The dangerous bend symbol was created by Bourbaki and appears in the margins of mathematics books written by the group. It is analogous with a street sign that indicates a "dangerous bend" in the road ahead. Bourbaki, and those who later adopted the symbol, would use it to mark passages that were tricky on a first reading or contained an especially difficult argument. For example, computer scientist Donald Knuth uses it in his textbooks. Nicolas Bourbaki is the collective allonym under which a group of (mainly French) 20th-century mathematicians wrote a series of books presenting an exposition of modern advanced mathematics, beginning in 1935. ... Euclid, Greek mathematician, 3rd century BC, as imagined by by Raphael in this detail from The School of Athens. ... See also: street sign theft External links http://homepages. ... Donald Ervin Knuth ( or Ka-NOOTH[1], Chinese: [2]) (b. ...
References
Knuth's "Dangerous Bend" sign.
Knuth's use of the dangerous bend sign. Public domain GIF files.
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