surd etymology

Etymology:

  • Latin: surdus "deaf"
  • Proto-Indo-European: *(s)wêr- "to speak" (with the addition of a privative prefix s-)

Meaning:

A surd is a term used in mathematics to describe a number that is not rational. A rational number can be expressed as a fraction of two integers, but a surd cannot. The term is most commonly used in the context of square roots and cube roots, which are both surds.

Origin:

The term surd was first used in the 16th century by the Italian mathematician Gerolamo Cardano. Cardano used the term to describe numbers that could not be represented by a fraction of two integers, and he coined the term from the Latin word surdus, meaning "deaf." This is because Cardano believed that these numbers were "deaf" to the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

The term surd is still used today in mathematics to describe numbers that are not rational. Surds are often used in algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, and they play an important role in many areas of mathematics.

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