1. When immersed in liquid nitrogen, a banana will: A. Dissolve B. Break C. Harden D. Turn black E. Shrink 2. When immersed in liquid nitrogen, a balloon will: A. Expand B. Explode C. Dissolve D. Crack E. Shrink

1. Prof. Kaku mentioned many inventions that can be traced to physicists. Which one is NOT mentioned? A. MRI scan B. Computer C. Explosives D. Internet E. World Wide Web 2. What was Einstein’s unsolved problem when he died? A. Quantum gravitation B. General relativity C. Cosmology D. String theory E. Unified field theory 3. What phenomena does E = mc2 explain? {Multiple-choice} A. Why does the galaxy light up? B. Why can things be invisible? C. Why do the stars shine? D. Why do we have energy on Earth? 4. According to Prof. Kaku, the history of physics is the history of: A. Physicists B. Inventions C. University education D. Modern civilization E. Academic research 5. How did Aristotle explain why an object moves toward the earth? A. Because of gravity B. Because it has mass C. Because it wants to be united with the earth D. Because it is heavy E. Because it gets tired 6. What is the key question that Newton asked? A. Why does an apple fall? B. Does the law dictating an apple’s fall also dictate the motion of the Moon? C. Why does a moving object stop? D. How to calculate the motion of the comets? E. What is gravity? 7. At around the age of 23, Newton {Multiple-choice} A. formulated Newton’s 1st law B. invented calculus C. invented the telescope D. discovered the force of gravity

E. discovered sunlight has different colors 8. Newton’s three laws of motion are {Multiple-choice} A. Law of gravitation B. Object in motion stays in motion unless acted on by outside force C. Law of friction D. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction E. Force is mass times acceleration 9. What is Faraday’s law about? A. A moving electric field creates a magnetic field B. A metal cage protects you from lightning C. Light is an electromagnetic wave D. A moving wire in a magnetic field generates electric current E. Nuclear power 10. Maxwell discovered {Multiple-choice} A. Maxwell’s equations B. Where there is electricity, there is prosperity C. Light is an electromagnetic wave D. Internet E. A metal cage protects you from lightning 11. The Sun has been burning for billions of years because A. It contains a huge amount of coal B. Nuclear forces C. It moves fast D. It contains antimatter 12. What happens when matter meets antimatter? A. Glued together B. Bounced back C. Form a new type of matter D. Circulate each other E. Release energy 13. The Theory of Everything is NOT about A. To be tested in the biggest machine physicists ever built – the Large Hadron Collider B. To unify all four forces in one C. To explain the origin of life D. To explain the big bang E. String theory 14. The type of matter we (human beings) are made of constitutes ____ of the universe. A. 73% B. 23% C. 4%

D. 0.03% E. 0.001%

1. Work and energy are measured in _____. A. meters (m) B. kilograms (kg) C. seconds (s) D. watts (W) E. joules (J) 2. The work-energy theorem states that _____. A. Work done equals the change in chemical energy. B. Work done equals the change in kinetic energy. C. Work done equals the change in potential energy. D. Work done equals the change in heat. E. None of the above. 3. When a ball falls, its _____ energy is transformed into _____ energy. A. potential; kinetic B. kinetic ; potential C. potential; thermal D. thermal; kinetic E. thermal; potential 4. Which of the following are disadvantages of solar energy? A. Radioactive pollution. B. Thermal pollution. C. High initial cost (e.g., installation). D. A lot of space is required. E. Weather dependent.

