Are you better than AI? Try our quiz to find out – Physics World

Iulia Georgescu and Matin Durrani invite you to test your knowledge of the deep connections between physics, big data and AI

1 When the Event Horizon Telescope imaged a black hole in 2019, what was the total mass of all the hard drives needed to store the data?
A 1 kg
B 50 kg
C 500 kg
D 2000 kg

2 In 1956 MANIAC I became the first computer to defeat a human being in chess, but because of its limited memory and power, the pawns and which other pieces had to be removed from the game?
A Bishops
B Knights
C Queens
D Rooks

3 The logic behind the Monty Hall problem, which involves a car and two goats behind different doors, is one of the cornerstones of machine learning. On which TV game show is it based?
A Deal or No Deal
B Family Fortunes
C Let’s Make a Deal
D Wheel of Fortune

4 In 2023 CERN broke which barrier for the amount of data stored on devices at the lab?
A 10 petabytes (10¹⁶ bytes)
B 100 petabytes (10¹⁷ bytes)
C 1 exabyte (10¹⁸ bytes)
D 10 exabytes (10¹⁹ bytes)

5 What was the world’s first electronic computer?
A Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC)
B Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC)
C Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
D Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM)

6 What was the outcome of the chess match between astronaut Frank Poole and the HAL 9000 computer in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey?
A Draw
B HAL wins
C Poole wins
D Match abandoned

7 Which of the following physics breakthroughs used traditional machine learning methods?
A Discovery of the Higgs boson (2012)
B Discovery of gravitational waves (2016)
C Multimessenger observation of a neutron-star collision (2017)
D Imaging of a black hole (2019)

8 The physicist John Hopfield shared the 2024 Nobel Prize for Physics with Geoffrey Hinton for their work underpinning machine learning and artificial neural networks – but what did Hinton originally study?
A Biology
B Chemistry
C Mathematics
D Psychology

9 Put the following data-driven discoveries in chronological order.
A Johann Balmer’s discovery of a formula computing wavelength from Anders Ångström’s measurements of the hydrogen lines
B Johannes Kepler’s laws of planetary motion based on Tycho Brahe’s astronomical observations
C Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s discovery of the period-luminosity relationship for Cepheid variables
D Ole Rømer’s estimation of the speed of light from observations of the eclipses of Jupiter’s moon Io

10 Inspired by Alan Turing’s “Imitation Game” – in which an interrogator tries to distinguish between a human and machine – when did Joseph Weizenbaum develop ELIZA, the world’s first “chatbot”?
A 1964
B 1984
C 2004
D 2024

11 What does the CERN particle-physics lab use to store data from the Large Hadron Collider?
A Compact discs
B Hard-disk drives
C Magnetic tape
D Solid-state drives

12 In preparation for the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider, CERN tested a data link to the Nikhef lab in Amsterdam in 2024 that ran at what speed?
A 80 Mbps
B 8 Gbps
C 80 Gbps
D 800 Gbps

13 When complete, the Square Kilometre Array telescope will be the world’s largest radio telescope. How many petabytes of data is it expected to archive per year?
A 15
B 50
C 350
D 700

• This quiz is for fun and there are no prizes. Answers will be published in April.