<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> </Tr> </Table> <P> Nicole Oresme's manuscripts from the 14th century show what may be one of the earliest uses of the plus sign "+". </P> <P> In Europe in the early 15th century the letters "P" and "M" were generally used . The symbols (P with line p̄ for più, i.e., plus, and M with line m̄ for meno, i.e., minus) appeared for the first time in Luca Pacioli's mathematics compendium, Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità, first printed and published in Venice in 1494 . The + is a simplification of the Latin "et" (comparable to the ampersand &). The − may be derived from a tilde written over m when used to indicate subtraction; or it may come from a shorthand version of the letter m itself . In his 1489 treatise Johannes Widmann referred to the symbols − and + as minus and mer (Modern German mehr; "more"): "was − ist, das ist minus, und das + ist das mer". They weren't used for addition and subtraction here, but to indicate surplus and deficit; their first use in their modern sense appears in a book by Henricus Grammateus in 1518 . </P> <P> Robert Recorde, the designer of the equals sign, introduced plus and minus to Britain in 1557 in The Whetstone of Witte: "There be other 2 signes in often use of which the first is made thus + and betokeneth more: the other is thus made--and betokeneth lesse ." </P>

When were the plus and minus signs first recorded
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