Q 01/05

The word calculus comes from the Latin for which small object, once moved around Roman counting boards?

A) Seashell

B) Pebble

C) Walnut

D) Acorn

Answer · why

B) Pebble

Pebble is the literal meaning: Romans did their sums by sliding little stones along a board. Doctors still use the same word for a kidney stone.

Q 02/05

The fourth, fifth and sixth derivatives of position are jokingly named after the mascots of which breakfast cereal?

A) Frosted Flakes

B) Lucky Charms

C) Rice Krispies

D) Froot Loops

Answer · why

C) Rice Krispies

Rice Krispies supplied the names, borrowed from the trio of cartoon characters on the box. The joke is said to have been started by a NASA engineer wo...

Q 03/05

Zeno's paradox, later untangled by the calculus of infinite series, has swift Achilles forever chasing which animal?

A) Hare

B) Snail

C) Hedgehog

D) Tortoise

Answer · why

D) Tortoise

Tortoise is the answer: given a head start, Zeno argued, it can never be caught, because Achilles must first reach where it was. Endless shrinking ste...

Q 04/05

Isaac Newton developed much of his calculus at home in 1665–66 while which disaster kept Cambridge University closed?

A) The Great Plague

B) The Great Fire

C) The English Civil War

D) A smallpox epidemic

Answer · why

A) The Great Plague

The Great Plague shut the university just after Newton took his degree. In two years at the family farm in Woolsthorpe he also built his theories of o...

Q 05/05

Dentists use the word calculus for which tooth problem, scraped away during a professional cleaning?

A) Cavities

B) Gingivitis

C) Tartar

D) Abscess

Answer · why

C) Tartar

Tartar is plaque that has hardened with minerals from saliva. Once it has formed it is too firmly attached for a toothbrush to shift, which is why a h...