Does ET Exist? Physics
1080 Sample
Exam Questions
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below is a set of sample of questions like those I might ask you on an exam. They should also serve as a useful study guide. I have listed the Text Chapter number in parenthesis at the beginning of each question where you might look for information relevant to the question. Note: more than one answer might be “right,”
but only one answer is “best.” Select the best answer only.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exam 1 (Chapters 1-4)
(1) The study of life in the universe is a multidisciplinary field of scientific research, involving scientists with training in many different areas. This scientific discipline has been given the name ____. (The American Physical Society has created a division with this name and NASA has given it the same name as the one adopted by your textbook.)
(a) exobiology (b) bioastronomy (c) astrobiology (d) biochemistry (e) biophysics
(1) The ancient Greeks were close to fully developing modern
science when they fell to Alexander the Great. Byzantine Egypt became the
center of scholarly activity. However,
according to a number of historians, much of the work of these early scholars
was lost in a fire set in the Great Library of Alexandria by Christian 
fanatics
in 391 A.D. Several centuries later, in
641 A.D., Amrou, the Islamic General to whom Byzantine Egypt had surrendered,
set a fire on the orders of the Caliph of Baghdad, which destroyed the Great
Library. Had Byzantine Egypt been able continue the work of the ancient Greeks
unabated, the scientific enterprise might have emerged 1500 years earlier than
it did. Fortunately, many of the Greek works that survived the fire were
______.
(a) brought
to
(b) thrown into a large pyre and completely burned by Amrou.
(c) saved by repentant Christians to make amends for their actions 250 years earlier.
(d) saved
by the Visigoths who overthrew the Muslims in
(e) translated
into Arabic by Islamic scholars and transported to a new intellectual center in
(2&Emergence of Science Lecture Notes) Fill in the
person missing in the following group:
Copernicus, Tycho, Kepler, :
…….,
(a)
Ptolemy (b) Aristotle
(c) Einstein (d) Descartes (e) Galileo
(2&Emergence of Science Lecture Notes) Which option below had the strongest influence on the emergence of science? ______
(a) The discovery that physical processes could be described in the language of mathematics.
(b) The discovery of phlogiston
(c) The first explanation of retrograde motion
(d) The discovery that the Earth moves and the Sun doesn’t
(e) The development of the heliocentric model of the solar system
(2& Emergence of Science
Lecture Notes) Galileo was tried for
heresy for holding and teaching the idea that the Earth moved about an immobile
Sun. In fact, the real threat to the
Catholic Church and most likely the real reason it wished to “gag” Galileo was
________.
(a)
he built a
telescope that he used to view sacred crypts inside the
(b)
he was a
confirmed Platonist whose ideas contradicted those of Aristotle
(c)
he dropped a
weight from the Leaning Tower of Pisa that struck Cardinal Maffeo Barbarini and
killed him
(d)
he rolled balls
down inclined planes and timed them to the beat of Beethoven’s Ninth, which was
deemed to be heretical music that excited teenagers to uncontrollable frenzy
(e)
Galileo advocated
that the newly emerging discipline of science offered a better way than that of
religion to explain the way the natural world worked
(2) Ptolemy's model of the solar system is best termed ____.
geocentric (b) heliocentric (c) eccentric (d) neurotic (e) eclectic
(2) . ______ postulated three laws describing the motion of any physical body.
(a) Copernicus (b) Galileo (c) Newton (d) Ptolemy (e) Einstein
(2) A ______ is well-developed model that describes the way in which some physical system works. It encompasses all known observations about that physical system and has passed all experimental tests to which it has been subjected. It enables predictions about the behavior of the physical systems that haven't yet been observed or experimentally tested. It represents the most all encompassing and accurate description of the observable facts that we have.
(a) hypothesis (b) conjecture (c) guess (d) revelation (e) theory
(2) A politician in
a) a scientific theory is based on observed facts and represents the best self-consistent explanation of those facts. In other words, a theory represents the best model of reality that we have developed at this point in time.
b) … right on, bro! It's about time someone put a stop to all the crap being foisted upon our school children by all those infernal atheists!
c) … you're wrong! Evolution IS fact, not just a theory.
d) He should have stated that evolution is only a hypothesis … not a theory.
e) The theory of evolution should not be taught in public schools … nor should the theory of Newtonian mechanics, quantum mechanics, electricity and magnetism, etc. because none of these theories are fact.
(3) Voyager is currently
leaving the solar system at a speed of about 14 km s -1, or about
0.46 x 10 -4 c, where c is the speed of light. Suppose it was heading towards Alpha
Centauri, the nearest star, which is about 4.3 LY away. Roughly, how long will it take Voyager to get
there? _____
(a)
10 Y (b) 100 Y
(c) 1000 Y (d) 10,000 Y (e) 100,000 Y
(3) If liquid water is heated enough, its (i)______ are broken and it turns into a gas. If the gas continues to be heated, the water molecules move faster and faster as their (ii)______ increases.
(a) … (i) electrical properties (ii) gravitational energy
(b) … (i) sticky strings (ii) radiative energy
(c) … (i) liquid particles (ii) conservative energy
(d) … (i) chemical bonds (ii) kinetic energy
(e) … (i) nuclear bonds (ii) potential energy
(3) _______ refers to the observed proportionality of speed of recession to redshift for remote galaxies.
