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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The introduction of nothingness and zero into Jewish theology led in part to what offshoot Jewish mysticism?
(a) Kabbalism.
(b) Hasidism.
(c) Orthodoxy.
(d) Sufism.

2. The ancient Babylonians are credited with the creation of what calculation tool?
(a) The abacus.
(b) The stick-stone.
(c) The computer.
(d) The calculator.

3. The author states in Chapter 2, “Nothing Comes of Nothing” that the concepts of infinity and the void frightened the ancient Greeks. They feared the infinite because it threatened the possibility of what?
(a) The Devil.
(b) God.
(c) Time.
(d) Motion.

4. Who coined the term “fermion” in particle physics?
(a) James Wilson.
(b) Socrates.
(c) Paul Dirac.
(d) Filippo Brunelleschi.

5. The preclassic Maya and their neighbors supposedly developed the concept of zero by what year?
(a) 50 BC.
(b) 36 BC.
(c) 23 BC.
(d) 10 BC.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the author in Chapter 7, “Absolute Zeros,” Max Planck came up with a new equation that solved the ultraviolet catastrophe but implied that energy was released in discrete packets that have come to be called what?

2. The author states in Chapter 6, “Infinity’s Twin” that Carl Gauss realized that real and imaginary numbers could be what?

3. The author notes in Chapter 2, “Nothing Comes of Nothing” that the West resisted the concept of zero for how many years?

4. The USS Yorktown was used as the test-bed for what Navy program beginning in 1996?

5. Pythagoreanism developed into two separate schools of thought. What group was called “the listeners” in Greek?

(see the answer key)

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