P. HISTORY OF ' AATHEMATICAL - School of Mathematics

ROOTS 363
cuberoot by rrr, fourth root by rr, marks powers by co., ce., cu., c. ce.,
and "plus" by p, "minus" by m, "equal" by eq.
In Holland, Adrianus Romanus1 used a small r, but instead of v
wrote a dot to mark a root of a binomial or polynomial; he wrote
r bin. 2+r bin. 2+r bin. 2+r 2. to designate 42+42+/23.
In Tartaglia's arithmetic, as translated into French by Gosselin2
of Caen, in 1613, one finds the familiar R cu to mark cube root. A
modification was introduced by the Scotsman James H ~me,~ residing
in Paris, who in his algebra of 1635 introduced Roman fiumerals to
indicate the order of the root (5 190). Two years later, the French
text by Jacqves de Billy4 used RQ, RC, RQC for /-, r, F,
respectively.
321. Seventeenth-century use of &.-During the seventeenth century,
the symbol R lost ground steadily but at the close of the century
it still survived; it was used, for instance, by Michael Rolle5 who em-
--
ployed the signs 2+R.-121. to represent 2+/--121, and R. trin.
- - -- -- -.
Gaabb - ga4b - b3 to represent /Ga2b2- ga4b - b3. In 1690 H. Vitalis'
takes Rq to represent secunda radix, i.e., the radix next after the square
root. Consequently, with him, as with Scheubel, 3. R. 2* 8, meant
3Y8, or 6.
The sign R or 8, representing a radical, had its strongest foothold
in Italy and Spain, and its weakest in England. With the close of the
seventeenth century it practically passed away as a radical sign; the
symbol / gained general ascendancy. Elsewhere it will be pointed
out in detail that some authors employed R to represent the unknown
x. Perhaps its latest regular appearance as a radical sign is in the
Spanish text of Perez de Moya (5 320), the first edition of which appeared
in 1562. The fourteenth edition was issued in 1784; it still
gave rrr as signifying cube root, and rr as fourth root. Moya's book
offers a most striking example of the persistence for centuries of old and
clumsy notations, even when far superior notations are in general use.
Zdeae Mathmatime Pars Prima, . . . . Adriano Romano Lwaniensi (Antwerp,
1593), following the Preface.
L'Arilhmelique de Nicolas Tartaglia Brescian, traduit ... par Gvillavmo
Gosselin de Caen, Premier Partie (Paris, 1613), p. 101.
a James Hume, Traile' de l'algebre (Paris, 1635), p. 53.
Jacqves de Billy, Abrege' des Preceptes dlAlgebre (Rheims, 1637), p. 21.
Juud des Scavans de 1'An 1683 (Amsterdam, 1709), p. 97.
Lexiwn maihmalicum ... authol-e Hieronymo Vilali (Rome, 1690), art.
"Algebra."