Posts Tagged ‘Bellos’
“God made the integers; all the rest is the work of Man”*…
From Alex Bellos: the results of his global online poll to find the world’s favorite number…
The winner? Seven— and it wasn’t even close…
###
As we settle for anything but snake eyes, we might send symbolic birthday greetings to John Pell; he was born on this date in 1611. An English mathematician of accomplishment, he is perhaps best remembered for having introduced the “division sign”– the “obelus”: a short line with dots above and below– into use in English. It was first used in German by Johann Rahn in 1659 in Teutsche Algebra; Pell’s translation brought the symbol to English-speaking mathematicians. But Pell was an important influence on Rahn, and edited his book– so may well have been, many scholars believe, the originator of the symbol for this use. (In any case the symbol wasn’t new to them: the obelus [derived from the word for “roasting spit” in Greek] had already been used to mark passages in writings that were considered dubious, corrupt or spurious…. a use that surely seems only too appropriate to legions of second and third grade math students.)
You must be logged in to post a comment.