INCREMENT

, is the small increase of a variable quantity. Newton, in his Treatise on Fluxions, calls these by the name Moments, and observes that they are proportional to the velocity or rate of increase of the flowing or variable quantities, in an indesinitely small time; he denotes them by subjoining a cipher 0, to the flowing quantity whose moment or Increment it is; thus <*>0 the moment of x. In the doctrine of Increments, by Dr. Brooke Taylor and Mr. Emerson, they are denoted by points below the variable quantities; as x˙. Some have also denoted them by accents underneath the letter, as x_' but it is now more usual to express them by accents over the same letter; as x^'.