Q 01/05

Which ancient Egyptian document from around 1550 BC is one of the best-known sources of Egyptian mathematics?

A) The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus

B) The Turin King List

C) The Ebers Papyrus

D) The Edwin Smith Papyrus

Answer · why

A) The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus

It is named for Alexander Henry Rhind, a Scottish antiquarian who bought it in Luxor in 1858. Fragments bought separately by Edwin Smith ended up in t...

Q 02/05

Which civilisation made Plimpton 322, a c.1800 BC tablet listing Pythagorean triples?

A) Egyptian

B) Babylonian

C) Hittite

D) Minoan

Answer · why

B) Babylonian

It suggests Mesopotamian scribes had a systematic way of generating triples more than a thousand years before Pythagoras. Columbia University has held...

Q 03/05

The Ishango bone, a possible 20,000-year-old tally stick, was found in which modern country?

A) Republic of South Africa

B) United Republic of Tanzania

C) Democratic Republic of the Congo

D) Central African Republic

Answer · why

C) Democratic Republic of the Congo

It was carried to Belgium by the archaeologist who found it and sits in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. Some scholars thi...

Q 04/05

Which 6th-century BC group is credited with coining the term 'mathematics'?

A) The Stoics

B) The Sophists

C) The Epicureans

D) The Pythagoreans

Answer · why

D) The Pythagoreans

They treated mathematics as a demonstrative discipline, and their leader's followers in Croton reportedly lived a secretive, ascetic communal life.

Q 05/05

Pythagoras is said to have banned his followers from eating which food?

A) Dried figs

B) Fava beans

C) Wild honey

D) Green olives

Answer · why

B) Fava beans

Later biographers even claimed he once persuaded a bull not to eat them. Almost nothing about his life is uncontested, including the theorem that bear...