1. Hydrogen gas is supplied to a hydrogen fuel cell. The proton exchange membrane (PEM) allows _____ to flow across the membrane, but _____ travel through an external circuit. A. positive protons; negative neutrons B. negative protons; positive neutrons C. positive hydrogen ions; negative electrons D. negative hydrogen ions; positive electrons E. None of the above. 2. Which of the following pairs of nuclei are not isotopes? A. Deuterium and tritium. B. Carbon-12 and carbon-14. C. Potassium-40 and argon-40. D. U-235 and U-238. E. All of the above 3. What is the difference between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion? A. Nuclear fission is used for bombs; nuclear fusion is used in power plants. B. There is no difference. Fission and fusion are different names for the same physical phenomenon. C. In nuclear fission, a nucleus splits; in nuclear fusion, nuclei join to form a new nucleus. D. Nuclear fission refers to using deuterium to create a nuclear reaction. E. None of the above. 4. In the tokamak, plasma inside the chamber travels in spirals around the _____ field lines and does not touch the chamber walls, and therefore the plasma retains heat well enough to reach temperatures at which fusion can occur. A. gravitational B. electric C. magnetic D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

1. A heat engine gains heat from a reservoir of higher temperature, increasing the engine’s _____, converts some of this energy into _____, and expels the remaining energy to a heat sink.

A. mechanical energy; internal energy B. internal energy; mechanical work C. potential energy; kinetic energy D. kinetic energy; potential energy E. None of the above.

2. Which of the following is an example of a heat pump? A. Internal combustion engine. B. Air conditioner. C. Vacuum pump. D. Laser pumping to create a population inversion. E. All of the above.

3. A refrigerator with its doors open is operating in a closed room. It _____ in the

long run. A. plays the same role as an air-conditioner (which blows out cold air) does B. absorbs heat from the power supply C. has no effect on the room temperature D. warms up the room E. cools down the room

4. In a supercapacitor bus, energy is stored _____ in _____. A. magnetically; superconductors B. magnetically; supercapacitors C. electrostatically; supercapacitors D. electrostatically; fuel cells E. mechanically; a generator

1. The plug-free recharging technology allows us to recharge one or more cell phones simultaneously, while eliminating the need for specific plugs for different cell phones. What is the operating principle in such technology?

A. Heating effect of electric currents. B. Like magnetic poles repel while unlike attract. C. Electromagnetic induction. D. Conservation of magnetic energy. E. All of the above.

2. What process(es) occur(s) in the wireless charging in the previous question? A. Alternating currents producing changing magnetic fields. B. Alternating currents converted to direct currents by diodes. C. Alternating voltages created by changing magnetic fields. D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

3. When a hybrid car is braking, the car uses its kinetic energy to let the wheels

turn the electric motor (which then functions as a generator). Energy normally lost as heat due to friction during braking is now converted to _____ energy stored in the _____ for later use.

A. electrical; battery B. chemical; fuel tank C. kinetic; engine D. potential; motor

4. Since maglev trains float on a cushion of air, the _____ that accompanies

conventional trains is eliminated. A. weight B. friction C. momentum D. mechanical energy E. None of the above.

1. Polarization is a property of… A. transverse waves. B. longitudinal waves. C. Both of the above. D. None of the above.

2. In a common Polaroid filter, long-chain molecules are oriented with their axis

perpendicular to the polarizing axis, and they preferentially _____ light polarized along their length.

A. reflect B. refract C. transmit D. absorb

3. In the photoelectric effect, light behaves as _____. A. waves B. particles C. both waves and particles at the same time D. sometimes waves but sometimes particles E. None of the above. 4. Albert Einstein was awarded the Physics Nobel Prize for his discovery of _____. A. the explanation of the photoelectric effect B. the lasing of He-Ne C. Special Relativity D. General Relativity E. the expansion of the Universe

1. In an LED, a layer of a semiconductor that contains free electrons is deposited onto the surface of another semiconductor that contains holes, which can accept the free electrons. Electrons that recombine with holes lose _____, which is converted into photons.

A. mass B. charge C. kinetic energy D. gravitational potential energy E. electric potential energy

2. Which of the following is an application of lasers? A. Cutting or welding in surgery. B. Creating holograms. C. Triggering miniaturized nuclear fusion. D. Fiber-optics communication. E. All of the above.

3. Which of the following properties of a laser beam do(es) not account for its

intense light? A. Monochromatic. B. Uni-directional. C. Coherent. D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

4. To produce three-dimensional holographic images, both the _____ and _____

of the light waves from every point on an object are recorded on a photographic film.

