The document is a transcript of a math quiz competition containing 24 multiple choice questions testing knowledge of mathematicians, theorems, discoveries and concepts. Some of the questions require identifying mathematicians based on their contributions, such as Alan Turing being identified from clues about his appearance on banknotes and favorite movie Snow White. Other questions require identifying fields of mathematics, theorems or concepts based on descriptions of their origins and significance. The quiz covers a wide range of topics within mathematics spanning different eras and cultures.
2. RULES!
01 02
QM’s decision is final
03
The finals will
contain 24 questions
The scoring is
+10/0 on bounce,
+10/-5 on pounce
3. In June 2021, X's country released a new
banknote featuring X, commemorating them
on their 109th birthday. A gesture such as this
was long overdue considering X's
contributions were overshadowed by their
persecution during their lifetime. Although the
matter remains contentious, their unjust
treatment drove X to take their life in way they
had seen in an iconic animated film, their
favourite, made just before World War II. Who
is X? Which movie?
Question 1
6. Question 2
Poet Laureate of USA from 1988-90, Howard Nemerov's
poem describes a certain two word term.
" To _ __ on
Sea-shell and leaf alike,
and see it fit,
to watch the same idea
work itself out,
in the fighter pilot's
steepening, tightening
turn....."
Fill in the blanks. [Hint: Geometrical figure]
9. Question 3
X numbers are a type of numbers that satisfy
Fermat's little theorem even though they do
not satisfy its hypothesis. Interestingly, X
numbers were not named after German
mathematician Alwin Korselt who discovered
them, but after the person who found the first
and smallest such number. This American
mathematician found the smallest X number,
561, 50 years before it was proved there are
infinitely many of these.
12. Question 4
In an interview with the BBC, Professor David Percy
of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications
said X was “a real classic and you can do no better
than that … It is simple to look at and yet incredibly
profound, it comprises the five most important
mathematical constants." X was named after the
mathematician that came up with it. Although this
mathematician was not the first one to use a certain
symbol for one of the aforementioned five
constants, but he is definitely credited with
popularizing it. What is X, and which symbol are we
talking about?
15. Question 5
In 2014 X became the first woman to win the
Fields' Medal for her contributions to the
theory of moduli spaces of Riemann
surfaces. The celebrated Iranian
mathematician, who taught at Stanford
University, was posthumously honoured
when her 12th May, her birthday was
declared the _____________ by the
International Council for Science
18. Question 6
The modern study of certain field was initiated by
German mathematician X in the 1870s with his paper
"On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic
Numbers". X who claimed his most famous theory was
communicated to him by God, received criticism by
veering into domains other than math, such as religion
and philosophy and giving the shockingly counter-
intuitive theory of transfinite numbers. Identify X and
the field which he almost single-handedly created.
21. Question 7
Following providing the pathbreaking proof to a
long standing conjecture in the field of
geometric topology, Russian mathematician X
became the first and only person to decline
something he was offered after he gave his
proof in 2006. Not wanting to be associated with
fame and money, X instead claimed that "if
_____, then no other recognition is needed."
1. Give funda of the blank
2. ID X.
3. What did he reject?
4. What the famous problem is?
22.
23. Answer
1. "If the proof is correct, then
no other recognition is
needed."
2. X: Grigori Perelman
3. Field’s Medal
4. Poincaré conjecture
24. Question 8
X is generally credited with being one of the founders of analytic
philosophy and wrote on every major area of philosophy except
aesthetics. He wrote Principia Mathematica, a milestone in the
development of classical logic, and a major attempt to reduce the
whole of mathematics to logic. X chaired 'India League', a Britain-
based organisation whose aim was to campaign for the full
independence and self-governance of India. He is one of the few
"mathematicians" to have won the Nobel Prize (of course, not for
mathematics, as there isn't one).
ID X and the category for which he won the nobel prize.
27. Question 9
X was famously described by Albert Einstein as "The
most important woman in the history of mathematics".
She worked at the Mathematical Institute of Erlangen
without pay for seven years. At the time, women were
largely excluded from academic positions. She was a
jew and hence was removed by Hitler from her post in
the university of Gottingen. A type of algebraic
structure, a crater on moon and a minor planet are
named in her honour.
ID X.
30. Question 10
One of X’s most important contribution
to this particular field would be, among
other things, an eponymously named
unit of distance. He has also contributed
to the fields of anthropology and racial
likeness using concepts from his core
field. He was also responsible for the
establishment of a premium institute
whose building you can see in this
Google Doodle issued on the 125th birth
anniversary of X.
33. Question 11
X is extremely well known for his extraordinary
contributions to every major branch of
mathematics, which includes number theory,
fundamental theorem of algebra, fundamental
theorem of arithmetic, and the prime number
theorem. X may be most famous for the story of
intuiting the formula for the summation of an
arithmetic sequence when his primary-school
teacher gave him the task designed to waste his
time. ID X.
36. Question 12
'P number' comes from a very well known conversation
between two mathematicians X and Y, when X
debunked the label of mundanity Y ascribed to a
certain number while commuting. Commuting plays a
very apparent role in the etymology of P. To this date,
only six of the P numbers have been discovered.
Because of their significant contribution, these are
also named after X and Y. Identify P, X and Y.
