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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. Who first proposed the existence of extra dimensions?

2. The method of tearing space-time discovered by Greene and others is called _____.

3. Who provided the computer programming to process the results of the Morrison-Greene experiment?

4. How many family groups are the elementary particles divided into?

5. About how long did the "primordial synthesis" stage of the big bang last?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the relative composition of matter in the universe?

2. In the context of the big bang, what is symmetry breaking?

3. What is the string-coupling constant, and why is it important?

4. Describe the nature and importance of the procedure discovered by Yau and Tian.

5. Why are superparticles important to string theory, and how has research into these particles affected the field of string theory?

6. What is a wormhole, and how is it formed?

7. Greene suggests that black holes are very similar to, and might in fact be, elementary particles. What evidence supports this suggestion?

8. How are strings affected by extra dimensions?

9. What is mirror symmetry, and what is its relevance to string theory?

10. What is the relationship between the elementary particles and the Calabi-Yau space?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Accelerated Evidence

In this book, the author presents many thought problems to help the reader work through difficult concepts. The unintuitive concepts of special and general relativity receive particular attention. These theories fly in the face of observations made in everyday life, but at the speeds and scales that they deal with, they have been confirmed to be exactly correct. Furthermore, they form one of the cornerstones of modern physics. This essay deals with thought problems that illustrate the underlying principles of special and general relativity. The essay should include ample explanations and transitions so that it is cohesive and makes sense.

Part 1) Describe a number of novel thought problems that would demonstrate the principles of special relativity, that motion is relative, and that time and space warp for an object moving near the speed of light. Each thought problem should be robust enough that it requires multiple sentences to explain. Each problem should clearly demonstrate the principle in question, and explained fully, with a succinct conclusion.

Part 2) Imagine that a space traveler is locked inside a ship, and cannot use any senses or tools to observe anything outside of the room he is occupying. Propose a number of experiments that the traveler could perform to determine what the motion of the spacecraft is. Be sure to include a discussion of constant-velocity motion, accelerated motion, gravitational acceleration, and orbital (circular) motion.

Part 3) Repeat the analysis performed in part 1 for the case of general relativity. Demonstrate the equivalence between acceleration and gravity, the warping of space-time caused by massive objects, and the straight-line motion of objects through curved space.

Essay Topic 2

Inflation

Inflation theory is a very unusual theory about the first moments of the universe's existence. It predicts that an unimaginably massive expansion took place in a mind-bogglingly short period. However, the theory has been more or less definitively confirmed, and is an important part of modern cosmology.

Part 1) Describe the nature of the microwave cosmic background radiation and the horizon problem. Fully explain how these things relate to the expansion of the universe and the classic model of the big bang.

Part 2) Explain the development of inflation theory. How does it solve the horizon problem?

Part 3) How is the inflation theory affected by string theory?

Part 4) Explain some of the effects of the inflationary period on the universe that we observe today.

Essay Topic 3

Time Travel through Relativity

Special relativity states that as an object's velocity increases, it moves through time more slowly. This effect is amplified greatly near the speed of light. If a ship could be built to travel close to the speed of light for an extended period, a person on that ship could return to earth many years into its future.

Part 1) Propose a mission for such a craft. What will be its goal? Will it be manned or unmanned? How many years into the future will it journey? Use special relativity to estimate how long the journey will be for the ship and its crew.

Part 2) Describe the craft and its contents in detail. What supplies, people, equipment, and other objects must it bring with it? How large is the craft, and about how much does it weigh?

Part 3) Explain contingency plans for the mission. What will happen if it arrives early, or too late? What will happen to the craft and its crew after the mission is complete?

Part 4) Guess creatively at what people will think of the craft when it arrives in the future.

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