Why do we use letters like x and y to represent numbers in algebra?

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Why do we use letters like x and y to represent numbers in algebra?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Descartes kindly anticipated that using Roman letters for variables would make it easy to type simple equations on the internet, whereas using Greek letters or another special symbol would require some kind of annoying workaround outside of typesetting software (where they’re still more annoying than simple letters).

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