Consider the following statement : "If you feel you are trapped in a black hole, don't give up. There is a way out." Who among the following made the above statement?
- A.Albert Einstein
- B.Stephen Hawking
- C.C. V. Raman
- D.Abdus Salam
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Stephen Hawking. The British physicist said these words in a lecture in January 2016, using his own work on black holes as a message of hope for people facing depression.
Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) was a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge best known for his work on black holes and the origin of the universe. In 1974 he showed that black holes are not completely black: quantum effects near the event horizon make them give off radiation, now called Hawking radiation, so in principle things are not lost in them forever. That is the idea behind "there is a way out". He lived for decades with motor neurone disease and wrote the popular book A Brief History of Time (1988).
Option A is wrong because Einstein, who died in 1955, gave the theory of relativity but not this remark. Option C is wrong because C. V. Raman is known for the Raman effect in light scattering. Option D is wrong because Abdus Salam won the 1979 Nobel Prize for the electroweak theory.
Exam tip: Hawking = black holes emit Hawking radiation (1974); author of A Brief History of Time.
Practice Questions
View allThe fact that the planets move around the Sun, not in circles but in ellipses, was first demonstrated by
- A.Galileo
- B.Martin Luther
- C.Johannes Kepler
- D.Copernicus
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In 1609 Kepler showed that the planets move around the Sun in elliptical orbits, with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse.
Read the full explanation →Which one of the following statements is correct?
- A.Urea is produced in liver.
- B.Urea is produced in blood.
- C.Urea is produced from digestion of starch.
- D.Urea is produced in lung and kidney.
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Liver cells turn the toxic ammonia released from the breakdown of amino acids into urea through the ornithine cycle, also called the urea cycle.
Read the full explanation →Which one of the following is the correct sequence of passage of light in a compound microscope?
- A.Condenser-Objective lens-Eyepiece-Body tube
- B.Objective lens-Condenser-Body tube-Eyepiece
- C.Condenser-Objective lens-Body tube-Eyepiece
- D.Eyepiece-Objective lens-Body tube-Mirror
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Light passes through the condenser to the specimen, is picked up by the objective lens, travels up the body tube and reaches the eye through the eyepiece.
Read the full explanation →Which one of the following statements regarding haemoglobin is correct?
- A.Haemoglobin present in RBC can carry only oxygen but not carbon dioxide.
- B.Haemoglobin of RBC can carry both oxygen and carbon dioxide.
- C.Haemoglobin of RBC can carry only carbon dioxide.
- D.Haemoglobin is only used for blood clotting and not for carrying gases.
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It binds oxygen at its iron-containing haem groups and carries some carbon dioxide on its protein chains. Each haemoglobin molecule has four polypeptide chains and four haem groups, and each haem iron can hold one oxygen molecule, forming oxyhaemoglobin in the lungs.
Read the full explanation →Which one of the following statements regarding histone proteins is correct?
- A.Histones are proteins that are present in mitochondrial membrane.
- B.Histones are proteins that are present in nucleus in association with DNA.
- C.Histones are proteins associated with lipids in the cytosol.
- D.Histones are proteins associated with carbohydrates in the cytosol.
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They are the proteins around which DNA winds to form chromatin in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells. Histones are small basic proteins, rich in the positively charged amino acids lysine and arginine, which attract the negatively charged phosphate groups of DNA.
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