4 ms·

I've heard this etymology before, but the article would be a lot more convincing if it showed an actual in-the-wild example of the "intermediate form" of the sy

• lamuerteflaca 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign I see no reason why make something up that would be quite easy to disprove by looking at old records.
  • eru 12y ago
    Oh, it's still the internet. People are lazy, and people make up things all the time.
• nemo 12y ago
  Florian Cajori's A History of Mathematical Notations goes into the history and notes examples of old written manuscripts showing the intermediate form in use, with one example where both were used interchangeably in a letter. He examined the question in depth, showed that the earliest uses in the US had a single stroke, with the double stroke only coming later, and dealt with the other theories showing as conclusively as possible that it's a peso sign composed of a superimposed P/S. It's an old book, and not on a web site, but you could probably find a copy at a library.
  • acqq 12y ago
    Here's the link to the book you refer to (two volumes in one, the second volume starts at p. 469). I can't see where it writes about the dollar sign, can you help me? http://monoskop.org/images/2/21/Cajori_Florian_A_History_of_Mathematical_Notations_2_Vols.pdf http://monoskop.org/images/2/21/Cajori_Florian_A_History_of_... Edit: thanks Nemo!
    • nemo 12y ago
      It starts on p. 15 of volume II, around 2/3s of the way into the pdf.