I'm gonna take a wild stab here and assume that this is "Q" as the medieval Latin abbreviation for "quingenti", which usually means 500, but also gets glossed just as a big number, as in "milia quingenta" "thousands upon thousands". Maybe some medieval scribe substituted a Q for |V| (with an overscore on the V), which would be the more normal way to write 5,000 and then 500,000.
--Ken
> Now that Q = 500,000 bit seems a little odd to me. I've never seen
> that anywhere else. Does anyone know where it came from? Is there real
> usage of Q for 500,000?
>
> —Ben Scarborough
>
Received on Mon Jan 07 2013 - 20:20:55 CST
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