Mathematicians

Question 1

1. Who published a treatise on trigonometry which contains the earliest use of our abbreviations:
   sin, tan, sec, for sine, tangent and secant?
   A. Gregorio de Saint
   B. Albert Gerard
   C. John Napier
   D. Johann Herdde

Answer 1

B. Albert Gerard

Question 2

2. An 18th century Swiss Mathematician, he introduced the “Law of Large Numbers” in his (The Art of Conjecture). In Statistics, this implies that the larger the sample, the more likely will the sample become representative of the population. Who was he?
   A. Girolamo Cardano
   B. Jacob Bernoulli
   C. Bertrand Russell
   D. Stephen Baldwin

Answer 2

B. Jacob Bernoulli

Question 3

3. He has been described as the greatest “might have been” in the history of Mathematics.
   A. Blaise Pascal
   B. Bonaventura Cavalier
   C. Gaspard Monge
   D. Gregorio de Saint

Answer 3

A. Blaise Pascal

Question 4

4. He invented a method of determining the optical values of a linear function subject to certain constraints. This method is known as linear programming? Who was he?
   A. George Canter
   B. George Dantzig
   C. Bertrand Russel
   D. Richard Dedekind

Answer 4

B. George Dantzig

Question 5

5. He was a 16th century mathematician, who was the first to define that the probability of an event to happen is the quotient of the number of the favorable outcomes and the number of all outcomes. Who was he?
   A. Stephen Baldwin
   B. Girolamo Cardano
   C. Blaise Pascal
   D. Richard Dedekind

Answer 5

C. Blaise Pascal

Question 6

6. The first to discover “zero”.
   A. Babylonian C. Egyptian
   B. Chinese D. Indian

Answer 6

D. Indian

Question 7

7. He was mostly remembered for his formula for( cos𝑥 + 𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑥)𝑛, which was important in the early development of the theory of complex numbers and for predicting the day of his own death.
   A. Abraham de Moivre
   B. Leonhard Euler
   C. Jacob Bernoulli
   D. Collin Maclaurin

Answer 7

A. Abraham de Moivre

Question 8

8. He achieved real fame when he submitted a paper to the Institute solving one of Fermat’s claims on polygonal numbers made to Mersenne. He also wrote the memoir on definite integrals that later became the basis of his theory of complex functions.
   A. Evariste Galois
   B. Bernhard Riemann
   C. Georg Cantor
   D. Augustin Cauchy

Answer 8

D. Augustin Cauchy

Question 9

9. Italian Mathematician during the Renaissance period who was credited for solving one of the outstanding ancient problems of mathematics, cubic equations.
   A. Niccolo Tartaglia
   B. Scipione del Ferro
   C. Gerolamo Cardano
   D. Regiiomontanus

Answer 9

B. Scipione del Ferro

Question 10

10. A Russian Mathematician in the 19th century who would instead develop geometry without Euclid’s fifth postulate and whose achievement exhibits the development of non- Euclidean Geometry.
    A. Augustin Cauchy
    B. Francois Viete
    C. Nikolai Lobachevsky
    D. Patnuti Chevyshev

Answer 10

C. Nikolai Lobachevsky

Question 11

11. A Greek mathematician who remembered for his prime number sieve.
    A. Anaxagoras
    B. Pythagoras
    C. Eratosthenes
    D. Thales

Answer 11

C. Eratosthenes

Question 12

12. He was the mathematician who proposed basic descriptions of a point, a line and shapes. He also discovered that square root of two is an irrational number and that there were infinitely many prime numbers.
    A. Anaxagoras
    B. Eratosthenes
    C. Archimedes
    D. Euclid

Answer 12

D. Euclid

Question 13

13. An 18th century mathematician who enunciated the principles of the Calculus of variations and became a lecturer in the Royal Artillery School at the age of 19.
    A. Jean Baptiste Fourier
    B. Pierre Simon Laplace
    C. Jean D’ Alembert
    D. Louis Lagrange

