mantissa etymology

Etymology:

• Latin mantissa, from Ancient Greek mantis, meaning "prophetess" or "seer"

Meaning:

• In mathematics, the mantissa is the part of a logarithm or floating-point number that represents the fraction of the number.
• In trigonometry, the mantissa of a function (e.g., sine, cosine) is the value that excludes the integer part of the function.

Origin:

The term mantissa was first used in astronomy by the ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus (c. 190 – c. 120 BCE) to refer to the fractional part of a number that represented the difference between the position of a celestial object in the sky and its expected position.

The term was later adopted by mathematicians and trigonometrists to describe the fractional part of a logarithm or trigonometric function. The idea behind the name is that the mantissa reveals the "hidden" or "prophetic" part of the number, similar to the way a seer or prophetess discloses hidden knowledge.

mantissa relate terms

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