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Supporting Australian Mathematics Project: Middle years.

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Year 9

Number and Algebra

Indices

Index notation is comparatively modern. The Greek writer Diophantus used the symbol \(\triangle^T\) to denote what we would call x² and used K for x³. In medieval algebra, Q and C were used instead. Even in the 16th century, people were still writing xxx for x³. The modern notation didn't appear in texts until late in the 18th century. It is an extremely useful and efficient notation.