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

Why those letters specifically? Tradition, could be anything really.

Why letters (symbols) and not numbers? It’s either a number we don’t know yet, or not even just one specific number, but basically “any number”. But then somewhere later we need to refer back to it as “whatever it was back there, same here.”

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