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History

In a manuscript published sometime in the fifteenth century, a dot placed before a number is made to signify the extraction of a root of that number.

This dot is the embryo of our present symbol for the square root.

Christoff Rudolff, in his algebra, remarks that " the "radif guadrata is, for brevity, designated in his algorithm with the character >, as y.

" Here the dot has grown into a symbol much like our own.

This same symbol was used by Micliael Stifel.