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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the string coupling constant govern?
(a) The likelihood of strings joining or separating.
(b) The relative length of threading between strings.
(c) The strength of links between strings.
(d) The number of strings that can be joined at once.

2. There are many possible Calabi-Yau spaces, but only shapes with which of the following characteristics are considered real possibilities?
(a) Those that meet the vibration requirements and have an appropriate number of dimensions.
(b) Those that have no time-dimensions.
(c) Those that unify the four forces and have no extended dimensions.
(d) Those that solve the perturbation theory.

3. What is a string's winding number?
(a) The number of other strings it is threaded with.
(b) The ratio of its Planck tension to its tension at rest.
(c) The number of dimensions it vibrations through.
(d) The number of times it is wrapped around a circular dimension.

4. How many total dimensions are required by string theory?
(a) Eight.
(b) Five.
(c) Ten.
(d) Seven.

5. When a black hole's entropy increases, which of its characteristics increases as well?
(a) The surface area of its event horizon.
(b) Its nuclear-weak force charge.
(c) Its spin.
(d) Its electrical charge.

6. What metric best approximates the scales at which extra dimensions would have a major impact?
(a) One-billionth of a meter.
(b) The Planck length.
(c) The Kaluza length.
(d) The nanometer.

7. What property of both black holes and elementary particles is still unknown?
(a) Their supersymmetric partners.
(b) Their internal structures.
(c) Their relationships to strings.
(d) Their spin.

8. Which of the following is true regarding our current knowledge of the Calabi-Yau space?
(a) Its shape is not fully known.
(b) Its shape is completely known and defined.
(c) Physicists and mathematicians disagree about its shape.
(d) Its shape is totally unknown.

9. How are black holes are widely believed to have originated?
(a) Through the phase transition of normal elementary particles.
(b) Spontaneously from quantum foam.
(c) From the collapse of a star.
(d) From the collision of stars.

10. Which one of the following do physicists believe occurs at the central point of a black hole?
(a) Space-time is torn.
(b) Space-time becomes inverted.
(c) A "white hole" is formed.
(d) An infinite-time flop-transition occurs.

11. What did Stephen Hawking prove regarding black holes?
(a) The emit radiation.
(b) They are the most massive objects in the universe.
(c) They have electrical charge.
(d) Light cannot escape from them.

12. Which of the following will occur after the collapse of the universe as predicted by string theory?
(a) The universe will be mirrored in another dimension.
(b) The universe will expand again.
(c) The universe will cease to exist.
(d) The universe will become a single black hole.

13. Greene suggests that black holes may be elementary particles that have undergone _____.
(a) A mirror-symmetry folding.
(b) A phase transition.
(c) A quantum fluctuation.
(d) A space-tearing flop transition.

14. Who provided the computer programming to process the results of the Morrison-Greene experiment?
(a) Rutherford.
(b) Tian.
(c) Yau.
(d) Aspinwall.

15. Who posited the existence of M-theory?
(a) Witten.
(b) Plesser.
(c) Greene.
(d) Brandenberger.

Short Answer Questions

1. The horizon problem is the contradiction that which of the following properties of the universe shouldn't be uniform, but is?

2. What is the traditional method of testing theories in physics?

3. About how old is the universe?

4. It is believed that early on, the universe experienced symmetry breaking, meaning that _____.

5. The extra dimension or dimensions in M-theory are needed in order to incorporate _____.

(see the answer keys)

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