M slope what does m stand for

I take this as evidence that the concept of slope had not crystallized and so name was attached to it. Both the word "slope" and the use of the letter "m" seem to have originated in the USA. Fred Rickey I just wanted to say that I think of m as standing for "move" and b for "begin. You can use the b value to plot the "beginning" point 0,b. Then the m value instructs you where to "move" from point 0,b to plot the next point, thus giving you the line for the equation.

Get a new mixed Fun Trivia quiz each day in your email. It's a fun way to start your day! Each time you remove a letter from it, it still remains an English word - from nine letters right down to a single letter. What is the original word, and what are the words that it becomes after removing one letter at a time?

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Descartes, who was French, did not use m. Eves suggests "it just happened. The earliest known use of m for slope appears in Vincenzo Riccati? Aequationes primi gradus construere. This use of m was found by Dr. In Analytic Geometry by Arthur M. Harding and George W. Since in Russian the slope is called 'the angle coefficient' and the word coefficient is spelled with k in the Cyrillic alphabet, usually nobody questioned the use of k. The use of b is less clear.

Mostly habit I would hope some of my international readers would tell us what THEY use for the linear coefficient symbol in this slope intercept form of the equation; especially if they actually do use m. Jim Jim 5 5 silver badges 14 14 bronze badges.

There are a number of very good answers there. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Clive Newstead Clive Newstead I saw the MathWorld page, I was hoping someone knew more than what was written there.

Premraj Premraj 4 4 bronze badges. So I like to think of the "m" as standing for "matrix". Steven Gubkin Steven Gubkin 7, 21 21 silver badges 45 45 bronze badges. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. He writes that the technical Swedish word for "slope" is "riktningskoefficient", which literally means "direction coefficient," and he supposes k comes from "koefficient.

He writes that the Dutch word for "slope" is "richtingscoefficient", which also means "direction coefficient. It is not known why the letter m was chosen for slope; the choice may have been arbitrary. John Conway has suggested m could stand for "modulus of slope.