History of Mathematics Questions

Question 1

• Carl Friedrich Gauss is known as the "Prince of Mathematicians".
• He is famous for his book Disquisitiones Arithmeticae.

Question 2

• A study of American Indian tribes showed that 10% of the tribes used the vigesimal number system.
• The vigesimal number system uses 20 as the base number.

Question 3

• According to Herodotus, geometry originated in Egypt.

Question 4

• In ancient Egyptian number system, a lotus represents the number 1000.

Question 5

• Sumerians are known for the cuneiform writing system.

Question 6

• Thales of Miletus is known as the "pupil of Chaldeans and Egyptians".
• He proposed the theorem that an angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle.

Question 7

• Pythagoras believed mathematics meant "all is number".

Question 8

• The construction of regular solids and the theory of proportionals is attributed to the mathematician Eudoxus.

Question 9

• Johannes Kepler is likened to Moses.
• He came within sight of the promised land but could not enter it.

Question 10

• Summa de Arithmetica, Geometrica, and Proportioni et Proportionalita are books by Leonardo of Pisa.

Question 11

• Ionian: Thales
• Pythagorean: Pythagoras

Question 12

• Hippocrates of Chios is a mathematician who discovered the quadrature of lunes.

Question 13

• The Paradoxes of Zeno include: The Dichotomy, The Achilles, The Arrow, The Stade, The Horse, The Turtle.

Question 14

• Eudoxus is credited with inventing the Method of Exhaustion.

Question 15

• Menaechmus is famous for discovering conic sections while attempting to solve the problem of duplicating the cube.

Question 16

• Menaechmus: duplication of cubes :: Dinostratus: squaring of the circles

Question 17

• Ptolemy II laid the foundations for two institutions at Alexandria, making it a center for scholarship.

Question 18

• The Elements is divided into thirteen books or chapters on:
• elementary plane geometry
• theory of numbers
• incommensurables
• solid geometry

Question 19

• Archimedes is known as the "Sand Reckoner" and the "Father of Mathematical Physics".
• He invented ingenious war machines: catapults, ropes, pulleys, and hooks.
• devised solutions for setting ships on fire.
• Famous for "Eureka!"

Question 20

• Apollonius of Perga is most known for his treatise on Conics.

Question 21

• Eratosthenes of Cyrene measured the Earth.

Question 22

• Mathematical Syntaxis is the most influential and significant trigonometric work of antiquity.

Question 23

• Almagest is a collection of problems in the application of algebra, not considered an algebra book itself.

Question 24

• Ptolemy: Almagest :: Euclid: Elements

Question 25

• Jiuzhang suanshu is a Chinese mathematical book with 246 problems on surveying, agriculture, partnerships, engineering, taxation, calculation, and the properties of right triangles.
• It's considered one of the most influential Chinese mathematical books.

Question 26

• Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia was the first to find a formula for solving cubic equations.

Question 27

• Al-Jabr is not a prominent Indian mathematician.
• Notable Indian mathematicians include Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Bhaskara.

Question 28

• Liber algebrae et al mucabala survived only in a unique copy of a Latin translation of Al'Khwarizmi's book.

Question 29

• Hisob al-jabr wa'l muqabalah is the most significant treatise by Al'Khwarizmi.
• The text gives us the word "algebra".

Question 30

• John Napier is credited with inventing common logarithms.

Question 31

• Galileo Galilei was a 17th-century contemporary of Kepler who was also an astronomer.

Question 32

• Christian Huygens invented the pendulum clock.

Question 33

• Gaspard Monge invented Descriptive Geometry.

Question 34

• Girard Desargues developed the fundamental principles of analytic geometry independently of Rene Descartes.

Question 35

• Rene Descartes is famous for the line, "I think, therefore I am".

Question 36

• Girolamo Cardano is the author of the book Ars Magna.

Question 37

• Nikolai Lobachevsky was regarded as the "Copernicus of Geometry".
• He authored On the Principles of Geomtry and Imaginary Geometry.

Question 38

• Al-Kwarizmi is known for a riddle about a man's life.

Question 39

• Francois Viete was a lawyer who called algebra the "analytic art".

Question 40

• Jordanus Nemorarius is credited with the discovery of the law of inclined plane, justified by his "wreath of spheres" diagram.

Question 71

• Babylonians are credited with the earliest use of a positional numeral system.

Question 72

• Archimedes focused on finding areas under curves.
• This involved the quadrature of the circle.

Question 73

• The concept of incommensurability relates to irrational numbers.

Question 74

• Euclid's Elements primarily deals with geometry.

Question 75

• Archimedes' work on sphere volume is a precursor to integral calculus.

Question 76

• Al-Khwarizmi's contributions were essential in the development of algebra.

Question 77

• Fibonacci's major contribution that influenced European mathematical thought was the Fibonacci sequence.

Question 78

• Brahmagupta introduced the concept of zero as a number.

Question 79

• The House of Wisdom in Baghdad served as a major translation center for mathematical works.

Question 80

• Fermat's Last Theorem remained unproven for over 350 years until 1994.

Question 81

• René Descartes introduced the Cartesian coordinate system.

Question 82

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is the 17th-century mathematician credited with the invention of calculus alongside Isaac Newton.

Question 83

• The Bernoulli family is known for its contributions to probability theory.

Question 84

• Augustin-Louis Cauchy is credited with formulating the theory of complex functions.

Question 85

• The method of exhaustion is a precursor to limits.

Question 86

• Girard Desargues is known for developing the foundations of projective geometry.

Question 87

• Nicolaus Copernicus contributed the proof of the heliocentric model.

Question 88

• Alan Turing's work laid the foundation for modern-day computer science.

Question 89

• Carl Friedrich Gauss's critical contribution to number theory was the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae.

Question 90

• Évariste Galois’s major mathematical achievement was proving the unsolvability of quintic equations.

Question 91

• The Four-Color Theorem relates to graph theory.

Question 92

• Georg Cantor is recognized as the father of set theory.

Question 93

• Johannes Kepler formulated the mathematical laws of planetary motion.

Question 94

• Leonhard Euler introduced the concept of a function and its notation f(x).

Question 95

• Apollonius of Perga's work on conic sections laid the groundwork for orbital mechanics.

Question 96

• Isaac Newton developed calculus.

Question 97

• Évariste Galois introduced the concept of an abstract group.

Question 98

• Bernhard Riemann’s significant contribution to mathematics was differential geometry.

Question 99

• Francois Viete developed modern algebraic notation.

Question 100

• Archimedes used inscribed polygons to calculate an approximation of π.

Test your knowledge on the historical figures and concepts in mathematics with this quiz. Explore the contributions of mathematicians like Gauss, Thales, and Pythagoras, as well as ancient numbering systems from cultures such as the Egyptians and Sumerians.