A. intensity; frequency B. intensity; phase C. amplitude; frequency D. period; speed E. None of the above.

1. If we use phosphorus to replace some silicon atoms in silicon, this introduces _____ into the lattice which can be released and so produces current. Such a semiconductor is called _____ semiconductor.

A. Electrons, p type B. Holes, n type C. Electrons, n type D. Holes, p type E. charges, intrinsic

2. A transistor is a very fast and tiny _____. A. Light source B. Resistor C. Magnet D. Switch E. Diode

3. Which of the following is NOT made of hexagonal layers of carbon atoms? A. Diamond B. Graphite C. Carbon nanotubes D. Carbon nanoribbons E. Graphene

4. Metals are conductive but not transparent; glasses are transparent but

not conductive. Which of the following materials is both conductive and transparent?

A. Diamond. B. Graphite. C. Graphene. D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

1. A metamaterial is a material that can A. bend electromagnetic wave B. transmit light without loss C. enhance quantum effects D. store high density data E. make faster computers

2. Which of the following media has a negative refractive index? A. Water. B. Diamond. C. Metamaterial. D. Vacuum. E. Air.

3. A material exhibiting the quantum Hall effect is A. superconducting at edges but insulating in interior B. insulating at edges but superconducting in interior C. conducting at edges but superconducting in interior D. insulating at edges but superconducting in interior E. conducting at edges but insulating in interior

4. At the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) the magnets on the

Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are electromagnets which use very high currents to produce very strong magnetic fields. The coils in the electromagnets allow the currents to flow without losing any energy to electrical resistance. What are the coils made of?

A. Strong permanent magnets. B. Copper. C. Superconductors. D. Glass.

1. A runner of height 1.8 meters and mass 100 kg finished running 100 meters in 10 seconds. The wavelength of the matter wave of this person is approximately

A. 100 meters B. 1.8 meters C. 10 meters D. 1 nm E. < 1 nm

2. In the double-slit experiment, an electron A. passes through both slits simultaneously B. has 50% probability to pass the right slit and 50% probability to pass the

left slit C. interacts with other electrons to produce the interference pattern D. tunnels through the slits E. must move very fast

3. An electron can tunnel through a barrier because A. It has charge B. It has spin C. It moves very fast D. It behaves as a particle E. It behaves as a wave

4. Which of the following devices is not using electromagnetic waves? A. Smart phone B. MRI C. X-ray D. Scanning tunneling microscope E. Microwave oven

1. A nanometer is… A. 10-3 meter. B. 10-6 meter. C. 10-9 meter. D. 10-12 meter. E. 10-15 meter.

2. When gold becomes a nanoparticle, which of the following is NOT true? A. very reactive B. looks pink C. melts at room temperature D. becomes radioactive E. All of the above

3. A nanoparticle emits green light. If the size of the particle is increased, it

may emit A. red light B. blue light C. white light D. purple light E. UV light

4. Which of the following is NOT related to nanotechnology? A. Colored glass windows of medieval era buildings B. Damascus swords C. Magnetic levitation D. Quantum dot display E. Molecular car racing

1. The World Wide Web was invented at A. IBM B. Oxford University C. Intel D. CERN E. Bell Laboratory

2. Data can be stored by _____ means in _____. A. optical; optical fibers B. magnetic; hard disks C. chemical; USB memory sticks D. electronic; DVDs E. All of the above.

3. A Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) read head can read information written on a magnetic hard disk by measuring the electrical resistance across the read head. When the magnetic moments of the two permalloy layers in the read head are anti-parallel, the resistance is _____; when the magnetic moments are parallel, the resistance is _____.

A. lower; higher B. lower; unchanged C. unchanged; higher D. higher; unchanged E. higher; lower

4. Comparing GMR (Giant Magnetoresistance) and TMR (Tunneling Magnetoresistance), which is not an advantage of TMR as a read head?

