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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Approximately when was Zeno of Elea born?

2. In 1996 and 1997, the USS Yorktown was equipped with a network of how many dual 200 MHz Pentium Pro-based computers running Windows NT 4.0?

3. René Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician who spent most of his adult life where?

4. What god within Hinduism represents both creator and destroyer?

5. Approximately when was Giordano Bruno born?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Aristotle approach the concept of zero, according to the author in Chapter 2, “Nothing Comes of Nothing”?

2. How does the author describe the ancient Greek and Roman mathematical systems in Chapter 1, “Nothing Doing”?

3. How does the author describe the early counting systems of prehistoric mathematics in Chapter 1, “Nothing Doing”?

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

5. What discoveries did Archimedes make in the mathematical world?

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

7. What caused the USS Yorktown to have a computer meltdown in 1997, according to the author in Chapter 0, “Null and Void”? How is the ship described?

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

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

10. How was zero dealt with in the Pythagorean view, according to the author in Chapter 2, “Nothing Comes of Nothing”?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Guillaume de l'Hôpital, Bishop Berkeley, and l'Hôpital's rule. How are derivatives used to evaluate limits involving indeterminate forms under l'Hôpital's rule? How did these advancements deal with the problem of zero?

Essay Topic 2

Describe the USS Yorktown and its computer crash in 1997 as examined in Chapter 0, “Null and Void.” What program was the ship a test-bed for in the U.S. Navy? What caused the crash? How was the problem approached?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the work of Sir Isaac Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Johannes Kepler, and the origins and development of calculus. When did Newton and Leibniz independently create calculus? What conflict occurred between the two? When did this conflict end?

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