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3) Which number system was commonly employed in various ancient civilizations and is
even today in some regions?
Answer: Five.
4) In which ancient civilization, numbers were for the first time represented by words?
Answer: Indian.
6) In which ancient civilization, odd and even numbers were divided into two sets, the
odd ones denoted as males and the even females?
Answer: Chinese.
7) Among the numbers – Fibonacci, Kaprekar, Mersenne and Figurate numbers which
one is ancient in origin?
Answer: Figurate number.
8) Apart from the number system, ancient Indians are held in high esteem for their
contributions to the field. What is it?
Answer: Indeterminate equations.
9) Who wrote an elaborate history of Greek geometry from its earliest origins?
Answer: Eudemus.
10) Which natural phenomenon was employed in ancient times to estimate the heights
of objects?
Answer: Shadows cast by the sun.
Mathematics Quiz Questions History of
Mathematics Part 2
Mathematics Quiz 11 – 10
13) It is claimed that the priest architects of Egypt could lay out a right angle with the aid
of a rope divided in to a ratio by three knots. What is this ratio?
Answer: 3:4:5
17) Which mathematician prepared the trigonometric tables seen in a modern textbook?
Answer: Claudius Ptolemy.
18) Who wrote one of the oldest documents on mathematics, Rhind Papyrus’?
Answer: Ahmose.
19) Which ancient school odd thought believed that the universe is primarily made of
numbers?
Answer: Pythagorean.
20) The most popular method of long multiplication ‘Gelosia’ in the 15th and 16th century
world had its origin in _?
Answer: India.
Mathematics Quiz Questions History of
Mathematics Part 3
Mathematics Quiz 21 – 30
21) ‘A figure and a platform, not a figure and six pence’ was the motto amongst _?
Answer: Ancient Greek Mathematicians.
23) In the Stonehenge, the primitive astronomical observatory, stones arranged almost in
the form of a _?
Answer: Circle.
24) Where were red and black colored rods employed to denote positive and negative
numbers respectively?
Answer: China.
25) Where has been found an ivory scale of linear measurement of the time of the Indus
Valley Civilization?
Answer: Lothal.
27) The Antikythera device found in an ancient shipwreck of a Greek island was?
Answer: An analog computer.
28) Which device was popular in Europe for counting purpose during 1200 to 1800?
Answer: Counting board.
29) When did the monumental “Principia Mathematica’ of A.N Whitehead and Bertrand
Russell appear?
Answer: 1910.
Mathematics Quiz Questions Mathematics
Books and Authors Part 1
Mathematics Quiz 31 – 40
31) Russell Maloney‘s story book gives an idea about statistics. Name this book.
Answer: Inflexible logic.
32) This classic of Plato contains reference to numbers whose significance is still being
dugout by mathematicians. Name it.
Answer: Flatland.
34) “The world can be made intelligent in terms of right angles” This statement was
made in a world famous classic of Plato. Which is that classic?
Answer: The Timaeus.
35) Who explains his experience in a one dimensional world as a depicted in the classic
science fiction Flatland?
Answer: A square.
38) “The senses delight in things duly proportional” who made this statement relating
beauty to mathematics?
Answer: Thomas Aquinas.
39) Who said “music is the pleasure of the human soul experiences from counting
without being aware that it is counting”?
Answer: G. W. Leibniz.
40) Who forwarded in his books this motto “The purpose of computing is insight, not
numbers”?
Answer: Richard W. Hamming.
Mathematics Quiz Questions Mathematics
Books and Authors Part 2
Mathematics Quiz 41 – 50
42) Who said “the power is not in the hands of the few but information in the hands of
the many”?
Answer: John Naisbitt.
47) Who wrote one of the greatest mathematical treatises of ancient times the
“Arithmetica”?
Answer: Diophantus.
50) Who is the author of “The Fractal Geometry of Nature” an important contribution to
understanding form and complexity in the physical universe?
Answer: Benoit Mandelbrot.
Mathematics Quiz Questions Mathematics
Books and Authors Part 3
51) Who wrote the classic “Paradoxes of the Infinite”?
Answer: Bernhard Bolzano.
52) Who wrote “Liber Abaci” which introduced the Indian number system and zero to
the Europe?
Answer: Leonardo da Pisa.
53) Which mathematician wrote “Discourse of Method” in bed when he was hardly 16
years old and had studied mathematics for a few months only?
Answer: Rene Descartes.
54) Who wrote the classic “On Growth and Form” a mathematical treatment of natural
history?
Answer: D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson.
55) Who wrote the popular “One, Two, Thre… Infinity” a book on numbers and their
relationship with the cosmos?
Answer: George Gamow.
56) Who is the author of “Mathematical Ideas, Their Nature and Use”?
Answer: Jagjit Singh.
57) Who wrote the recent mathematical masterpiece “Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal
Golden Braid”?
Answer: James R. Newman.
59) Who wrote the witty and amusing book “A Budget of Paradoxes”?
Answer: Augustus De Morgan.
68) Who is the originator of the game theory is now applied to business, war etc.?
Answer: John Von Neumann.
Mathematics Quiz Questions Pathfinders
Inventors and Founders of Mathematics Part 2
Mathematics Quiz 71 – 80
76) Who invented the method of exhaustion for determining the areas and volume of
geometrical figures and solids respectively?
Answer: Eudoxus.
77) G.H Leibniz invented calculus. But one famous scientist also simultaneously invented
calculus. Name him.
Answer: Isaacs Newton.
79) Who invented the integrator, an instrument which gives the value of definite
integrals?
Answer: James Thomson.
Mathematics Quiz Questions Pathfinders
Inventors and Founders of Mathematics Part 3
Mathematics Quiz 81 – 90
90) It is said that he laid the foundation of calculus in geometrical form before it was
actually invented by others. Who was he?
Answer: Isaac Barrow.
Mathematics Quiz Questions Instruments and
Machines in Mathematics Part 1
Mathematics Quiz 91 – 100
91) Which is the instrument that measures angles, sideways, or up and down for making
maps?
Answer: Theodolite.
92) Which device is employed only for multiplying and dividing numbers?
Answer: Slide rule.
95) Which device is used for measuring the area of an irregular plane figure?
Answer: Planimeter.
96) Which is the instrument is used for measuring the angle of sun above the horizon?
Answer: Sextant.
98) Which is the mechanic device employed for determining areas under curves?
Answer: Integraph.
99) Which is believed to be the most ancient device used for calculation purpose?
Answer: Abacus.
Mathematics Quiz Questions Instruments and
Machines in Mathematics Part 2
Mathematics Quiz 101 – 111
101) What is the instrument employed to measure the angle a star makes with the
horizon?
Answer: Astrolabe.
103) Which is the calculating machine that caught the imagination of the public and
convinced it of the arrival of an “electronic brain”?
Answer: Harvard Mark I
104) Who built the first logic machine which could solve problems in formal logic?
Answer: Charles Stanhope.
105) He built the first workable logic machine which could solve a problem faster than a
human being. Who is he?
Answer: William Stanley Jevons.
108) Which is the device popular from the time of ancient Egypt for generating random
numbers?
Answer: Cubical dice.
109) Who built the first calculating machine that solved different equations?
Answer: Vannevar Bush.
110) Which game did a thinking machine play for the first time?
Answer: Chess.
111) It is an imaginary yet profound machine composed simply of a tape and a scanner.
What is it?
Answer: Turing machine.