Subject: [HM] Terminology: exponent ?
From: Walter Felscher (walter.felscher@uni-tuebingen.de)
Date: Mon Aug 28 2000 - 18:15:20 EDT
In a German book on logic which appeared in 1812, the author (at
that time director of a gymnasium at N"urnberg) writes about the
fraction 2/7 that in it the numbers 2 and 7 are moments of each
other and also of a third one "called the exponent":
..., so sind 2 und 7 sonst gleichg"ultige Quanta; indem sie
aber hier nur als Momemnte , eines des anderen, und damit
eines Dritten (des Quantums, das der Exponent heiszt)
auftreten, so ... [p.245]
Ebenso ist ihre Beziehung selbst ein gew"ohnliches Quantum, der
Exponent des Verh"altnisses. [p.246]
I never read this use of 'exponent' for a fraction viewed as the
relationship between denominator and quotient, but then I am not
familiar with the arithmetical terminology of that time. Was it
customary then and there, or was it one of the (many other)
paerticularities of the author, G.W.F.Hegel ?
Walter Felscher
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