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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What type of information is contained in DNA?
(a) Information that is unique to that organism.
(b) Information that is passed from generation to generation.
(c) Information that is limited to the surrounding cells.
(d) Information key to survival.

2. What was one of the innovative concepts that Dawkins proposed in "The Selfish Gene"?
(a) The repressive gene.
(b) The genome.
(c) The extra gene.
(d) A meme.

3. What does the word "cybernetics" mean?
(a) The study of robotics.
(b) The same as computer science.
(c) The study of Internet crime.
(d) The study of the relationship between man and machine.

4. What did Chaitin propose using to express a computable number into another form?
(a) By using algebra,
(b) By using complex calculations.
(c) By using the Turing machine.
(d) By using advanced calculus.

5. What library once helped writing from all over the known world?
(a) The famous library of the Roman Empire.
(b) The famous library at Alexandria.
(c) The famous library at Oxford.
(d) The famous library in Sparta.

Short Answer Questions

1. What can the amount of information in a message be expressed in?

2. What claim did Shannon make about the predictable redundancy of the English language?

3. What are genes?

4. What two disciplines of science were forced together by DNA?

5. What does the word "entropy" describe in relationship to thermodynamics?

Short Essay Questions

1. What estimates did Seth Lloyd, a quantum engineer at MIT, make about the power of the universe?

2. What was John von Neumann's theory on energy cost and how did Rolf Landauer disprove that concept?

3. What fundamental problem is inherent in the observation of quantum particles?

4. What did psychologist George Miller discover about a person's ability to remember?

5. What was found to be the make-up of DNA and what did these properties allow?

6. What was zoologist's Richard Dawkins' theory on DNA?

7. What are examples of memes?

8. What did IBM research Charle Bennet write about "information" in the 1980s?

9. What was discovered through the study of thermodynamics about the movement of energy?

10. What are major differences between Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Brittanica?

(see the answer keys)

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