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Where and When Did the Symbols “+” and “–” Originate?

By barzilaiendan on November 9, 2013 • ( 0 )

The symbols for the arithmetic operations of addition (plus; “+”) and subtraction (minus; “–”) are so common today we hardly ever think about the fact that they didn’t always exist. In fact, someone first had to invent these symbols (or at least other ones that later evolved into the current form), and some time surely had to pass before the symbols were universally adopted. When I started looking into the history of these signs, I discovered to my surprise that they did not have their origin in antiquity. Much of what we know is based on an impressively comprehensive and still unsurpassed research (in 1928–1929) entitled History of Mathematical Notations by the Swiss-American historian of mathematics, Florian Cajori (1859–1930).

The ancient Greeks expressed addition mostly by juxtaposition, but sporadically used the slash symbol “/” for addition and a semi-elliptical curve for subtraction. In the famous EgyptianAhmes papyrus, a pair of legs walking forward marked addition, and walking away subtraction. The Hindus, like the Greeks, usually had no mark for addition, except that “yu” was used in the Bakhshali manuscript Arithmetic (which probably dates to the third or fourth century). Towards the end of the fifteenth century, the French mathematician Chuquet (in 1484) and the Italian Pacioli (in 1494) used “ $\boldmath{\bar{\bf p}}$ ” or “p” (indicating plus) for addition and “ $\boldmath{\widetilde{\bf m}}$ ” or “m” (indicating minus) for subtraction.