View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What practice does Kanigel say Ramanujan had difficulty adjusting to in England?
(a) Afternoon tea.
(b) Wearing shoes.
(c) English cooking.
(d) Speaking English.

2. What did Ramanujan say he was willing to do in order to come to England?
(a) Be cast out of his Brahmin class.
(b) Abandon his wife.
(c) Work for Hardy.
(d) Borrow money.

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

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

5. Based on his letter, what was Hardy trying to determine about Ramanujan?
(a) Who his teachers had been.
(b) Where he was from.
(c) How he had devised his theories.
(d) Whether he was a crank.

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

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

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

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

10. What does Kanigel say Ramanujan distrusted in English society?
(a) Secret societies.
(b) High tea.
(c) Public transportation.
(d) School cafeterias.

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

12. What was Ramanujan's intention when he returned home?
(a) To bring his wife back to England.
(b) Never to return to England.
(c) To stay in India for a few years.
(d) To teach in India.

13. How does Kanigel say Ramanujan passed his time on the ship?
(a) Reading novels.
(b) Sick.
(c) Playing games.
(d) Working feverishly.

14. What did Hardy and his friends arrange for Ramanujan?
(a) A sinecure.
(b) A research position.
(c) A bureaucratic appointment.
(d) A teaching position.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did Ramanujan move to?

2. How much of Ramanujan's work did Hardy believe was sound and original?

3. How did Ramanujan spend all his time on returning to India?

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

5. When do mathematicians believe Ramanujan did his best work?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 486 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample