Origin of y=mx+b: Explaining Slope & Y-Intercept

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The equation y=mx+b designates 'm' as the slope and 'b' as the y-intercept, with 'm' likely derived from the French word "mont" meaning mountain, indicating a sloping grade. The 'b' may originate from the convention of polynomial notation, where it appears in the general form y=ax^n+bx^(n-1)+cx^(n-2). Variations exist in different countries; for instance, Italy uses 'q' instead of 'b', while Norway refers to 'm' as 'a', and Britain uses 'c' for the y-intercept.

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Hello, could someone please explain to me why the equation y=mx+b uses 'm' for slope and 'b' for y-intercept? This has always bothered me for some reason.
 
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"m" comes from "mont", or "mount", or some french or latinized word meaning mountain, or sloping grade. The "b", I'm not sure about. Maybe (just a wild guess) base, bass, some word meaning low point, like where the "mountain" meets the "flat". I'm more certain about the "m" for "mont" as the slope.
 
Liger20 said:
Hello, could someone please explain to me why the equation y=mx+b uses 'm' for slope and 'b' for y-intercept? This has always bothered me for some reason.

The b problably comes from the fact that polynomials are typically written y=ax^n+bx^n-1+cx^n-2 etc. But the special case of a linear polynomial a=m (from what symboipoint said) and the b probably just stayed.
 
In Italy, they don't use b, they use q.
 
In norway, m is called a.
 
And in Britain, 'b' is called 'c'!
 
Wow, you guys have really strange alphabets!
 
I always enjoyed n \cdot p_0 = n \cdot \left[ \begin{array}{c}x\\y\end{array} \right]
 

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