8
$\begingroup$

What is the reason, historically, that the letter $m$ is used to denote the slope of a line?

  • 1
    For purposes of cross-reference, [this question is also asked on math ed SE](https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/12796/explaining-to-students-why-m-and-b-are-used-in-the-slope-intercept-equation). There are a number of very good answers there.2018-01-07

3 Answers 3

7

According to Wolfram MathWorld, there's no consensus. Some think it may have come from French monter meaning to climb, but this is just speculation $-$ it's likely just a trend that caught on. The article I linked to contains a greater elaboration and some examples of where it's not used.

  • 0
    @Jim: I think that, short o$f$ undertaking some hardcore historical analysis, we'll have to make do with the answer that no-one knows the answer.2012-02-01
0

Not a reason, but a lovely coincidence is that the higher dimensional analogue of a slope is a matrix.

$ \vec{y} = M(\vec{x}) $

would be the higher dimensional analogue of

$ y = mx $

where $\vec{y} \in \mathbb{R}^m$, $\vec{x} \in \mathbb{R}^n$, and $M$ is a $n \times m$ matrix.

So I like to think of the "m" as standing for "matrix".