Mathematical Symbols

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 2/19/03 7:46:42 PM Eastern Standard Time,
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:

>  The standard folk etymology (the one I'd always
>  accepted) for the upside-down E is that it designates "Exists", a
>  better translation than "Some" for the (appropriately named)
>  existential quantifier.  (I think of it as an upside-down rather than
>  backward E since only the former story provides a parallel with the
>  universal.)  And the upside-down A for the universal quantifier
>  stands for "All", as Jim notes.  The fact that the latter involves an
>  English word ("All") supports the idea that the former should as well
>  ("Exists"), but evidently such is not the case.

An upside-down capital "E" looks exactly like a right-side-up capital E.

Is there a German word "All" meaning something like the English word of the
same spelling?  Considering the paper in which it appeared was in German,
which was  then the standard language for papers on mathematical logic, it
would be a little surprising to find the authors using a symbol derived from
English.  Russell, by the way, corresponded with German mathematicians in
German.

     - Jim Landau