MATH TRIVIA

Math trivia questions and answers.

Q: What mathematical symbol did math whiz Ferdinand von Lindemann determine to be a transcendental number in 1882?
A:  Pi.

Q: What do you call an angle more than 90 degrees and less than 180 degrees?
A: Obtuse.

Q: What's the top number of a fraction called?
A: The numerator.

Q: What Greek math whiz noticed that the morning star and evening star were one and the same, in 530 B.C.?
A: Pythagoras.

Q: What's a polygon with four unequal sides called?
A: A quadrilateral.

Q: What's a flat image that can be displayed in three dimensions?
A: A hologram.

Q: What number does "giga" stand for?
A: One billion.

Q: What digit did Arab mathematician al-Khwarizmi give to the West around 800 B/B.?
A: Zero.

Q:  What word describes a number system with a base of two?
A: Binary.

Q: How many equal sides does an icosahedron have?
A:  Twenty.

Q:  What do mathematicians call a regular polygon with eight sides?
A:  An octagon.

Q:  What T-word is defined in geometry as "a straight line that touches a curve but continues on with crossing it"?
A:  Tangent.

Q: What geometrical shape forms the hole that fits and allen wrench?
A: The hexagon. 

Q: What number is an improper fraction always greater than?
A: One.

Q: What two letters are both symbols for 1,000?
A: K and M.

Q: What's short for "binary digit"?
A: Bit.

Q:  What century did mathematicians first use plus and minus signs?
A: The sixteenth.

Q: What number, a one followed by 100 zeros, was first used by nine-year-old Milton Sirotta in 1940?
A: Googol.

Q: What handy mathematical instrument's days were numbered when the pocket calculator made the scene in the 1970s?
A: The Slide rule's.