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Why is the displacement symbol "s"?
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Why is the displacement symbol "s"?
(Created prior to 1993)
Question: I have wondered for some time why the symbol "s" is commonly used
to represent the quantity "displacement."
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I have looked around and cannot find out where this started. It
might be so simple as the fact that s is close to v and t which both appear in
distance formulas. Lots of expressions have letters from similar parts of the
alphabet as a way of recognizing copying errors. It may also be German. I
will be look into this a little bit later. I note that in the math literature
when the length of a line is mentioned it is often called s. Again I do not
know of any reason. Many of these conventions are very old and often limited
to a particular audience.
Sam Bowen
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Last
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April 2006
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