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 infinite in size.
The universe is uniformly filled with stars.
The universe is eternal.
2. Hubble’s Law states that
the speed at which a galaxy recedes from us is proportional to the distance from us.
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.
the observable universe is finite in size.
3. Which of the following is not true of the Copernican system?
Mercury and Venus orbit the sun, which in turn orbits the Earth.
The sun is at the centre of the universe.
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.
4. Which of the following is not true according to the theory of special relativity?
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.
Motion with constant velocity is always relative.
5. A proton is comprised of
Two up quarks and a down quark.
Two down quarks and an electron.
Two down quarks and an up 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
Neutrino
Gluon
7. How old was the universe when primordial nucleosynthesis ended?
300 000 years
10^-43 seconds
three minutes
10^-10 seconds
8. Today the cosmic microwave background has a temperature of about
3 K
3000 K
300 K
0.003 K
9. Dark matter (excluding dark energy) is close to what percent of the total mass of the universe?
100 %
20 %
5 %
75 %
10. A possible scenario that can explain the smoothness and flatness problems in the universe is called
special relativity
retrograde motion
inflation
CP violation
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