Mathematicians Project Name___________________________
_______/20
Do some research to match the following. Some answers may be used more than once & some not at all.
A1. Agnesi
A2. Al-Khwarizmi
A3. Archimedes
B1. Babbage
B2. Bernouli
B3. Bolyai
B4. Boole
B5. Brahmagupta
C. Copernicus
D1.
D2.
E1.
E2.
F1.
F2.
G1.
G2.
G3.
DeMoivre
Descartes
Euclid
Euler
Fermat
Fibonnacci
Galileo
Galois
Gauss
H.
K1.
K2.
L1.
L2.
M.
N1.
N2.
P1.
Hypatia
Kepler
Klein
Leibniz
Lobachevsky
Mersenne
Napier
Newton
Pascal
P2.
P3.
R1.
R2.
T1.
T2.
V.
Z.
Poincare
Pythagoras
Ramanujan
Riemann
Tartaglia
Thales
VonNeumann
Zeno
____ 1. Came up with formula for area of inscribed quadrilateral and algorithms for roots & quadratics
____ 2. French monk; his greatest role was to befriend, encourage & correspond w/ many other
mathematicians; prime numbers which are one less than a power of 2 are named after him.
____ 3. He is famous for the rabbit problem answered by the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, …
____ 4. Worked on Group Theory; had lots of bad luck & anger, is famous for working on math throughout
the night before he was killed in a sunrise duel.
____ 5. Famous for paradoxes: does motion exist? Paradoxes deal w/ infinity/continuity and can really only
be answered via calculus study of limits and continuity.
____ 6. He is often called the Prince of Mathematics; he referred to math as the Queen of the Sciences; his
brief diary of 146 entries in Latin often called most profound document in math history.
____ 7. In topology the one-sided _?_ Bottle named for him cannot be constructed in Euclidean space; his
“quartic curve “ has inspired artwork such as “Lizard Tetrus”
____ 8. With no formal training, this Indian mathematician was recognized for his natural brilliance; in honor
of his birthday, each year India celebrates December 22 as Mathematics Day.
____ 9. He suffered the longest house arrest by the Catholic Church ever. You must also find out the year in
which he was vindicated by the Roman Catholic Church.______________
____ 10. "It is by logic we prove; it is by intuition we invent." He wrote popular articles explaining math and
science to general population (like Hawking has done for us in recent years).
____ 11. Designed the Analytic Engine, the first theoretical computer, even though the technology didn’t exist
to build his machine at the time. Write the year in which the Analytic Engine was proposed:_______.
____ 12a. Though others hinted at initial steps, these 2 get credit for first publishing on the field of hyperbolic
geometry, the 1st non-Euclidean geometry. They did so separately, but around the same time!
____ 12b. He said he thought this of hyperbolic geometry first, but just didn't publish it – too bad!
____ 13. About 25 years later, he published on the 2nd non-Euclidean geometry usually named for him, but
sometimes called elliptic geometry.
____ 14. His named is attached to the x-y coordinate plane. He thought of using coordinates to plot points as he
watched a fly on the wall of his Jesuit school dorm room. Famous for, “I think, therefore I am.”
____ 15. Given the cruel nickname of The Stammerer – he fought with Cardan over credit for solving cubics.
____ 16. (2 answers) They get credit for separately developing calculus – they fought over the credit for years!
____ 17. Most prolific math writer; went blind working on math; gets credit for the symbols, e, i, , f(x),
____ 18. "Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth."

____ 19. (3 answers) Most often named as the 3 Greatest Mathematicians in History. Look for a consensus.
____ 20. He created logarithms to assist with the calculation of large numbers.
____ 21. Made the first mechanical calculating or adding machine (Mechanical, not electronic.)
____ 22. He wrote The Elements; showing that every math field must be axiomatic system of deductive logic.
____ 23. While gravity toward the earth was understood a falling apple may have led him to Universal Theory
of Gravitation demonstrating the same type of attraction between all masses.
