Definition:Abscissa/Historical Note
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Historical Note on Abscissa
The term abscissa was used by Leonardo Fibonacci in his $1220$ work Practica Geometriae.
Some sources suggest that the word descends from translations of Conics by Apollonius.
Its use in the modern sense, as meaning the $x$ coordinate of a point in a Cartesian plane, may have been due to Stefano degli Angeli in his $1659$ work Miscellaneum Hyperbolicum, et Parabolicum.
The term entered the mathematical mainstream via the works of Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, and some suggest that he may even have coined it.
Sources
- 1992: George F. Simmons: Calculus Gems ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $\text {A}.19$: Leibniz ($\text {1646}$ – $\text {1716}$)