Why is the slope of a line is designated by the letter "m"?
thank you

Hi Peter

We have received this question a number of times and the answer is that I don't know. You can find a longer version of the same answer on a site maintained by Jeff Miller called the "Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols". The URL is http://members.aol.com/jeff570/mathsym.html

Look under the heading "Symbols used in geometry".

Cheers
Penny