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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Filippo Brunelleschi famously engineered the dome of what cathedral?
(a) Metz Cathedral.
(b) The Oulu Cathedral.
(c) The Nidaros Cathedral.
(d) The Florence Cathedral.

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

3. Approximately when was Giordano Bruno born?
(a) 1366.
(b) 1548.
(c) 1623.
(d) 1459.

4. Where did the Renaissance begin?
(a) Spain.
(b) France.
(c) Italy.
(d) Great Britain.

5. René Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician who spent most of his adult life where?
(a) Northern Africa.
(b) South America.
(c) Great Britain.
(d) The Dutch Republic.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the author in Chapter 2, “Nothing Comes of Nothing,” the ratio of zero to any number is what?

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

3. The preclassic Maya and their neighbors supposedly developed the concept of zero by what year?

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

5. The ancient Babylonians had a number system based on what increment?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are multiplication and division involving zero described in Chapter 1, “Nothing Doing”?

2. How did Filippo Brunelleschi introduce the concept of zero to the Italian Renaissance?

3. What mathematical advancements were made by the ancient Egyptians?

4. How does the concept of zero relate to the beliefs of Hinduism?

5. How are ancient Babylonian mathematics described in Chapter 1, “Nothing Doing”?

6. How did mathematics and the concept of zero evolve in India through the 5th Century AD?

7. What advancements in mathematics were made by René Descartes?

8. What results came about when Indian mathematicians began separating numbers from shapes, according to the author in Chapter 3, “Nothing Ventured”?

9. How does the author assert zero’s existence has been responsible for mathematical progress in Chapter 1, “Nothing Doing”?

10. What is the focus of the book, as established by the author in Chapter 0, “Null and Void”?

(see the answer keys)

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