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