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A vinculum (from Latin vinculum 'fetter, chain, tie') is a horizontal line used in mathematical notation for various purposes. It may be placed as an overline or underline above or below a mathematical expression to group the expression's elements.
The divisor is separated from the dividend by a right parenthesis ) or vertical bar | ; the dividend is separated from the quotient by a vinculum (i.e., an overbar). The combination of these two symbols is sometimes known as a long division symbol or division bracket. [8]
An overline, overscore, or overbar, is a typographical feature of a horizontal line drawn immediately above the text. In old mathematical notation, an overline was called a vinculum, a notation for grouping symbols which is expressed in modern notation by parentheses, though it persists for symbols under a radical sign.
Historically, other notations, such as the vinculum, were similarly used for grouping. In present-day use, these notations all have specific meanings. The earliest use of brackets to indicate aggregation (i.e. grouping) was suggested in 1608 by Christopher Clavius, and in 1629 by Albert Girard. [2]
Rather than using the ambiguous division sign (÷), [a] division is usually represented with a vinculum, a horizontal line, as in 3 / x + 1 . In plain text and programming languages, a slash (also called a solidus) is used, e.g. 3 / (x + 1). Exponents are usually formatted using superscripts, as in x 2.
The symbol was first seen in print without the vinculum (the horizontal "bar" over the numbers inside the radical symbol) in the year 1525 in Die Coss by Christoff Rudolff, a German mathematician. In 1637 Descartes was the first to unite the German radical sign √ with the vinculum to create the radical symbol in common use today. [3]
The modern dagger symbol originated from a variant of the obelus, originally depicted by a plain line −, or a line with one or two dots ⨪ ÷. [7] It represented an iron roasting spit, a dart, or the sharp end of a javelin, [8] symbolizing the skewering or cutting out of dubious matter.
Wikipedia's guide to rendering mathematical formulas using TeX markup and HTML.