Answer 13

D. Louis Lagrange

Question 14

14. Known as the father of modern analysis during 19th century who also devised tests for the convergence and contributed to the theory of periodic functions, Abelian functions, elliptic functions, etc.
    A. Evariste Galois
    B. Johann Dirichlet
    C. Johann Carl Gauss
    D. Karl Wierstrass

Answer 14

D. Karl Wierstrass

Question 15

15. He proved his famous “Basis Theorem” as he worked on invariant theory and challenged mathematicians to solve fundamental questions that led to his famous speech “the Problems of Mathematics”.
    A. Augustin Cauchy
    B. Karl Wierstrass
    C. David Hilbert
    D. Patnuti Chevyshev

Answer 15

C. David Hilbert

Question 16

16. A “grand” Russian mathematician who gave the basis for applying the theory of probability to statistical data, worked on number of prime numbers not exceeding a given number, and proved Bertrand’s conjecture in 1850.
    A. Augustin Cauchy
    B. Francois Viete
    C. Patnuti Chebyshev
    D. Nikolai Lobachevsky

Answer 16

C. Patnuti Chebyshev

Question 17

17. A mathematician of medieval ages who invented a type of coordinate geometry by finding the logical equivalence between tabulating values and graphing them.
    A. Nicole Oresme
    B. Roger Bacon
    C. Leonardo Fibonacci
    D. Rene Descartes

Answer 17

A. Nicole Oresme

Question 18

18. A rich mathematician in France who invented a new, non-Greek way of doing geometry, now called “projective” or “modern geometry”.
    A. Leonhard Euler
    B. Girard Desarques
    C. Francois Viete
    D. John Napier

Answer 18

B. Girard Desarques

Question 19

19. He was considered a universal genius by his contemporaries whose work encompasses not only Mathematics and Philosophy but also Theology, Law, Diplomacy, Politics, and Physics. He also developed the basic notations of his version of the Calculus and perfected the binary system of arithmetic.
    A. Bonaventura Cavalieri
    B. Gottfried Leibnitz
    C. Christian Huygens
    D. Rene Descartes

Answer 19

B. Gottfried Leibnitz

Question 20

20. A Greek mathematician whose most significant accomplishments were those concerning a cylinder circumscribing a sphere and asked for a representation of this together with his result on the ratio of the two to be inscribed on his tomb.
    A. Aristotle C. Plato
    B. Eratosthenes D. Pythagoras

Answer 20

A. Aristotle

Question 21

21. A 19th century mathematician who added the integers from 1 to 100 within seconds by a flash of mathematical insights.
    A. Augustin Cauchy
    B. Johann Dirichlet
    C. Evariste Galois
    D. Johann Gauss

Answer 21

D. Johann Gauss

Question 22

22. He measured the length of the year as 365.2421986 days. He was well known for inventing the method of solving cubic equations by intersecting a parabola with a circle and for Fitzgerald’s popular translation of Rubaiyat.
    A. Leonardo of Pisa
    B. Omar Khayyam
    C. Roger Bacon
    D. Nicolas Oresme

Answer 22

B. Omar Khayyam

Question 23

23. One of the earliest cities of the world built in India and was built to carefully planned and tessellations.
    A. Harappa C. Vedic
    B. Mohenjo-Daro D. Indus

Answer 23

D. Indus

Question 24

24. He did notable work in Geometry, particularly studying higher plane curves. He also considered the geometric problem of finding the difference between the volume of the frustum of a solid of revolution and the volume of the cylinder of the same height as frustum.
    A. Johann Bernoulli
    B. Pierre Simon Laplace
    C. Colin Maclaurin
    D. Joseph Louis Lagrange

Answer 24

C. Colin Maclaurin

Question 25

25. An extinct Mesoamerican culture with surviving treatise on astronomy called Dresden Codex and used vigesimal number system.
    A. Incans
    B. Native Americans
    C. Africans
    D. Mayans

Answer 25

D. Mayans