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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. The author states in Chapter 3, “Nothing Ventured” that the Indians borrowed Greek geometry but never worried about what?

2. Aristotle referred to Zeno of Elea as the inventor of what?

3. How is zero represented in Roman numerals?

4. How many minutes made up an hour in the ancient Greek system?

5. Zeno of Elea followed what Eleatic school founder in believing that the nature of the universe was changeless and immobile?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. How does the author describe Islam’s history in the seventh century in Chapter 3, “Nothing Ventured”?

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

6. What mathematical developments was Pythagoras credited with in ancient Greece?

7. What were Blaise Pascal’s theological beliefs? How was zero viewed in his beliefs?

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

9. How did zero enter into Babylonian mathematics, according to the author in Chapter 1, “Nothing Doing”?

10. What inventions is Blaise Pascal credited with, according to the author in Chapter 4, “The Infinite God of Nothing”?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

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

Describe and discuss the origins and history of mathematics within Islamic culture. When was the House of Wisdom built? Who first coined the term “algebra”? When was the term coined?

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