Re: Too narrowly defined: DIVISION SIGN & COLON

On 11 Jul 2012, at 03:01, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:

> Hans Aberg, Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:41:26 +0200:
>> On 10 Jul 2012, at 21:30, Asmus Freytag wrote:
>>> On 7/10/2012 3:50 AM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>>>> Asmus Freytag, Mon, 09 Jul 2012 19:32:47 -0700:
>>>>> The European use (this is not limited to Scandinavia)
>>>> Thanks. It seems to me that that this tradition is not without a link
>>>> to the (also) European tradition of *not* using the DIVISION SIGN (÷)
>>>> for division.
>>>
>>> Is it _ever_ used for division? I'm curious, right now I can't
>>> recall ever having seen an example.
>>
>> The WP "Obelus" article says that it was used as a sign for division
>> in 1659, otherwise used for subtraction, continued in Norway, and
>> until recently, in Denmark.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelus
>
> Thanks. Scandinavia's history indicates that if known in Denmark,
> Norway and Finland, then it should be known on Iceland and in Sweden
> too.

I can't recall the obelus being used for anything math in Sweden, and Bonnier's encyclopedia from 1965, in its "matemmatik" article, says that ":" is used for division and "/" to denote fractions. I think it is the traditional use, before the days of computers.

Hans
Received on Wed Jul 11 2012 - 03:25:35 CDT