Einstein Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. In which city was Albert Einstein born in 1879?
Ulm
Munich
Bern
Princeton
2. Astronomers observe that light from a distant star follows a deflected path as it passes near the Sun. Which Einsteinian idea best explains the observation?
Mass curves spacetime, affecting the path of light
Moving light particles steadily lose momentum
The Sun drags a material ether around it
Matter emits light only in fixed color bands
3. Einstein imagined a person inside a closed elevator who could not locally distinguish uniform acceleration from a gravitational field. Which principle does this illustrate?
The equivalence principle
The exclusion principle
The uncertainty principle
The correspondence principle
4. Two observers move steadily relative to each other, yet both measure the same speed of light in a vacuum. Which theory accounts for this result?
Newtonian gravitation
Special relativity
Quantum electrodynamics
General relativity
5. Einstein left Germany in 1933 and settled permanently in which country?
France
The United Kingdom
The United States
Belgium
6. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics primarily for which contribution?
His prediction of gravitational waves
His formulation of general relativity
His explanation of the law of the photoelectric effect
His mass-energy equation alone
7. Which musical instrument did Einstein play throughout much of his life?
Trumpet
Violin
Cello
Clarinet
8. A clock is placed close to a very massive object while another remains much farther away. According to general relativity, how does the nearby clock run when compared from afar?
At the same rate under all conditions
Faster because gravity adds energy
Backward until it leaves the gravitational field
More slowly because of gravitational time dilation
9. Einstein signed a 1939 letter to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. What concern did it raise?
That radio communication could disrupt navigation
That Nazi Germany might pursue an atomic bomb
That relativity would be banned from universities
That solar eclipses could damage electrical systems
10. Einstein analyzed the irregular motion of tiny particles suspended in liquid. What did this Brownian-motion work help support?
The existence of gravitational waves
The physical existence of atoms and molecules
The idea that light requires an ether
The expansion of the universe
11. Einstein’s remark that “God does not play dice” is commonly associated with his discomfort about which feature of quantum mechanics?
Its use of mathematical equations
Its prediction that light can behave as a wave
Its treatment of probability as fundamental
Its application to very small particles
12. What kind of institution employed Einstein while he developed several ideas published in 1905?
The German Imperial Navy
The Royal Observatory in Greenwich
The University of Oxford
The Swiss Patent Office
13. Why did Einstein originally add the cosmological constant to his gravitational field equations?
To explain the photoelectric effect
To make the speed of light vary with distance
To describe the internal structure of atoms
To permit a model of a static universe
14. Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen proposed the EPR argument in 1935. What conclusion was it designed to support?
General relativity could not describe gravity
Atoms did not have a physical existence
Light could never display particle-like behavior
Quantum mechanics might not provide a complete physical description
15. What is the central meaning of Einstein’s equation E = mc²?
Energy equals mass multiplied by acceleration squared
Objects acquire mass only when traveling at light speed
Mass and energy are equivalent, with c² as the conversion factor
Energy can exist only inside matter
16. To explain the photoelectric effect, what did Einstein propose about light?
It can behave as discrete packets of energy
It travels through a stationary ether
It is produced only by heated matter
It slows down in empty space as it loses energy