Why m in y mx b

One of the most common is that the letter was used by Descarte because it was the first letter of some French word or another that related. I inquired, and she said because of the "American" word "slope. Here are several other clips from postings about the topic on a discussion group about math history.

In his "Earliest Uses of Symbols from Geometry" web page, The slope can be positive or negative, based on its direction. A negative slope moves downward from left to right and a line with positive slope moves in the upward direction from right to left. Learn Practice Download. Have questions on basic mathematical concepts? Become a problem-solving champ using logic, not rules.

Learn the why behind math with our certified experts. How to Find the Slope of a Line? What Does the Slope of a Line Mean? And if that textbook author wrote it long ago, and the textbook was adopted for significant time, it becomes a standard just by means of tradition.

Perhaps the key take away is to explain it in some manner so that your student can connect with it. Why did it switch to capital letters?

It seems like we could do this in a more logical fashion. The standard form of the equation of a line has always gotten on my nerves. Great explanation. Hope this helps! Why is the B the Y intercept and not Y? What do we find? Improve this question. Mike Pierce. Mike Pierce Mike Pierce 4, 1 1 gold badge 15 15 silver badges 50 50 bronze badges. See mathforum. Those letters and their order makes sense.

The letters that we use are completely irrelevant to the math. It might be an interesting historical question that is worth asking, but I'm concerned that if we attach artificial meaning to the letters, students will focus on that instead of the underlying mathematics. Show 4 more comments.

Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. I found this thread on Reddit , and this footnote on mathisfun. The map is probably bogus and I've tried to update my answer accordingly. Show 1 more comment.