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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Approximately when did Pythagoras live?
(a) 570-495 BC.
(b) 684-610 BC.
(c) 481-412 BC.
(d) 1200-1195 BC.

2. What god within Hinduism represents both creator and destroyer?
(a) Ganesha.
(b) Shiva.
(c) Pavarti.
(d) Kartikeya.

3. Aristotle referred to Zeno of Elea as the inventor of what?
(a) The Zeno theorem.
(b) The dialectic.
(c) Geometry.
(d) Algebra.

4. What branch of mathematics are the ancient Egyptians credited with creating in order to successfully build objects to block the flooding of the Nile River each year?
(a) Quantum mechanics.
(b) Geometry.
(c) Algebra.
(d) Projective physics.

5. Pythagoreanism developed into two separate schools of thought. What group was called “the learners” in Greek?
(a) The mathēmatikoi.
(b) The Hippasusikoi.
(c) The omnimatioi.
(d) The akousmatikoi.

6. What name refers to sutra texts belonging to the Śrauta ritual and containing geometry related to fire-altar construction?
(a) Shulba Sutras.
(b) Shavi Sutras.
(c) Yogi Sutras.
(d) The Kartikeya.

7. Pythagoreanism was a cult that greatly influenced what philosophical system?
(a) Hinduism.
(b) Platonism.
(c) Athenism.
(d) Buddhism.

8. When did the Protestant Reformation begin?
(a) 1517.
(b) 1725.
(c) 1445.
(d) 1623.

9. What term refers to the religious or philosophical concept that the soul is reborn after biological death?
(a) Creationism.
(b) Dualism.
(c) Reincarnation.
(d) Polytheism.

10. What in graphical perspective refers to a point in the picture plane π that is determined by a line in space?
(a) A vanishing point.
(b) A black hole.
(c) A vector.
(d) A hyperbole.

11. When the Indians adopted a Babylonian style number system, its base was what, according to the author in Chapter 3, “Nothing Ventured”?
(a) 60.
(b) 5.
(c) 10.
(d) 20.

12. What word did the Indians use for zero during Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi’s time?
(a) Zeno.
(b) Sunya.
(c) Siro.
(d) Nil.

13. Approximately when did Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi live?
(a) 410-500 AD.
(b) 780-850 AD.
(c) 240-200 BC.
(d) 159-201 AD.

14. What refers to a system of tribunals developed by the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church during the second half of the 16th Century?
(a) The Medieval Inquisition.
(b) The Spanish Inquisition.
(c) The Roman Inquisition.
(d) The Catalina Inquisition.

15. The author states in Chapter 3, “Nothing Ventured” that India adopted a Babylonian style number system around what century?
(a) 1st Century.
(b) 6th Century.
(c) 5th Century.
(d) 2nd Century.

Short Answer Questions

1. Filippo Brunelleschi famously engineered the dome of what cathedral?

2. Who founded the House of Wisdom that was established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq?

3. The author notes in Chapter 2, “Nothing Comes of Nothing” that the West resisted the concept of zero for how many years?

4. Approximately when was Giordano Bruno born?

5. What refers to the mean obtained by taking the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of the reciprocals of a set of nonzero numbers?

(see the answer keys)

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