Short Stuff: Origin of Math Signs | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

foreign. [Music]. stuff I'm Josh and there's Chuck and. this is short stuff and we are going to. talk about something that has been. overlooked for far too long which is the. origins of the plus minus multiplication. division and equal symbols I thought. this was really cool by the way I uh you. put this together with help from uh. Fasco Caltech science ABC among other. places and I had never thought about.

this stuff because I'm not a math person. but I love origin stories but I thought. this is really neat especially the fact. that these symbols came about to begin. with because uh people before they had. these you you wrote out a math problem. like this long word problem but but not. like you know a train's traveling in. this direction kind of thing it's more. like uh I have divided 10 into two parts. and multiplying one of these by the. other the results was 21 then you know.

that one of the parts is thing and the. other is 10 minus thing right that was. an excerpt from a 9th century algebra. book by the mathematician Muhammad IBN. Musa al-karwazumi. I'm pretty sure that's his name today. you would take that same formula and. write it out as x times 10 minus x. equals 21. yeah so simple that's it and it that.

reveals why these things were so. important you it just saves you so much. time so not only did it make writing an. algebra book that much more attractive. it made teaching it that much faster you. might not have necessarily learned it. any faster right but you definitely. could teach these things faster with. these notations rather than writing it. out and I also saw Chuck that some of. the um those sentences that they would. write some people would put it in. diverse metered verse like poems that.

that takes a lot of time and it's. unnecessary yeah and especially at the. time when you're writing with a Eagles. feather and an Inkwell. sure you know what I mean that really. drags too it's not like you're just. dashing this stuff off with a pencil. nope so some folks came along and. changed all that uh according to the vnr. concise Encyclopedia of mathematics hot. read uh the origin of the equal sign. goes like this a man named Robert uh.

record or record a was the Royal Court. physician for King Edward the six and. Queen Mary and very influential uh. mathematician in Wales and he got tired. of writing out uh equals over and over. so he thus proposed the equal sign. because it is too little equal lines and. that's parallel equal lines and this I. never thought about it but it's.

brilliant yeah he said a pair of. parallels or twin lines of one length. and then he spelled he shows what he's. talking about because no two things can. be more equal. and there's a lot of extra vowels in. those words but yeah um he gets the. point across and he he was saying like. this is such a great time saver I'm so. tired of saying is equal to and he wrote. it in the a book called The Whetstone of. wit and of course the Whetstone is what. you sharpen things with so it sharpens. your wit to read this book I love that.

title yeah and it actually became very. influential and well read as far as 16th. century math books go and Robert record. is credited with coming up with the. minus symbol and introducing it to his. people back then the equal sign you mean. what'd I say minus sign. oh just wait chuck all right well we're. there uh plus and minus are what we use. to indicate adding something and. subtracting something as everyone knows. uh they come the the terms themselves. come from Latin uh where plus means more.

and minus means less. uh and the other thing is the plus. symbol itself is also from the Latin. word ET meaning and like this and that. equals that uh which is pretty great so. at one point there was a French. philosopher named Nicole uh oresme. from The 14th Century who used that plus. sign as a shorthand for et which is what.

they used to write and at first it. didn't take right I think like people. weren't uh universally accepting this. yeah it wasn't until like the 16th or. 17th century that it started to really. kind of take off I think the 16th. century okay and apparently there was. competition at first too that it wasn't. just the plain old plus sign the the. equal cross that there were other. crosses in the in the running too. including the Maltese cross it's a great. looking cross yeah but it takes a lot.

more time to write the Maltese cross out. than it does to make a plus symbol and. the whole point of these things was to. save time so everybody said yeah Maltese. cross we like you but we're gonna go. with the plus sign that's right so. that's plus uh we got equals we got plus. minus now in Europe there was an Italian. mathematician named Luca pacioli and. Luca was using the symbol uh P with a. little line over it for plus an m with a. little line of it over it for minus and.

no one's exactly sure but it seems to be. that uh the the M was just dropped right. and then the minus sign because we. already had a plus sign yeah became the. minus sign yeah so you don't need the. plus sign Forget You p with the tilde. over it we're going to take the M. instead and it was it wasn't Robert. record who came up with that but he was. the one who introduced it to England. right and I never knew it was called a.

