Origin of some Math symbols

Origin of some Math symbols

 

Origin of some Math symbols with meaning, introduced by and the year.

 

Here’s the corrected and rewritten version of the table:

Symbol	Meaning	Introduced by	Year
∞	Infinity	John Wallis	1655
e	Base of the natural logarithm	Leonhard Euler	1736
π	Ratio of the circumference to the diameter	William Jones	1706
i	Square root of -1	Leonhard Euler	1777 (published in 1794)
j, k	Unit vectors	William Rowan Hamilton	1853
Π(α)	Angle of parallelism	Nikolai Lobachevsky	1835
x, y, z	Unknown or variable quantities	René Descartes	1637
v⃗	Vector	Augustin-Louis Cauchy	1853
+, –	Addition, Subtraction	German mathematicians	End of 15th century
×	Multiplication	William Oughtred	1631
⋅	Multiplication	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz	1698
::	Division	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz	1684
a²,…,an	Powers	René Descartes	1637
√	Square root	Christoph Rudolff	1525
n√	n-th roots	Albert Girard	1629
Log	Logarithm	Johannes Kepler	1624
log	Logarithm	Johann Bernoulli	1698
sin	Sine	Leonhard Euler	1748
cos	Cosine	Leonhard Euler	1748
tan	Tangent	Leonhard Euler	1753
arctan	Inverse tangent (arctangent)	Joseph Louis Lagrange	1772
sh	Hyperbolic sine	Vincenzo Riccati	1757
ch	Hyperbolic cosine	Vincenzo Riccati	1757
dx, ddx, d²x, d³x,…	Differentials	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz	1675 (published in 1684)
∫y dx	Integral of y with respect to x	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz	1675 (published in 1684)
d/dx	Derivative with respect to x	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz	1675
Symbol	Meaning	Introduced by	Year
f′, y′, f′′	Derivative	Joseph Louis Lagrange	1770-1779
Δx	Difference, Increment	Leonhard Euler	1755
∂/∂x	Partial derivative with respect to x	Adrien-Marie Legendre	1786
∫ f(x) dx	Definite integral	Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier	1819-1820
∑	Sum	Leonhard Euler	1755
∏	Product	Carl Friedrich Gauss	1812
!	Factorial	Christian Kramp	1808
x	Absolute value
lim	Limit	Sylvestre l’Huillier	1786
lim n→∞</sub>	Limit as n approaches infinity	Various mathematicians	Beginning of 20th century
ζ	Riemann zeta-function	Bernhard Riemann	1857
Γ	Gamma function	Adrien-Marie Legendre	1808
Δ	Laplace operator	Robert Murphy	1833
∇	Nabla, Hamilton operator	William Rowan Hamilton	1853
ϕx	Function	Johann Bernoulli	1718
=	Equality	Robert Recorde	1557
>, <	Greater than, Less than	Thomas Harriot	1631
≡	Congruence	Carl Friedrich Gauss	1801
∥	Parallel	William Oughtred	1677 (posthumously published)
⊥	Perpendicular	Claude-Gaspard Bachet	1634

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