Quiz  /  All About Math Quiz

  • 1. 
    Whose work gave rise to the terms algebra and algorithm?

  • Hypatia
  • al-Kāshī
  • al-Khwārizmī
  • Isaac Newton

  • 2. 
    Who gave the first proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra?

  • Ada Lovelace
  • Blaise Pascal
  • Sophie Germain
  • Carl Friedrich Gauss

  • 3. 
    The English mathematician and code breaker Alan Turing was found dead of cyanide poisoning after having been forced to undergo a year of hormone therapy to cure him of what?

  • homosexuality
  • schizophrenia
  • depression
  • insomnia

  • 4. 
    The murder of the mathematician Hypatia in 415 CE and the departure soon afterward of many scholars marked the beginning of the end of which centre of learning in the Greco-Roman world?

  • Byzantium
  • Sparta
  • Athens
  • Alexandria

  • 5. 
    What is the Pythagorean theorem?

  • the square on the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides
  • the corresponding angles of two triangles are equal if and only if their corresponding sides are proportional
  • the sum of the angles of a triangle is always 180 degrees
  • two sides of an isosceles triangle are equal if and only if the angles opposite them are equal

  • 6. 
    What is the term for numbers that can be expressed as an infinite sequence of decimals (including terminating decimals that can be considered as having an infinite sequence of zeros on the end)?

  • natural numbers
  • prime numbers
  • real numbers
  • integers

  • 7. 
    What continental European mathematician-philosopher did Isaac Newton engage in a public dispute with over the invention of calculus?

  • René Descartes
  • Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  • Blaise Pascal
  • Maimonides

  • 8. 
    Bayes’s theorem, or Bayesian estimation, is a method employed in which branch of applied mathematics?

  • fuzzy logic
  • computer programming
  • queuing theory
  • probability and statistics

  • 9. 
    What is the Fibonacci sequence, presented in 1202 in this problem: "A certain man put a pair of rabbits in a place surrounded on all sides by a wall. How many pairs of rabbits can be produced from that pair in a year if it is supposed that every month each pair begets a new pair which from the second month on becomes productive?"

  • 2, 4, 16, 256, 65,536, 4,294,967,296, …
  • 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 356, …
  • 1, 2, 5, 9, 14, 20, 27, 35, …
  • 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, …

  • 10. 
    What quantity is calculated by the formula hb/2?

  • the volume of a cylinder
  • the area of a semicircle
  • the area of a triangle
  • the length of a side of a square

  • 11. 
    What is the term for all positive and negative whole numbers, including zero?

  • natural numbers
  • prime numbers
  • real numbers
  • integers

  • 12. 
    What award in mathematics is often considered to be the equivalent of the Nobel Prize?

  • Fields Medal
  • Lasker Award
  • Charles Stark Draper Prize
  • Nevanlinna Prize

  • 13. 
    What is the “Erdős number”?

  • the number of days an average mathematician can expect to live, based on the lifespan of Paul Erdős
  • any number beyond infinity
  • a rank given to somebody who wrote a paper with Erdős himself or with somebody else who wrote a paper with Erdős, and so on
  • a number that characterizes the size of different infinite sets

  • 14. 
    What is the traditional term for the five unprovable, yet intuitively understood, fundamental principles of Euclidean geometry, such as “Given two points, there is a straight line that joins them”?

  • theorems
  • propositions
  • axioms
  • conjectures

  • 15. 
    In arithmetic, what kind of numbers are used in counting a set of objects?

  • natural numbers
  • integers
  • prime numbers
  • real numbers

  • 16. 
    By using the “method of exhaustion,” ancient Greek mathematicians were able to estimate the circumference and area of a circle without having an exact value for what important ratio?

  • pi
  • sine
  • the golden ratio
  • the sacred ratio

  • 17. 
    Which mathematical device simplifies tedious computations by converting problems of multiplication to addition and problems of division to subtraction?

  • the abacus
  • the calculator
  • logarithms
  • algorithms

  • 18. 
    Who formulated the simple mathematical law governing the electrical resistance of materials?

  • Maud Leonora Menten
  • André-Marie Ampère
  • Alessandro Volta
  • Georg Simon Ohm

  • 19. 
    What is the term for any positive integer greater than 1 that is divisible only by itself and 1?

  • real number
  • integer
  • natural number
  • prime number
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