tildee. I didn't either that line over the P or. the m. yeah I think that's what they call it so. yeah and I don't know if it's if the. minus sign itself is called that or if. it has to be over the letter to be. called that all right well there are a. couple of other words that I did not. know coming up right after the break. [Music]. work work. [Music].

all right we're gonna wind it out with. the multiplication symbol and the. division symbol multiplication if you. say it's a little X you are incorrect. because it is not an X it's actually. called the cross of San Andreas because. X well not because but it would be very. confusing because X is already a thing.

in math like you're solving for x x. represents something in math so it's. it's actually incorrect to say it's a. little X yeah if you do that at a math. conference they will find the nearest. fire hose and flow you mercilessly with. it they will so um yeah that makes total. sense and it was a guy named uh William. autred. who was writing and I think the 16th. century like this 1630s. and he was the one who introduced it.

he's credited with this but the people. at science ABC went to the trouble of. digging up the fact that there's an. anonymous appendix in a translation of. another book of logarithms from 1618. where the cross of San Andreas is first. used. okay so but he introduced it in before. that right no after but since it was. Anonymous in the appendix they don't. know who to credit it with and. Alfred you need to win today we're going.

to credit you with that. uh I mentioned before the break that. there were a couple of more words that I. didn't realize uh were words. um and that is the the division symbol. that apparently I didn't even know this. is not even really used anymore. officially which is to say the line uh. like the minus symbol with a DOT above. it and a DOT below it in the center that. is actually called an obelisk yeah that. symbol you know what it reminds me of of.

that calculator that was shaped like a. big plastic owl. oh yeah I associate that with I remember. those yeah I didn't know it was called. an obelisk either and I also didn't know. that Obelisk is an old Greek word for. sharpened stick and that that division. symbol the Obelisk is supposed to. represent a small dagger yeah it looks. like one so I guess what it's doing is. it's cutting in half it's cutting a. portion out Ah that's the only thing I. can come up with okay I like that though. sure and we can thank Johann Ron who's.

Swiss not Swedish who started using it. all the way back in 1659. that's right. uh the other word I did not know is the. what is now uh the backslash symbol for. division is called a either a fraction. bar or a solidus yeah didn't know that. either I didn't know that that was the. exclusive thing now this is how out of. touch with math I am yeah apparently the. iso the International Organization for. standardization who aren't familiar with.

how to create an acronym right they said. that you could only use the solidus or. the fraction bar to indicate Division. and that the Obelisk is out out out ah. but science ABC said don't worry. everybody listen if you go on to your. keyboard you know what's weird I haven't. tried this did you try it no. I'm gonna try it right now why don't you. go ahead and tell everybody what you're. supposed to do and I'm going to try it. myself Chuck well what you do is you. hold the ALT key on your keyboard and.

then press two four six on the number. pad. and what do we got my friend I think. maybe you have to press it at once hold. on two four six. you got lies that's what you got Chuck. 30 lies uh well let me try then you you. talk for a second okay so I'm gonna do. it again two four six with all pressed. at the same time in Microsoft Word the. current version of Microsoft Word won't. do it. uh.

uh I don't even know if I have word on. this laptop the thing that gives it away. for why I think this might not be. correct any longer is that they. mentioned that you press the numbers 246. on your number pad Remember When numbers. used to be off to the side on the. keyboard and their own thing. well I've got a keyboard like that. work for you so alt two four six yeah I. think at the same time. that's hard to do I'm trying to it's.

like fingering a weird guitar chord. that didn't work alt two four six right. this is just BS they got us Chuck they. got us as good as Debbie Ronka did with. that whole thing about Judas spilling. the salt shaker in the Last Supper all. right let me try one more thing two four. six no it's not working okay well I'm. sorry everybody that we misled you but. I'm glad we worked it out so you don't. have to email us about it yeah maybe. someone knows though and can uh tell us.

what we're doing wrong yeah we love. hearing that. uh and while we wait for you to write in. short stuff is out. stuff you should know is a production of. iHeartRadio for more podcasts my heart. radio visit the iHeartRadio app Apple. podcasts or wherever you listen to your. favorite shows. [Music].