Obelus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
÷
Obelus
Punctuation
apostrophe ( ' )
brackets ( [ ], ( ), { },   )
colon ( : )
comma ( , ، 、 )
dash ( , –, —, ― )
ellipsis ( …, ..., . . . )
exclamation mark ( ! )
full stop / period ( . )
hyphen ( )
hyphen-minus ( - )
question mark ( ? )
quotation marks (  ’, “ ”, ' ', " " )
semicolon ( ; )
slash / stroke / solidus ( /,    )
Word dividers
interpunct ( · )
space ( ) () ()
General typography
ampersand ( & )
asterisk ( * )
at sign ( @ )
backslash ( \ )
bullet ( )
caret ( ^ )
dagger ( †, ‡ )
degree ( ° )
ditto mark ( )
inverted exclamation mark ( ¡ )
inverted question mark ( ¿ )
number sign / pound / hash / octothorpe ( # )
numero sign ( )
obelus ( ÷ )
ordinal indicator ( º, ª )
percent, per mil ( %, ‰ )
plus and minus ( + − )
basis point ( )
pilcrow ( )
prime ( ′, ″, ‴ )
section sign ( § )
tilde ( ~ )
underscore / understrike ( _ )
vertical bar / broken bar / pipe ( ¦, | )
Intellectual property
copyright symbol ( © )
registered trademark ( ® )
service mark ( )
sound recording copyright ( )
trademark ( )
Currency
currency (generic) ( ¤ )
currency (specific)
( ฿ ¢ $ ƒ £ ¥ )
Uncommon typography
asterism ( )
hedera ( )
index / fist ( )
interrobang ( )
irony punctuation ( )
lozenge ( )
reference mark ( )
tie ( )
Related
diacritical marks
logic symbols
whitespace characters
non-English quotation style ( « », „  )
In other scripts
Chinese punctuation
Hebrew punctuation
Japanese punctuation
Korean punctuation
  • Book
  • Category
  • Portal

An obelus (symbol: ÷, plural: obeli) is a symbol consisting of a short horizontal line with a dot above and below. It is mainly used to represent the mathematical operation of division. It is therefore commonly called the division sign.

History

The word "obelus" comes from ὀβελός, the Ancient Greek word for a sharpened stick, spit, or pointed pillar. This is the same root as that of the word "obelisk". Originally this sign (or a plain line) was used in ancient manuscripts to mark passages that were suspected of being corrupted or spurious. The dagger symbol, also called an obelisk, is derived from the obelus and continues to be used for this purpose.

The obelus, invented by Aristarchus to mark suspected passages in Homer, is frequent in manuscripts of the Gospel to mark just those sections, like the Pericope in John, which modern editors reject. The first corrector of א, probably the contemporary διορθωτής (copy-editor, rectifier, proofreader), was at pains to enclose in brackets and mark with dots for deletion two famous passages in Luke written by the original scribe which, being absent from B W 579 and the Egyptian versions, we infer were not accepted in the text at that time dominant in Alexandria, viz. the incident of the "Bloody Sweat" in Gethsemane (Lk.xxi.43 f.) and the saying "Father forgive them" (Lk.xi.34).[1]

Although previously used for subtraction, the obelus was first used as a symbol for division in 1659 in the algebra book Teutsche Algebra by Johann Rahn. Some think that John Pell, who edited the book, may have been responsible for this use of the symbol. The usage of the obelus to represent subtraction continued in some parts of Europe (including Norway and, until fairly recently, Denmark).[2]

Plus – and minuses. The obelus — or division sign — used as a variant of the minus sign in an excerpt from an official Norwegian trading statement form called «Næringsoppgave 1» for the taxation year 2010.

In computer systems

In Microsoft Windows, the obelus is produced with Alt+0247 on the number pad or by pressing Alt Gr, Shift and the "+ =" key. In Mac OS, it is produced with Option + / (Option + slash).

On UNIX-based systems using Screen or X with a Compose key enabled, it can be produced by composing : (colon) and - (minus), though this is locale- and setting-dependent. It may also be input by Unicode code-point on GTK-based applications by pressing Control + Shift + U, followed by the codepoint in hexadecimal (F7) and terminated by return.

In the Unicode character set, the obelus is known as the “division sign” and has the code point U+00F7.[3] In HTML, it can be encoded as ÷ or ÷ (at HTML level 3.2), or as ÷.

In LaTeX, the obelus is obtained by \div.

See also

  • Commercial minus sign, ⁒, which visually resembles a tilted obelus
  • Slash (punctuation), /, also known as a solidus, another symbol for division
  • Obelism

Notes

  1. Burnett Hillman Streeter, The Four Gospels, London, Macmillan, 1924    The Aristarchus referred to was presumably Aristarchus of Samothrace.
  2. Cajori, Florian (1993), A history of mathematical notations (two volumes bound as one), Dover, pp. 242, 270–271, ISBN 9780486677668 . Reprint of 1928 edition.
  3. Korpela, Jukka (2006), Unicode Explained: Internationalize documents, programs, and web sites, O'Reilly Media, Inc., p. 397, ISBN 9780596101213 .

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.