AGGREGATION AND BRACKETS IN MODERN MATHEMATICS: INTRODUCTION TO LOGICALSEMIOTIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

The article is a logical-methodological investigation in semiotic history of mathematics. It is studied in the article the history of meanings of designation of aggregation and using of brackets and other parentheses in mathematics. The term “aggregation” refers to the grouping of parts of complex symbolic math expressions, as a result of which the whole structure stands bracket in the next step as a single argument. The need for an explicit of aggregation expression occurs with the transition from a rhetorical-sinkopical algebra to the symbolical algebra. Historically and practically, such necessity arises in connection with the using of root extraction operation. Parentheses as a sign of aggregation are included in the general scientific mathematical usage only after the works of Leibniz, Bernoulli, etc. On this basis it is introduced some principal concepts of logical-semiotic analysis.