A. TMR exhibits a higher resistance change. B. TMR is smaller in size. C. TMR is more sensitive to the change in magnetic field. D. TMR is more stable in magnetic performance. E. TMR energy consumption is lower.

1. Which of the following statements about the Uncertainty Principle is false?

A. It is fundamentally impossible to make simultaneous measurements of a particle’s position and momentum with infinite accuracy.

B. It is due to imprecision of the instruments C. It arises from the quantum behavior of matter D. It arises from Particle and Wave Duality E. It is not observable in a running cat

2. Quantum Mechanics is a ...

A. deterministic model B. probabilistic model C. random model D. All of the above E. None of the above 3. Which statement about classical and quantum computers is NOT true? A. A 4-qubit computer can analyze 16 parallel states in a single operation. B. A 4-bit classical computer can only analyze one state in a single operation. C. A 3-qubit computer can analyze more than one state in a single operation. D. A 3-bit classical computer can analyze more than one state in a single

operation.

4. Which statement about the basic element of the D-Wave computer processors, SQUID, is NOT true?

A. It is a sensitive device to measure the intensity of magnetic fields. B. It is a certain kind of superconducting ring. C. The superconducting materials that make up these devices have certain

unique properties at very low temperatures. D. The electrical resistance in SQUID is high near absolute-zero temperature.

1. In the 19th century, people used ______ to transmit messages, and the speed at which information could be sent had dramatically increased. [Answer at 17:50]

A. pigeons B. ships C. airplanes D. electricity E. optical fibers 2. The action of Maxwell's demon seems to suggest that we could create _______

just by having _______ about the motion of the molecules. [Answers at 27:16 & 27:19]

A. order; energy B. disorder; energy C. order; information D. disorder; information E. None of the above. 3. Who was the first person to conceive of the modern computer, a machine

whose sole function is to manipulate and process information? [Answer at 30:39]

A. James Clerk Maxwell. B. Alan Turing. C. Michael Faraday. D. Claude Shannon. E. Ludwig Boltzmann. 4. Any system that has two states can carry or store ______ bit(s) of

information. [Answer at 47:47] A. one B. two C. three D. four E. five

1. The type of radiation that we sense as heat is _____. A. microwave B. infrared C. visible light D. ultraviolet E. All of the above.

2. Which of the following is a greenhouse gas? A. Water vapor (H2O). B. Methane (CH4). C. Nitrous oxide (N2O). D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

3. The Keeling curve reveals a steady rise in carbon dioxide level, which is attributed to _____.

A. the seasonal change as plants grow in spring B. the seasonal change as plants die in fall C. the rise in the global temperature D. the use of fossil fuels E. None of the above.

4. One consequence of the effects of climate change is the melting of the glaciers and ice caps on Antarctica and Greenland. If this trend continues, the sea level will _____.

A. rise B. drop C. rise and then drop D. drop and then rise E. remain the same

1. In ultrasound imaging, the time elapsed, from when the pulse is emitted by a transducer to when each echo is received, is _____ the distance to the reflecting surface.

A. twice B. equal to C. proportional to D. inversely proportional to E. not related to

2. The use of fiber optics in endoscopes to transmit clear pictures for direct visual examination is particularly useful in medicine. What is the physical principle behind fiber optics?

A. Reflection. B. Refraction. C. Interference. D. Polarization. E. Total internal reflection.

3. A corneal flap is cut and folded back, and then an excimer laser that emits high-energy ultraviolet photons is used to ablate a thin layer of corneal material to correct the nearsightedness. What is this eye surgery called?

A. LASIK. B. PRK. C. CAT. D. NMR. E. None of the above.

4. Which of the following is/are the property/properties of X-rays? A. X-rays cannot pass through solids. B. X-rays can ionize the air they pass through. C. X-rays are deflected by electric fields. D. X-rays are deflected by magnetic fields. E. All of the above.

1. In computerized tomography (CT), a scanned slice is composed of a reconstruction matrix of small boxes of tissue called voxels. The transmitted intensity can be expressed in terms of the sum of the _____ in the voxels along the X-ray path.

