Division sign

Mathematical symbol From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The division sign (÷) is a mathematical symbol consisting of a short horizontal line with a dot above and another dot below, used in Anglophone countries to indicate the operation of division. This usage, though widespread in some countries, is not universal and the symbol has a different meaning in other countries. Its use to denote division is not recommended in the ISO 80000-2 standard for mathematical notation.[1]

Quick Facts ÷, In Unicode ...
÷
Division sign
In UnicodeU+00F7 ÷ DIVISION SIGN (÷, ÷)
Different from
Different fromU+2052 COMMERCIAL MINUS SIGN

U+002B + PLUS SIGN
U+2020 DAGGER

U+034B ͋ COMBINING HOMOTHETIC ABOVE
Related
See alsoU+2236 RATIO

U+003A : COLON
U+002F / SOLIDUS
U+2044 FRACTION SLASH

U+2215 DIVISION SLASH
Close

In mathematics

Summarize
Perspective
Thumb
Plus and minuses. The obelus  or division sign  used as a variant of the minus sign in an excerpt from an official Norwegian trading statement form called «Næringsoppgave 1» for the taxation year 2010.

The obelus, a historical glyph consisting of a horizontal line with (or without) one or more dots, was first used as a symbol for division in 1659, in the algebra book Teutsche Algebra by Johann Rahn, although previous writers had used the same symbol for subtraction.[2] Some near-contemporaries believed that John Pell, who edited the book, may have been responsible for this use of the symbol.[2] Other symbols for division include the slash or solidus /, the colon :, and the fraction bar (the horizontal bar in a vertical fraction).[3][4] The ISO 80000-2 standard for mathematical notation recommends only the solidus / or "fraction bar" for division, or the "colon" : for ratios; it says that the ÷ sign "should not be used" for division.[1]

In Italy, Poland and Russia, the ÷ sign was sometimes used to denote a range of values, and in Scandinavian countries it was, and sometimes still is, used as a negation sign:[5] the Unicode Consortium has allocated a separate code point, U+2052 COMMERCIAL MINUS SIGN for this usage uniquely;[6][7] the exact form of the symbol displayed is typeface (font) dependent.

In computer systems

Encoding

The symbol was assigned to code point 0xF7 in ISO 8859-1, as the "division sign". This encoding was transferred to Unicode as U+00F7.[8] In HTML, it can be encoded as ÷ or ÷ (at HTML level 3.2), or as ÷.

Unicode provides various division symbols:[9]

More information Codepoint, Name ...
CodepointNameSymbol
U+00F7Division Sign÷
U+27CCLong Division
U+2215Division Slash
U+2A38Circled Division Sign
U+2797Heavy Division Sign
U+2298Circled Division Slash
U+22C7Division Times
U+29BCCircled Anticlockwise-Rotated Division Sign
Close

See also

Notes

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.