Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!autodesk!melange!abeals From: abeals@autodesk.com (Only 355 more shopping days until Christmas) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: ^ considered mysterious Message-ID: Date: 4 Jan 91 19:57:34 GMT References: <1Yz6Dw#3j256N9kwrs12ZPbSl0B78BO=eric@snark.thyrsus.com> <3894@skye.ed.ac.uk> Sender: news@Autodesk.COM Lines: 22 ken@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson) writes: >In article <1Yz6Dw#3j256N9kwrs12ZPbSl0B78BO=eric@snark.thyrsus.com> eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes: >>I'm trying to find a source for the use of ^ as an exponentiation operator >Every version of Basic that I knew in 1970 used it. I think FOCAL did >too. (Remember when...?) It's apparently musch older than that, in APL QutoeQuad, volume 20, #4 [July 1990], in a paper entitled "APL\?" by Hui, Iverson, McDonnell and Whitney, they reference "De Morgan's use of ^ for power". The reference given is: Cajori, Floria, _A History of Mathematical Notations_, The Open Court Publishing Co., 1928, Volume I, Paragraph 313. -- Andrew Scott Beals abeals@autodesk.com