Subject: Why quadratic?
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 16:56:35 -0600
From: Eric Rice

I've just been scanning your paper on the language of math. It's very interesting, and you seem to have some knowledge of the roots of some terms (no pun intended)...one thing that has bothered me in the past, and continually confused me, is the use of the term "quadratic" to refer to a second-order function, when the root of the word..."quad"...generally means "4", or something having 4. This certainly doesn't refer to the order of the function, or anything apparent in a quadratic function. Do you have any insight to this seeming mis-use of the term?

--Eric Rice

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