At 12:21 -0700 7/12/1999, John Cowan wrote:
>Figge, Donald wrote:
>
>> Does anyone out there know if the term "vulgar," as related to fractions, is
>> a generic term meaning "a fractional value represented in
>> numerator/denominator mode" (as opposed to decimal representation),
>
>A hasty scan of Alta Vista for "vulgar fractions" tends to confirm
>my intuition: the term means "fractions expressed as ratios of the
>numerator to the denominator", and has no specific typographical
>implications. The algorithms for converting vulgar fractions to decimal
>ones and vice versa work fine for vertical or horizontal fractions
>of whatever width.
>
>--
> John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org
>Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! / Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger
>Schau,
>Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.
> -- Coleridge / Politzer
Vulgar fractions! That takes me right back to sixth grade. Anyway, from
Jeff Miller, a teacher at Gulf High School in New Port Richey, Florida,
Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics (V)
http://members.aol.com/jeff570/v.html
>VULGAR FRACTION. In Latin, the term was fractiones vulgares, and the term
>originally was used to distinguish an ordinary fraction from a
>sexagesimal.
>
>Trenchant (1566) used fraction vulgaire (Smith vol. 2, page 219).
>
>Digges (1572) wrote "the vulgare or common Fractions."
>
>Sylvester used the term in On the theory of vulgar fractions, Amer. J.
>Math. 3 (1880).
>
>The term common fraction is now more widely used.
Miller maintains another set of pages that should be of interest here. It
includes a fairly extensive bibliography of his sources.
Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols
http://members.aol.com/jeff570/mathsym.html
http://members.aol.com/jeff570/sources.html
-- Edward Cherlin edward.cherlin.sy.67@aya.yale.edu "It isn't what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you know that ain't so."--Mark Twain, or else some other prominent 19th century humorist and wit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:48 EDT