Editing Multiplication sign (section)

== History ==
The earliest known use of the {{char|×}} symbol to indicate multiplication appears in an anonymous appendix to the 1618 edition of [[John Napier]]'s {{lang|la|[[Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio]]}}.<ref name=Cajori /> This appendix has been attributed to [[William Oughtred]],<ref name=Cajori /> who used the same symbol in his 1631 algebra text, {{lang|la|Clavis Mathematicae}}, stating:<blockquote>Multiplication of species [i.e. unknowns] connects both proposed magnitudes with the symbol 'in' or {{char|×}}: or ordinarily without the symbol if the magnitudes be denoted with one letter.<ref>{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Ld5EAAAAcAAJ | title = Clavis Mathematicae | author = William Oughtred | year= 1667 | page=10| quote = {{lang|la|Multiplicatio speciosa connectit utramque magintudinem propositam cum notâ in vel ×: vel plerumque absque notâ, si magnitudines denotentur unica litera}} }}</ref> </blockquote>

Other works  have been identified in which crossed diagonals appear in diagrams involving multiplied numbers, such as [[Robert Recorde]]'s ''[[The Ground of Arts]]''<ref>{{cite book|last=Recorde|first=Robert|title=The Ground of Arts|year=1618|publisher=John Beale|place=London}}</ref>{{refn|The diagonals do not appear in the original 1543 edition, leaving their priority to Oughtred uncertain.}} and [[Oswald Schreckenfuchs]]'s 1551 edition of ''[[Almagest]]'', but these are not symbolizations.<ref name="Cajori">{{cite book|last=Cajori|first=Florian|author-link=Florian Cajori |date= 1928 |  title=A History of Mathematical Notations, Volume I: Notations in Elementary Mathematics|title-link=A History of Mathematical Notations |publisher= Open Court | pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofmathema031756mbp/page/n269 251–252] }}</ref>