A. surface areas B. volumes C. densities D. attenuation coefficients E. None of the above.

2. In positron emission tomography (PET), a positron and an electron annihilate, producing two gamma-ray photons. These two gamma-ray photons fly off in opposite directions according to the conservation of _____.

A. electric charge B. mechanical energy C. momentum D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

3. To create useful images in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the intensity of the absorbed and re-emitted radiation from many different points of the body is measured. The intensity reflects the density of _____ atoms at each point.

A. hydrogen B. carbon C. nitrogen D. oxygen E. calcium

4. In MRI, to determine from which part of the body a given photon comes, the magnetic field is made to vary with _____. This is because the _____ of the photons absorbed by the hydrogen nuclei is proportional to the magnetic field, and only one plane within the body will have the proper value of magnetic field for absorption.

A. time; energy B. time; amplitude C. position; frequency D. position; phase E. None of the above.

1. Shoemaker-Levy 9 was the first comet observed to be orbiting a planet rather than the Sun. What was the planet?

A. Mercury. B. Mars. C. Jupiter. D. Saturn. E. Uranus.

2. What kind of element is the evidence that cretaceous extinction happened on the Earth before?

A. Iridium B. Moscovium C. Meitnerium D. Nihonium E. Uranium

3. The mantle-core boundary casts an S-wave shadow over part of Earth because S-waves are unable to pass through the _____.

A. crust B. mantle C. core D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

4. Earthquake is a result of A. release of gravitational potential energy in rock. B. release of electrical potential energy in rock. C. release of kinetic energy in rock. D. release of chemical energy in rock. E. release of elastic potential energy in rock.

1. The _____ atomic bomb, called Little Boy, was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945.

A. H-1 B. U-235 C. U-238 D. Pu-239 E. None of the above.

2. Which of the following isotopes are fused in a fusion bomb to produce tremendous energy?

A. H-1 and H-2. B. H-2 and H-3. C. He-3 and He-4. D. U-235 and U-238. E. None of the above.

3. A nuclear reactor will not explode like a nuclear bomb because the reactor _____.

A. requires a higher purity of Pu-239 B. generates a lower power C. is much larger in size D. has less fuel rods. E. None of the above.

4. In which of the following nuclear reactor accidents did the reactor(s) suffer meltdown(s)?

A. The Three Mile Island accident. B. The Chernobyl accident. C. The Fukushima accident. D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

1. How old is the Universe? A. About 14 million years old. B. About 140 million years old. C. About 14 billion years old. D. About 140 billion years old. E. None of the above. 2. Einstein regarded adding the _____ to his theory of general relativity and

thus missing a great opportunity to predict the expansion of the Universe as the greatest mistake in his life.

A. gravitational constant B. cosmological constant C. Hubble constant D. Planck constant E. speed of light

3. The Nobel Prize in Physics 1978 (one half) was awarded to Penzias and Wilson for their discovery of _____.

A. gravitational waves B. the neutron C. the X-ray D. cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) E. the red light-emitting diode (LED) 4. The Universe is made up mostly of _____. A. stars B. free hydrogen and helium C. neutrinos D. heavy elements E. dark energy and dark matter

1. Which of the following is NOT one of the ten biggest unsolved problems in physics as addressed by Johan Hansson?

A. The arrow of time. B. The matter-antimatter asymmetry. C. Quantum measurement. D. The string theory. E. Turbulence.

2. What is Einstein’s unfinished dream? A. Winning the Nobel Prize in physics. B. Establishing the grand unified theory (GUT). C. Integrating theory of general relativity with quantum mechanics. D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

3. Condensed matter physics deals with the physical properties of matter in

_____ phases. A. solid and liquid B. liquid and gas C. gas and plasma D. plasma and solid E. None of the above.

4. Which of the following is NOT a proposed type of quantum technology? A. Quantum Simulation B. Quantum gravity. C. Quantum computing. D. Quantum communication. E. Quantum sensing.