(a) The law of diminishing returns
(b) Murphy’s law
(c) The Peter Principle
(d) Hubble’s Law
(e) Kepler’s Law
(3&Big Bang Lecture notes)
The elements lighter than iron found on Earth were produced mostly by
______.
(a) red giants
(b) subterranean dwarfs
(c) the Big Bang
(d) explosive nucleosynthesis in massive stars
(e) nuclear fusion in the core of stars
(3&Big Bang Lecture Notes)
The Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe is supported by _________.
(a)
the observation
of the 2.7 K CMBR
(b)
the fact that
normal stars form a main sequence on HR diagrams
(c)
Hubble’s
observation that the galaxies lie outside the boundaries of the Milky Way
(d)
(e)
all of these
(3&Big Bang Lecture Notes)
Most of the Lithium in the galaxy was ________.
(a)
made by nuclear
fusion reactions in the cores of low mass stars
(b)
created in the
Big Bang
(c)
developed by drug
companies to relieve depression in college students forced to take exams
against their will
(d)
generated by Tycho=s supernova
in 1572
(e)
used to make
semi-conductor electrnics
(3&Big Bang Lecture Notes)
Roughly several minutes after the Big Bang, ______ since the universe cooled
too much and free neutrons decayed into protons.
(a)
the fusion of
“light” elements stopped.
(b)
life could be
detected by the first alien civilizations to evolve.
(c)
radiation
decoupled from matter, i.e., it was now cool enough for electrons to combine
with positively charged nuclei to form neutral atoms
(d)
the process of inflation
stopped
(e)
none of the
above.
(3&Big Bang Lecture Notes) Why does the observable universe have an
“edge”?
(a)
There are so many
galaxies in the universe that every line of sight eventually hits a galaxy,
stopping us from seeing any farther.
(b)
The density of
neutrinos at the “edge” is so large that photons cannot pass through,
preventing us from seeing beyond this point.
(c)
Absorbing matter
prevents us from seeing out past a certain distance.
(d)
We cannot see any
farther than the distance that light has traveled over the13.7 billion year
lifetime of the universe.
(e)
Our universe was
“born” 13.7 billion light years ago in the Big Bang and it is expanding about
its center at the speed of light.
Therefore, if we could suddenly be transported 13.7 billion LY away, we
would see its “edge.”
(3) Our Sun is at least a second-generation star that
formed mostly from hydrogen and helium gas. We also know that this gas must
have been infused with a small amount of heavier elements, some that were
generated in the supernova explosion of an earlier generation star. This idea is most supported by the fact that
_____.
(a) many of the planets in the solar system have moons but some do not
(b) our Sun generates its energy by fusing hydrogen into helium
(c) all the planets travel in elliptical orbits about the Sun
(d) our Sun has a solar system containing both terrestrial and Jovian planets
(e) our Sun is a class G2V star
(3&in-class lecture) You can tell the difference between planets and stars since planets ___.
a) always appear to be red
b) can only be seen on long, very clear, winter nights
c) are always seen within a few degrees of Polaris
d) are always seen traveling in circles about the Sun
e) slowly change their positions in the sky from night to night relative to the fixed pattern of background stars
(3) Which of the following sequences for the electromagnetic spectrum is given in terms of decreasing wavelength? _____
a) radio, infrared, microwave, visible, ultraviolet, x-ray, gamma ray
b) gamma ray, x-ray, ultraviolet, visible, infrared, microwave, radio
c) visible, ultraviolet, infrared, x-ray, microwave, gamma ray, radio
d) radio, microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x-ray, gamma ray
e) x-ray, radio, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, microwave, gamma ray
(3) Our universe appears to be
a “special place.” What is the basis for
making such a statement?
(a)
Most of the
world’s religions teach us that we are special.
(b)
There is no basis
for making such a statement. The
Copernican Principle has long since disabused us the idea that there is
anything special about us, our planet, our Sun, our galaxy and our universe as
well.
(c)
The fundamental
constants that determine the fundamental properties of our universe (such as c,
the speed of light; e, the unit of electrical charge; etc.) appear to be “fine-tuned”, i.e., if any of them were
changed just a little, the resulting conditions in the universe would preclude
our existence.
(d)
The current
observational evidence strongly supports an infinite rather than a finite
universe. This means that there is an
infinite supply of oil and we don’t have to worry about ever running out.
(e)
Our universe is
not special. Current evidence proves
that it is just one of an infinite number just like it.
(4) The surface temperature of Earth is actually
warmer than expected from the amount of sunlight received. This is a result of
______
(a)
Earth's magnetic
field.
(b)
the greenhouse
effect.
(c)
a large outflux
of heat from Earth's interior.
(d)
the force of
gravity on Earth's atmosphere.
(e)
three quarters of
its surface is covered with water
(4) During the Hadean eon, the
Earth underwent heavy planetesimal bombardment that would have vaporized any
oceans it then had and would have made the Earth too hot to hold an
atmosphere. Eventually, though, as the rate
of impacts dropped and the Earth cooled, _______ would have released a large
amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide which formed Earth’s primitive
atmosphere.
(a) newly emerging continental land
(b) chemical reactions
(c) solar heating
(d) volcanic outgassing
(e) nuclear fusion
(4) "Chemical
differentiation" in planetary sciences refers to _____
(a)
the formation of
rocky planets in the hotter, inner solar system and gas giants in the colder,
outer regions.
(b)
the circulation
of iron in the core of a planet, resulting in the generation of a magnetic
field.
(c)
the large-scale
convection of rock in the mantle of a planet, that on Earth causes continental
drift.
(d)
the sinking of
heavier elements toward the center of a planet and the floating of lighter
elements toward the surface.
(e)
the formation of
different organic chemicals on early Earth that led to the divergence of
species