Fun Maths Quiz – Printable Version
20 multiple-choice questions with an explained answer key, ready to print.
Print the sheet (or save it as a PDF from the print window), hand it out, then mark it together using the answer page: every answer is explained. Perfect for a party, a birthday, a classroom, a care home or a team activity.
Name: ………………………………Score: ……… / 20
- Who coined the word "googol" for 1 followed by 100 zeros?
- A. A mathematician's 9-year-old nephew
- B. A NASA engineer
- C. A Russian chess champion
- D. A computer in 1960
- What is the approximate value of the golden ratio, often linked to harmonious proportions?
- A. 3.14
- B. 1.618
- C. 2.718
- D. 1.414
- Apart from his sequence, what major contribution do we owe Fibonacci?
- A. He popularised Hindu-Arabic numerals in Europe
- B. He invented the mechanical calculator
- C. He proved that π is irrational
- D. He created the metric system
- If you count the spirals of seeds in the head of a sunflower, which numbers do you often find?
- A. Always 12 and 24
- B. Prime numbers such as 7 and 11
- C. Two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, such as 34 and 55
- D. Multiples of 10
- In French, the sentence "Que j'aime à faire apprendre un nombre utile aux sages" is a memory aid. What for? (English has "How I wish I could calculate pi".)
- A. Memorising the order of the planets
- B. Learning multiplication tables
- C. Remembering the first digits of π, using the number of letters in each word
- D. Remembering prime numbers
- To which people do we owe, through their base-60 numbering, the division of the hour into 60 minutes and the circle into 360 degrees?
- A. The Babylonians
- B. The Romans
- C. The Chinese
- D. The Vikings
- 6 is a "perfect" number because it equals the sum of its divisors (1 + 2 + 3). What is the next perfect number?
- A. 12
- B. 28
- C. 24
- D. 36
- How can you quickly tell whether a number is divisible by 9?
- A. The sum of its digits is divisible by 9
- B. It ends in 9
- C. Its last digit is odd
- D. It contains at least one 9
- What is so special about a Möbius strip, made by joining the ends of a paper strip after a half-twist?
- A. It has only one side and one edge
- B. It cannot be cut
- C. It becomes twice as long
- D. It cannot stand upright
- What was revolutionary about the 1976 proof of the four colour theorem?
- A. It fitted on a single line
- B. It was found by a child
- C. It was the first major proof to rely on a computer
- D. It was published as a poem
- In the Tower of Hanoi, you must move a stack of discs to another peg, one disc at a time, never placing a larger disc on a smaller one. What is the minimum number of moves with 3 discs?
- A. 3
- B. 7
- C. 6
- D. 9
- What did Georg Cantor prove at the end of the 19th century, to the astonishment of many mathematicians?
- A. That infinity does not exist
- B. That the largest number is the googol
- C. That some infinities are bigger than others
- D. That π contains every number
- Which scholar popularised, in a 1637 work, the use of the letters x, y and z for unknowns?
- A. René Descartes
- B. Blaise Pascal
- C. Pierre de Fermat
- D. Galileo
- A price rises by 50% and then falls by 50%. Compared with the starting price, what do you find?
- A. It is back to exactly the same price
- B. It has risen by 25%
- C. It has fallen by 25%
- D. It has fallen by 50%
- How many prime numbers are there?
- A. Exactly 1,000
- B. About 1 million
- C. We still don't know
- D. Infinitely many, as Euclid proved
- Most of the largest known prime numbers take what form?
- A. 2 to the power p, minus 1 (Mersenne numbers)
- B. 10 to the power n, plus 7
- C. A number made only of 1s
- D. The product of two even numbers
- Which award, given every four years to mathematicians under 40, is often called the "Nobel Prize of mathematics"?
- A. The Pulitzer Prize
- B. The Copley Medal
- C. The Turing Award
- D. The Fields Medal
- Which formula, linking e, i, π, 1 and 0, is often voted "the most beautiful formula in mathematics"?
