Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c13.36

c13.36

If reference be made to the writings of Diophantus, and of the Arabian algebraists, and their early disciples in Europe, it will be found, that the notation, which has been here described, is essentially different from all theirs; much as they vary. Diophantus employs the inverted medial of *elleipsis*,* defect or want (opposed to *huparxis*,* substance or abundance)56 to indicate a negative quantity. He prefixes that mark Ψ to the quantity in question. He calls the unknown, *arithmos*;* representing it by the final S,* which he doubles for the plural; while the Arabian algebraists apply the equivalent word for number to the constant or known term; and the Hindus, on the other hand, refer the word for numerical character to the coefficient. He denotes the monad, or unit absolute, by μ°; and the linear quantity is called by him *arithmos*; and designated, like the unknown, by the final *sigma*. He marks the further powers by initials of words signifying them: δ', κ', δδ', δκ', κκ' & c. for *dynamis*, power (meaning the square); *cubos*, cube; *dynamo-dynamis*, biquadrate, & c. But he reckons the higher by the sums, not the products, of the lower. Thus the sixth power is with him the *cubo-cubos*, which the Hindus designate as the quadratecube, (cube of the square, or square of the cube).