View a FREE sample

This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 9.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Shannon used the term entropy to have what meaning in reference to a message?
(a) Importance.
(b) Relevance.
(c) Uncertainty.
(d) Certainty.

2. Eliminating noise in Shannon's model meant looking at language in terms of what factor?
(a) Possibility.
(b) Frequency.
(c) Probability.
(d) Randomness.

3. While working on plans for this "analytical engine," Babbage struck an acquaintance with what individual?
(a) Isaac Newton.
(b) Ada Lovelace.
(c) Lord Byron.
(d) John Simpson.

4. Each square of Turing's imaginary machine would have what coding?
(a) A 0 or a 1.
(b) Relay switches.
(c) Circuitry.
(d) Programming.

5. Where was knowledge stored prior to the written word?
(a) Word of wise men.
(b) In the mind.
(c) In tribal strongholds.
(d) By legend.

Short Answer Questions

1. What jobs were created to handle the increasing number of telephone calls?

2. What is the modern meaning of "entropy"? "Entropy was not a kind of energy or an amount of energy," Gleick writes (p. 271). It was instead an abstract measurement of the unavailability of energy.

3. The invention of what technology would make Shannon's theory of a computing machine practical?

4. Why did Lovelace publish her mathematical arguments anonymously?

5. What caused the errors that were contained in the tables of logarithms that had to be calculated themselves?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 269 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample