EDIT Vinculum above According to Cajori, the first use of the vinculum above the parts affected was by Frans van Schooten (c. 1615-1660), who "in editing Vieta's collected works, discarded the parentheses and placed a horizontal bar above the parts affected." In Van Schooten's 1646 edition of Vieta, is used to represent B(D2 + BD).

Ball (page 242) says the vinculum was introduced by Francois Vieta (1540-1603) in 1591. This information may be incorrect.

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