QuizIII: June 2018

Answer: When multiple cells misfire at the same time - depending on the severity and location in the brain - it may cause muscle twitches and spasms. sudden, electrical discharge in the brain causing alterations in behavior, sensation, or consciousness.

What are advantages & disadvantages of pure functions?

Advantages are:

- they are easy to read and test.
- memoization.
- easy to parallelize

Disadvantage:

- some functions need to perform i/o, which breaks this approach

What is a pure function?

Answer: A function with no side-effects that is a function of just it's inputs. Also returns the same results, given the same inputs.

What is memoization?

Answer: Storing the output of a perfect function for future use to save on overhead of running it again, b/c you know the same input will generate the same output.

What are higher order functions?

Answer: Functions that take other functions as arguments, or that return functions as results.

What are the two primary aspects of functional programming?

Answer:

Higher order functions.
Pure functions.

Why should one avoid using generic 'except' statements that catch all errors?

Answer: It's lazy, and can hide errors from exceptions that haven't been considered.

Why use 'with' when working with files?

Answer: It creates a temp file object that's only live during the indented scope, and is closed automatically, even if there's an exception that kicks you out of that scope.

What does file.write() return?

Answer: The length of the message written.

What is returned by functions that don't explicitly return anything?

Answer: The 'None' object

Why use an empty tuple?

Answer: You can have a function that returns a populated tuple if a condition is met, or an empty one of it isn't

Why use a tuple?

Answer: When u need an immutable data structure, and when the order of elements is important (like coordinates)

What were the three main areas of discontent that led to the French Revolution?

Answer:

1.) Social Inequality - Organization and social privilege according to class lines which bred deep resentment within the underprivileged
2.) Political Inefficiency - The government were ambivalent and apathetic to their responsibilities as leaders and instead indulged in the vain pleasures of Versailles. In the absence of principled government, the court was often the focus of intrigue, scandal, and manipulation.
3.) Economic Irresponsibility - Taxes were applied unfairly, resulting in a grossly inefficient means of paying for government and thus a growing national debt.

What overriding factor led to the French Revolution?

Answer: a general sense of dissatisfaction with the old regimes, putting people at odds with their leaders

What were the strengths and weaknesses of 18th century France?

Answer:

a. economic wealth and trade
b. lack of individual rights and protection from an overbearing church or state

Who was Rousseau?

Answer: Rousseau rejected the basis of reason alone as the discovery of truth and instead emphasized emotion as the basis for truth. He believed that man is born free and good, and should be able to do as he pleases.

Who was Diderot?

Answer: Diderot was the editor of the Encyclopedie, which spread the ideas of the French political enlightenment philosophers on every subject. The French government and the church opposed the publication because they feared it would spread ideas and knowledge that would undermine their authority.

Who was Voltaire?

Answer: Voltaire was banished from France as a young man for insulting a noble and then went to England, where he witnessed the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution. He became an admirer of the overarching intellectual and political freedom that England had instated. He disdained organized religion and could only advocate for religion in general if it was subject to human reason.

What did Enlightenment philosophers reject and what did they embrace instead?

Answer:

a. They rejected Orthodox Christianity and the supernatural elements of Scripture.
b. They embraced reason as their standing of truth, making God subject to human reason.

What does empiricism claim?

Answer: Sensory experience is the only true source of knowledge and truth. The only things that are knowable are knowable based off of experience/ experiment, so there is no way to know with certainty whether God exists.

What does rationalism claim?

Answer: Reason is the only true source of knowledge and truth.

What did philosophers of the Enlightenment seek to do and by what means?

Answer:

a. verify what is known as true
b. rationalism and empiricism

Which previous time period did Enlightenment thinkers look back on to form the idea that man was the measure of all things?

Answer: the Renaissance

What is the Enlightenment referred to as?

Answer: the Age of Reason

What is the timeline of powers shifts following the English Civil War?

Answer:

1649 - Trial and execution of Charles I, showing that the monarchy is held accountable to the people
Between Charles I's execution and 1685 - Constitutional democracy with sovereignty laying in Parliament
1685 - James II took power and reinstated the divine right of kings
1688 - Parliament removed James II from the throne during the Glorious Revolution, and Protestantism was brought to England through the marriage of James II's daughter to William of Orange from the Dutch republic, a Protestant country.
1689 - The English Bill of Rights was passed.

What is the difference between leadership by the people and leadership by a monarch in wartime?

Answer:

people led > no clear leadership
king led > clear, centralized leadership

What led to the English Civil War?

Answer: Tension was growing between the church, which was upset with the monarchy's encroachments on their freedoms, and the state, which was upset with the church's disruption of its monopoly on power.