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Q: Who is the author of the book, ‘The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe’?
It is a story of the dramatic unfolding of the birth of the universe as we know it during the first three minutes after the Big Bang.
George Gamow
Steven Weinberg
Roger Penrose
None of the above
A: 2
Q: Roger Penrose is famous for having won the Nobel prize in 2020, for his study of black holes. With whom did he share his prize?
Rheinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for their independent studies of the massive compact object at the centre of the Milky Way.
Stephen Hawking
Kip Thorne
Rheinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez
S. Chandrasekhar
A: 3
Q: Which of the following lattice structures that represents an aperiodic tiling, that is, one which cannot be reproduced by simply shifting it by any finite distance.
Penrose tiling is a quasi-periodic lattice. It cannot be made to coincide with itself simply by shifting or translating it. It needs to be rotated as well as shifted.
Square lattice
Penrose tiling
Kagome lattice
Hexagonal lattice
A: 2
Q: Historically, what was the first theory that exemplified the principles of statistical mechanics?
Kinetic theory of gases, which was a simple model explaining the thermodynamics of a classical gas, and this came of age in the nineteenth century.
Theory of phase transition
Kinetic theory of gases
Theory of disorder
Theory of heat engines
A: 2
Q: This famous nineteenth century physicist who formulated a statistical explanation for the second law of thermodynamics, shares his first name with Beethoven – ‘Ludwig”. What is his surname?
Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (1844 – 1906) was an Austrian physicist.
Boltzmann
Nernst
Maxwell
Onsager
A: 1
