in rational mechanics during the Enlightenment.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast positional astronomy to physical astronomy.

Essay Topic 2

Explain how subtle fluids effect electricity as discussed in Chapter 3 of "Science and the Enlightenment."

Essay Topic 3

Explain how heat and temperature are related and how the discovery of both impacted the Enlightenment.

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