- A. Pythagoras' theorem
- B. E = mc²
- C. The formula for the area of a circle
- D. Euler's identity: e^(iπ) + 1 = 0
- Why can it truthfully be said that almost everyone has more legs than average?
- A. Because the average includes animals
- B. Because children count as half
- C. A few people have fewer than two legs, so the average is slightly below 2
- D. It's false, it's mathematically impossible
- How many panels does the classic football (soccer ball) stitched from black pentagons and white hexagons have?
- A. 32: 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons
- B. 24: 12 pentagons and 12 hexagons
- C. 40: 20 pentagons and 20 hexagons
- D. 64, like a chessboard
Answer key — Fun Maths Quiz
- A. A mathematician's 9-year-old nephewAround 1920, the American mathematician Edward Kasner asked his 9-year-old nephew Milton to think up a name for this gigantic number.
- B. 1.618The golden ratio equals (1 + √5) / 2. It is credited with a strong presence in art and nature, sometimes wrongly: many "golden rectangles" spotted in monuments owe more to their admirers' imagination.
- A. He popularised Hindu-Arabic numerals in EuropeIn his Liber abaci, Fibonacci showed European merchants the superiority of the digits 0 to 9 and written calculation over Roman numerals.
- C. Two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, such as 34 and 55The seeds are arranged at an angle close to 137.5°, linked to the golden ratio, which packs them as tightly as possible.
- C. Remembering the first digits of π, using the number of letters in each wordCount the letters: How (3) I (1) wish (4) I (1) could (5) calculate (9) pi (2) gives 3.141592.
- A. The BabyloniansMore than 4,000 years ago, Mesopotamian scholars counted in base 60, a handy number because it divides by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
- B. 2828 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14. The next ones are 496 and 8,128, after which they become very rare.
- A. The sum of its digits is divisible by 9Example: 7,452 → 7 + 4 + 5 + 2 = 18, divisible by 9, so 7,452 is too.
- A. It has only one side and one edgeAn ant walking along the middle of the strip covers both "sides" without ever crossing an edge.
- C. It was the first major proof to rely on a computerKenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken reduced the problem to over 1,900 cases, checked by computer over hundreds of hours.
- B. 7With n discs, it takes 2ⁿ − 1 moves. The puzzle, invented by the Frenchman Édouard Lucas in 1883, came with a legend: monks moving 64 golden discs would bring about the end of the world.
- C. That some infinities are bigger than othersCantor proved that the real numbers cannot be numbered using the integers 1, 2, 3…: the infinity of the reals is "bigger" than that of the integers.
- A. René DescartesIn La Géométrie, Descartes used the last letters of the alphabet for unknowns and the first ones (a, b, c) for known quantities.
- C. It has fallen by 25%€100 + 50% = €150, then €150 − 50% = €75. The fall applies to a larger amount than the rise: successive percentages do not cancel out.
- D. Infinitely many, as Euclid provedAround 300 BC, Euclid reasoned: if the list were finite, you could multiply all those numbers together and add 1; the result would not be divisible by any of them, which is a contradiction.
- A. 2 to the power p, minus 1 (Mersenne numbers)These numbers, studied by the French monk Marin Mersenne in the 17th century, lend themselves to a very efficient primality test.
- D. The Fields MedalThere is no Nobel Prize in mathematics. A persistent legend blames a romantic rivalry between Alfred Nobel and a mathematician, but there is no evidence for it.
- D. Euler's identity: e^(iπ) + 1 = 0In a single equation, it brings together the five most important constants in mathematics and the three basic operations.
- C. A few people have fewer than two legs, so the average is slightly below 2The average is a little under 2 (say 1.99), so anyone with two legs is "above average".
- A. 32: 12 pentagons and 20 hexagonsThis design, popularised by the 1970 World Cup ball, follows a polyhedron described by Archimedes: the truncated icosahedron.