The history of mathematical notation is commonly divided into three stages: rhetorical, syncopated, and symbolic.
Notes on verification
Multiple independent sources, including Wikipedia and peer-reviewed critique (Heeffer), confirm this tripartite division traces to Nesselmann (1842) and is widely cited, though some modern historians critique it as oversimplified.
Sources
- Timeline of mathematics (en.wikipedia.org)
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2000.tb17262.x (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
- https://www.cut-the-knot.org/language/symb.shtml (cut-the-knot.org)
- https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ON-THE-NATURE-AND-ORIGIN-OF-ALGEBRAIC-SYMBOLISM-Heeffer/08f005a973ac17412b53cfa972e187819a740771 (semanticscholar.org)
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/1807.11704 (arxiv.org)
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10649-006-9023-7 (link.springer.com)