[FOM] origin of "real"

[W.Taylor at math.canterbury.ac.nz]

Quoting Thomas Lord <lord at emf.net>:

> Who coined the term "real" as in "real number"
> and *why* did they pick that word?

According to Wiki, it was Descartes, and he coined it to distinguish
the real and imaginary roots of polynomials.

wfct


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