____ 24. Credited with heliocentric system (though it had been proposed by the ancient Greek Aristarchus) and
that the Earth has three motions: daily rotation, annual revolution, and annual tilting of its axis
____ 25. Worked on differential calculus & has an interesting curve misnamed for her, The Witch of _?_
____ 26. Famous philosophical wager: Believing in a nonexistent God is harmless, but not believing if God
does exist would have disastrous consequences.
____ 27. Said he could prove an + bn = cn, for n > 2, but the margin was too narrow for his proof.
____ 28. 3 Laws of Motion–his mechanical physics was only improved later by quantum physics
____ 29. 3 Laws of Planetary Motion – e.g. showed orbits were elliptical, not circular
____ 30. An early computer scientist; also famous for game theory & quantum mechanics; he was also a great partier.
____ 31. Used the method of exhaustion to find area under a parabola, sum of an infinite series and estimate of pi; he was
very close to inventing calculus though his work pre-dated calculus by over 2000 years
____ 32. Islamic mathematician; the title of his algebra treatise gives us our word algebra
____ 33. A brilliant mathematician and scholar, she was brutally murdered by religious zealots who dragged her
through the streets of Alexandria and hacked off her living flesh w/ shells.
____ 34. Devised a famous triangle of numbers used in probability and as coefficients in binomial expansions.
____ 35. The Principle of Buoyancy is named after him. What did he shout upon this discovery?_______________
____ 36. First mathematician that can be named in all of history. Credited w/ 5 geometry theorems. Bertrand
Russell famously said, “Western philosophy begins with _?_”
____ 37. He said, “I know not what I appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy
playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier
shell, whilest the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
____ 38. Right triangles proved to be easy, but supposedly he would commit murder to avoid facing the
existence of irrational numbers; the school he founded was near cult-like.
____ 39. Improved upon probability and analytic geometry; he had so carefully studied his friend Newton’s
Principia that Newton referred anyone with questions to him saying, “Go to Mr. _?_; he knows these
things better than I do.”
____ 40. Developed the algebra of logic; who knew that google searching terms would make his name more
used today than any other mathematicians’?
____ 41. This is the last name of the greatest family of mathematicians ever: Jacob I and II, Johann I, II and III,
Nicolaus I and II, Daniel, and others, all published respected mathematical and science works!
____ 42. Discovered formulas and relationships of volumes of sphere, cylinders, cone, pyramids & prisms;
wanted a sphere inscribed in a cylinder inscribed on his tombstone
____ 43. 𝑒 𝑖𝜋 + 1 = 0 is literally “his identity.”
____ 44. Also a great physicist, he has a unit of physical force named after him. (Logical since he studied
motion.)
____ 45. Also a great physicist, he has a unit of magnetic fields named after him. (If static builds up in your
monitor, you turn it off to “de-____” it.)
General Understanding of Timeline:
______________ 43. List these mathematicians/physicists in order of their date of birth:
A. Archimedes
B. Gauss
C. Newton
D. Einstein
______________ 44. List these mathematicians/philosphers in order of their date of birth:
A. Descartes
B. Zeno
C. Bertrand Russell
D. Pascal
______________ 45. List these mathematicians/astronomers in order of their date of birth:
A. Copernicus
B. Pythagoras
C. Kepler
D. Galileo
______________ 46. List these geometers in order of their date of birth:
A. Bolyai
B. Archimedes
C. Klein
D. Euclid
______________ 47. Match these mathematicians in order of this sequence of their work: approximates pi
using method of exhaustion; logarithms to calculate large numbers; first mechanical
adding machine; first theoretical computer design; early contributions to mainframe
digital computing
A. Pascal
B. Von Neumann C. Archimedes
D. Babbage
E. Napier
______________ 48. List these mathematical developments in chronological order:
A. Mandlebrot and Lorenz work on Fractals and Chaos Theory
B. Brahmagupta publishes rules for the use of zero as a place holder and in computation
C. Newton and Leibniz independently develop Calculus
D. Title of Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-khwārizmī's book adapted to give Algebra its name
E. Fermat and Pascal begin to formalize the study of Probability
F. Boylai & Lobachevsky introduce 1st Non-Euclidean (Hyperbolic) Geometry; followed
soon by Riemann's Elliptic Geometry
G. Euclid creates the first organized/complete deductive system in The Elements