1. Professor Course Title Date
Global Math Trivia
Professor
Course Title
Date
Resources:
Valencia College (2014)

2. In what year was the first evidence of counting found?
50,000 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
500 C.E.
Answer A)
Evidence of counting can be found in prehistoric caves across the globe.
Valencia College (2014)

3. Which area of the world was the place value of numbers first used?
Europe
Asia
Mesopotamia
Answer C)
The Arab nations invented the place value system that we use today. It is far superior to the Roman numeral system as far as computation is concerned.
Valencia College (2014)

4. Which document gives most of our present day knowledge of Egyptian mathematics?
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Rhind Papyrus
The Thebes Manuscript
Answer B)
The Rhind Papyrus showed how Egyptians used Geometry and Algebra. It also contained some interesting word problems.
Valencia College (2014)

5. Who first calculated the circumference of the Earth?
Isaac Newton
Archimedes
Eratosthenes
Answer C)
Eratosthenes used a stick in the ground and it’s shadow along with the relative position of the sun to find the circumference of the Earth.
Valencia College (2014)

6. Who wrote a collection of 13 books devoted mostly to geometry and elementary number theory?
Plato
Euclid
Apollonius
Answer B)
Euclid wrote his famous collection of books called The Elements. This collection contains many geometric proofs and constructions. It contains a classic proof of the Pythagorean Theorem that we still learn about today. The was written around 300 B.C.E.
Valencia College (2014)

7. Which ancient mathematician was famous for finding prime numbers using an elimination method?
Eratosthenes
Apollonius
Archimedes
Answer A)
Eratosthenes is famous for his “Sieve” that allows you to find all the prime numbers less than a given number by eliminating all the multiples of all numbers less than the given number.
Valencia College (2014)

8. Who developed early (infinitesimal) calculus, whose notation is still used in mathematics courses today?
Archimedes
Leibniz
Poincare
Answer B)
Valencia College (2014)

9. The Parthenon in ancient Greece The Coliseum of ancient Rome
The destruction of which building led to the loss of much ancient knowledge?
The Parthenon in ancient Greece
The Coliseum of ancient Rome
The Library of Alexandria
Answer C)
The Library of Alexandria was a library that housed much of the knowledge that the ancients had learned. It burned down in a fire along with much of its precious contents (books and scrolls) that contained this knowledge. Much of this knowledge had to be re-invented or re-discovered. This was one of the main events that lead to the dark ages (loss of knowledge) that lasted almost 1,000 years. If the Library of Alexandria never burned to the ground, we might be far ahead in technology than we are now.
Valencia College (2014)

10. The sequence of numbers 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc
The sequence of numbers 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc. has a name contributable to which mathematician?
Diophantus
Fibonacci
Pascal
Answer B)
Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician. Can you guess what number comes after 8? It is THIRTEEN. You simple add the two preceding numbers to obtainthe next number i.e 5+8=13.
Valencia College (2014)

11. Who do we attribute the xy-coordinate system we use today?
Decartes
Fermat
Galileo
Answer A)
Renee Descartes help found analytic geometry. This is a blend of geometry and algebra together. When you graph an equation like y=x^2 you are using analytic geometry.
Valencia College (2014)

12. The equation 𝑥 𝑛 + 𝑦 𝑛 = 𝑧 𝑛 has no integer solutions when 𝑛 is greater than 2. Who first proved this theorem?
Pierre de Fermat
Pythagoras
Andrew Wiles
Answer C)
This theorem is called “Fermat’s Last Theorem”. Pierre de Fermat first posed the problem. It went unsolved for centuries until about 20 years ago, Andrew Wiles from Princeton University first proved it.
Valencia College (2014)

13. Who proved that mathematical knowledge will never come to an end?
Kurt Gödel
Albert Einstein
David Hilbert
Answer A)
Kurt Gödel was a mathematician specializing in logic. He showed that there will always be new and interesting mathematics yet to be discovered. Many people think that once you get a PhD in math you have “Learned it All”. This is simple not the case. Earning a PhD in math is very humbling because you begin to realize how very little you know!
Valencia College (2014)

14. Who proved the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra that states that every non-constant single variable polynomial with complex coefficients has at least one complex root?
Gauss
Leibniz
Newton
Answer C)
Valencia College (2014)

15. What is the historical meaning of the word "algebra"?
Computation
Abstract thinking
Restoration/balancing
Answer C)
Valencia College (2014)

16. Thales Archimedes Plato
This ancient Greek mathematician invented his namesake screw and is famous for declaring eureka when he discovered buoyancy while sitting in a tub of water.
Thales
Archimedes
Plato
Answer B)
Valencia College (2014)

17. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Carl Friedrich Gauss
This German, born in 1777 is known for his method of solving matrix equations, summing the first 100 integers quickly as a young child, and is referred to as the Prince of Mathematics.
Albert Einstein
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Answer C)
Valencia College (2014)

18. David Hilbert Paul Erdős George Pólya
This Hungarian born man, one of the most prolific mathematical publishers of all time, was the subject of the movie N is a Number: A Portrait of ‘him’ and a book The Man Who Loved Only Numbers.
David Hilbert
Paul Erdős
George Pólya
Answer B)
Valencia College (2014)

19. Heraclitus Anaxamander Pythagoras
This man born around 570 BC on the island of Samos is known for possibly being a vegetarian and founding an order focused on philosophy and mathematics. He is most well known for an identity that relates the sum of the squares of the lengths of the legs of a right triangle to it's hypotenuse, his namesake theorem.
Heraclitus
Anaxamander
Pythagoras
Valencia College (2014)