Historians divide the development of mathematical notation into three stages: rhetorical, syncopated, and symbolic.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by Wikipedia, peer-reviewed literature (Stallings 2000), and independent educational sources describing the same rhetorical-syncopated-symbolic framework. [tier=silver indep_score=0.925 clusters=2 claim_tier=notable]
Sources
- Timeline of mathematics (wikipedia)
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2000.tb17262.x (corroboration)
- https://www.cut-the-knot.org/language/symb.shtml (corroboration)