39. Question 13
In 1970 mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel put forward
his proof for something that almost everyone in the world
thinks about at some point in their life. Uniquely he tried to
prove this through mathematics, a line of thinking first put
forward by 11th century monk Anselm of Canterbury, and
later the 'founder' of Calculus, Leibniz. The axioms for this
proof pictured here have been criticized, which is why the
conclusions he drew were also criticized. While many,
regardless of their fields have tried to prove what Gödel
tries to prove here, mathematics is rarely the mode used to
prove it.
What are we talking about?
43. Question 14
X, an Irish Mathematician is known for a four-
dimensional extension of complex numbers, with
six square roots of –1 (±i, ±j, and ±k), called the Y. X
was part of a small but well-regarded school of
mathematicians associated with Trinity College in
Dublin, which he entered at age 18. The year 2005
was the 200th anniversary of X’s birth and the Irish
government designated that the X Year,
celebrating Irish science. X might remind you of a
recent musical that has had a profound impact on
culture, politics, and education
ID X and Y.
46. Question 15
Women are usually under-represented in this subject, still the
history of Mathematics is not male-exclusive. X was a scholar at
a library in Alexandria in the 4th Century CE. Her most useful
scientific legacy was the edited version of Euclid’s “The
Elements”, the most relevant Greek mathematical text, and
among the basic versions for centuries. X is described in a
Victorian era novel as a heroine with the "spirit of Plato and the
body of Aphrodite". X was portrayed by Rachel Weisz in a 2009
Movie.
ID X.
49. Question 16
X put forth the most influential list of 23
unsolved problems at the International
Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in
1900. This is generally reckoned as the
most successful and deeply considered
compilation of open problems ever to be
produced by an individual mathematician.
X unified the field of algebraic number
theory with his 1897 treatise Zahlbericht.
ID X.
52. Question 17
It is difficult to find fields in
mathematics X did not contribute
to. Notable for contributing 60
papers to applied mathematics and
60 papers to pure mathematics, X
was one of the foremost minds
behind a certain secret American
project during World War II,
working for which led him to coin
the term 'Kiloton' to measure
something.
Identify X and the project.
55. Question 18
X espoused a philosophy of
vegetarianism, but one of its tenets was
a complete prohibition on touching or
eating beans. Legend has it that beans
were partly to blame for X’s death. After
being chased from his house by
attackers, he came upon a bean field,
where he allegedly decided he would
rather die than enter the field — and his
attackers promptly slit his throat.
ID X.
58. Question 19
X was a number theorist who was so devoted to his work that in his later
years he guzzled coffee and took caffeine pills and amphetamines to stay
awake, working on math 19 to 20 hours a day. His single-minded focus
seemed to have paid off: The mathematician published and contributed
to about 1,525 papers, more than any other individual in the field. This
prolific work of this prolific mathematician led to the creation of the idea
of the X, originally created by the mathematician's friends, including his
512 collaborators around the world as a tribute to his enormous output.
Who is X? What are we talking about?
61. Question 20
One may be familiar with the world’s first programmer,
but her connection to two famous mathematicians (X
and Y) may not be as well known. She was the daughter
of a famous Romantic poet, but while growing up,
established correspondence with a man X who
theorised the existence of a machine to help calculate
log tables. After they refused to accept her as a
student, she found a tutor in Y, known for a
fundamental set of laws in set theory. Y shares their
name with a popular Roman emperor.
ID X and Y.
.
64. Question 21
Nicknamed as 'Pentathlos' after the Olympians who were well rounded
competitors, for he had proven himself to be knowledgeable in every area
of learning, this Greek polymath was perhaps the first person to measure a
certain attribute of the Earth. He estimated that the meridian has a length of
252,000 stadia, with an error on the real value between −2.4% and +0.8%
(assuming a value for the stadion between 155 and 160 meters). Despite its
antiquity, his result was surprisingly accurate. He is also credited to be
amongst the earliest contributors to the field of Geography. Who?
67. Question 22
British Mathematician Arthur Cayley was the first to use the term X
as a type of mathematical structure used to model pairwise
relations between objects in 1857. X is often used to describe a very
fast-growing function, faster than almost all of the ordinal functions
in fast-growing hierarchies (function is from N to N). Perhaps the
most famous value of this function is one that is not yet computed by
anyone or any supercomputer because the effort is considered
useless, but also because we currently don't have the storage to
calculate it. X's most famously showed up in a certain 1997 movie, as
shown in the photo
ID X and the movie.
71. Question 23
Born during what was known as the “golden age” for
illegitimate children, this artist worked in collaboration
with mathematician X though the latter’s work on
perspectives (which came to be a very important element in
art of the time) was not given much acclaim. X’s most
notable contribution to art would be the ones which helped
his artist friend to be one of the first people to draw
skeletal solids and apply Y to architecture and paintings
which increased aesthetic value by employing geometry. Y
was also used as a flirting tactic by a famous bollywood
actor in a 2018 biopic as he called his love interest beautiful
in his film which also ends in a number.
74. Question 24
It is well understood that all differentiable
functions must be continuous as well. German
mathematician Karl Weierstrass however
looked at the concept in a different way to
introduce Weierstrass functions, something that
raised questions on the existing definitions of
differentiability and continuity, with Poincare
calling it an "outrage against common sense".
What are the pictured functions known for?