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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Littlewood and Hardy see as mathematically important?
(a) Ramanujan's nested square roots.
(b) Ramanujan's use of irrational numbers.
(c) Ramanujan's infinite series.
(d) Ramanujan's detailed proofs.

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

3. What does Kanigel say prevented Ramanujan from getting the care he needed?
(a) His distance from the cultural centers.
(b) His family's poverty.
(c) The Great War.
(d) The fight between his wife and mother.

4. What other Indian thinker does Kanigel compare Ramanujan's experience with?
(a) Anant Raje.
(b) Ghandi.
(c) Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
(d) Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

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

6. How was Ramanujan treated on his return?
(a) As a celebrity.
(b) As an untouchable.
(c) As an outcast.
(d) As an exile.

7. What did Ramanujan work out in his research on constants?
(a) A foundation for Euler's constant.
(b) A solution to pi.
(c) A new use for Euler's constant.
(d) An approximation of pi.

8. What did the divergent series 1+2+3+4+5... add up to in Ramanujan's notebooks?
(a) -1/12.
(b) 39.
(c) Infinity.
(d) 7.

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

10. What was the doctor's prescription for Ramanujan's condition?
(a) Surgery.
(b) Physical activity.
(c) Rest and care.
(d) Radiation.

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

12. How does Kanigel describe John Littlewood?
(a) A consultant.
(b) A therapist.
(c) A bureaucrat.
(d) A math prodigy.

13. What were Ramanujan and Hardy looking for in their work on partitions?
(a) A point at which partitions broke down for prime numbers.
(b) A theorem that demonstrated how partitions operate in series.
(c) A way to bridge partitions.
(d) A way to define the number of partitions precisely.

14. What does Kanigel say characterized Indian intellectuals' experience at Cambridge?
(a) Disorientation.
(b) Alienation.
(c) Frustration.
(d) Depression.

15. How do people account for Ramanujan's self-assessment?
(a) Overwork.
(b) Hardy's coldness.
(c) Ramanujan's arrogance.
(d) Ramanujan's naïveté.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was Euler's contribution to understanding partitions?

2. What did Hardy and Neville nominate Ramanujan to become?

3. How does Kanigel describe the trip to England?

4. How does Kanigel describe Ramanujan's relationship with his wife?

5. What is the state of Ramanujan's work now?

(see the answer keys)

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