20 Math Trivia Questions and Answers

Q: What mathematical symbol did math whiz Ferdinand von Lindemann determine to be a
transcendental number in 1882?

A: Pi.

Q: What do you call an angle more than 90 degrees and less than 180 degrees?

A: Obtuse.

Q: What's the top number of a fraction called?

A: The numerator.

Q: What Greek math whiz noticed that the morning star and evening star were one and the
same, in 530 B.C.?

A: Pythagoras.

Q: What's a polygon with four unequal sides called?

A: A quadrilateral.

Q: What's a flat image that can be displayed in three dimensions?

A: A hologram.

Q: What number does "giga" stand for?

A: One billion.
Q: What digit did Arab mathematician al-Khwarizmi give to the West around 800 B/B.?

A: Zero.

Q: What word describes a number system with a base of two?

A: Binary.

Q: How many equal sides does an icosahedron have?

A: Twenty.

Q: What do mathematicians call a regular polygon with eight sides?

A: An octagon.

Q: What T-word is defined in geometry as "a straight line that touches a curve but continues on
with crossing it"?

A: Tangent.

Q: What geometrical shape forms the hole that fits and allen wrench?

A: The hexagon.

Q: What number is an improper fraction always greater than?

A: One.

Q: What two letters are both symbols for 1,000?

A: K and M.
Q: What's short for "binary digit"?

A: Bit.

Q: What century did mathematicians first use plus and minus signs?

A: The sixteenth.

Q: What number, a one followed by 100 zeros, was first used by nine-year-old Milton Sirotta in
1940?

A: Googol.

Q: What handy mathematical instrument's days were numbered when the pocket calculator
made the scene in the 1970s?

A: The Slide rule's.

What is mathematics?

A: Mathematics includes the study of such topics as quantity, structure, space, and change.