Exploring the Cosmos - Degree Exam 2011 - Particles, Forces & the Big Bang
1. Which assumption leading to Olber's paradox is known to be incorrect?
The universe is infinite in size.
The universe is eternal.
The amount of light reaching us from a star decreases as the inverse square of the distance to the star.
The universe is uniformly filled with stars.
2. Hubble’s Law states that
nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.
the speed at which a galaxy recedes from us is inversely proportional to the distance from us.
the speed at which a galaxy recedes from us is proportional to the distance from us.
the observable universe is finite in size.
3. Which of the following is not true of the Copernican system?
The distance between the sun and the Earth is small compared to the distance to the stars.
Retrograde motion is explained by Earth’s motion around the sun.
Mercury and Venus orbit the sun, which in turn orbits the Earth.
The sun is at the centre of the universe.
4. Which of the following is not true according to the theory of special relativity?
Moving clocks run faster than stationary clocks.
No signal can travel faster than the speed of light.
Objects are contracted in their direction of motion.
Motion with constant velocity is always relative.
5. A proton is comprised of
Two down quarks and an up quark.
Two down quarks and an electron.
Two up quarks and a down quark.
An electron, a muon, and a neutrino.
6. Which type of particle mediates the interaction that is responsible for holding quarks together in hadrons?
Photon
Graviton
Gluon
Neutrino
7. How old was the universe when primordial nucleosynthesis ended?
10^-10 seconds
300 000 years
three minutes
10^-43 seconds
8. Today the cosmic microwave background has a temperature of about
3000 K
0.003 K
3 K
300 K
9. Dark matter (excluding dark energy) is close to what percent of the total mass of the universe?
20 %
75 %
5 %
100 %
10. A possible scenario that can explain the smoothness and flatness problems in the universe is called
inflation
special relativity
CP violation
retrograde motion
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