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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who was Neville?
(a) Ramanujan's Tutor.
(b) Hardy's ambassador to Ramanujan.
(c) The dean at the university where Ramanujan was doing his research.
(d) Ramanujan's ambassador to Hardy.

2. What did Hardy and Neville nominate Ramanujan to become?
(a) A graduate student at Trinity.
(b) A teacher at King's College.
(c) A fellow at Trinity College.
(d) A dean at Oriel College.

3. What value did Ramanujan work with at Cambridge?
(a) Avogadro's number.
(b) Chaitin's constant.
(c) Real numbers.
(d) Pi.

4. What was the result of Ramanujan clinging to his cultural practices?
(a) He taught English students how to cook Indian dishes.
(b) He remained an outsider.
(c) He generated fear and hostility in those around him.
(d) He brought Indian culture to English intellectuals.

5. What was proved correct in Ramanujan's work from this time?
(a) His proofs.
(b) His theorems.
(c) His assumptions.
(d) His conclusions.

6. What conflict did Ramanujan return to?
(a) His wife and his mother.
(b) His parents with his in-laws.
(c) His father and the authorities.
(d) His mother and father.

7. Who was Leonard Euler?
(a) Ramanujan's tutor.
(b) A teacher at Cambridge.
(c) A brilliant mathematician to whom Hardy compared Ramanujan.
(d) Hardy's protégé.

8. In his letter to Hardy, what did Ramanujan say he had discovered?
(a) A mistake in Hardy's theorems.
(b) A function for using irrational numbers in multi-variable calculus.
(c) A solution to a problem Hardy proposed.
(d) A theory of relativity.

9. What is the state of Ramanujan's work now?
(a) Fragmentary.
(b) Not completely published.
(c) Not completely collected.
(d) Completely published and evaluated.

10. Who met Ramanujan in England?
(a) Euler.
(b) Hardy.
(c) Neville.
(d) John Littlewood.

11. Who was absent from the dock when Ramanujan's ship came in?
(a) His father.
(b) His wife.
(c) His mother.
(d) His friends.

12. How much of Ramanujan's work did Hardy believe was sound and original?
(a) Almost all of it.
(b) Five to ten percent.
(c) One to two thirds.
(d) Half to three quarters.

13. How does Kanigel describe the trip to England?
(a) Arduous.
(b) Sublimely beautiful.
(c) Perilous.
(d) Petrifying.

14. Who developed an exact solution to the question of partitions?
(a) Hardy.
(b) Ramanujan.
(c) Euler.
(d) Later mathematicians.

15. What did Ramanujan and Hardy develop for working with partitions?
(a) A refinement of Euler's suggestion.
(b) Nested square roots.
(c) A precise method for determining partitions for prime numbers.
(d) The circle method.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did the divergent series 1+2+3+4+5... add up to in Ramanujan's notebooks?

2. What does Kanigel say Ramanujan distrusted in English society?

3. Who is NOT included in the list of people who have benefited from Ramanujan's work, in Kanigel's account?

4. How does Kanigel describe Ramanujan when he returned to India?

5. How does Kanigel describe John Littlewood?

(see the answer keys)

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