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Inventer of exponents

Author:      burbank school
Who started the idea of powers?

Response #:  1 of 1
Author:      hawley
Powers are just a notational convenience and have been around for a VERY
long time:  Diophantus was using an exponent by the 3rd century AD.  It was
Descartes (1637) who ". . . put all positive integral powers on the uniform
notational basis familiar today."  And Wallis (1655) who started using
fractional and negative powers.
"The Development of Mathematics", E. T. Bell, McGraw-Hill, 1945, p. 129

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