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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

3. How does Kanigel characterize Ramanujan's theorems and formulas?
(a) Immaculate.
(b) Universally recognizable.
(c) Almost incomprehensible.
(d) Odd by English standards.

4. With whom did Ramanujan eventually begin to develop a real relationship, according to Kanigel?
(a) His wife.
(b) His in-laws.
(c) His old friends.
(d) His patron.

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

6. When did Ramanujan write to Hardy?
(a) 1916.
(b) 1913.
(c) 1909.
(d) 1920.

7. How did Ramanujan respond to Hardy's request for proofs?
(a) He dragged his feet about sending them.
(b) He sent them immediately.
(c) He said he could not produce them.
(d) He would send them if Hardy would help him financially.

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

9. How does Kanigel describe Ramanujan as a mathematical thinker?
(a) Constructivist.
(b) Classicist.
(c) Formalist.
(d) Radical.

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

11. What society was Ramanujan elected to?
(a) The Royal Society.
(b) The Academy of Sciences.
(c) Phi Beta Kappa.
(d) The Apostles.

12. What was Euler's contribution to understanding partitions?
(a) Notes on the performance of nested square roots.
(b) A theorem about series.
(c) An algorithm, but without values.
(d) A functional approximation.

13. What did Hardy decide after conferring with John Littlewood?
(a) That Ramanujan was a genius.
(b) That Ramanujan was a small thinker.
(c) That Ramanujan was dangerous.
(d) That Ramanujan was unstable.

14. How did Ramanujan see himself socially, according to Kanigel?
(a) As a Brahmin.
(b) As a mathematician.
(c) As a celebrity.
(d) As a citizen.

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What did Littlewood and Hardy see as mathematically important?

3. In his letter to Hardy, what was the importance of the thing Ramanujan claimed to have discovered?

4. What did Ramanujan and Hardy develop for working with partitions?

5. What aspect of the English does Kanigel say affected Ramanujan?

(see the answer keys)

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