On the Internet, the well-known "dog" symbol (@) is used as a separator between the name of a given user and the name of the domain (host) in address syntax Email.
Fame
Some Internet personalities consider this symbol to be a sign of the common human communication space and one of the most popular signs throughout the world.
One of the evidence of the worldwide recognition of this designation is the fact that in 2004 (in February) the International Telecommunication Union introduced a special code for the designation @. It combines the codes of two C and A, which reflects their joint graphic writing.
History of the dog symbol
The Italian researcher Giorgio Stabile was able to discover in the archives owned by the Institute of Economic History in the city of Prato (near Florence) a document in which this sign appears for the first time in written form. Such important evidence turned out to be a letter from a merchant from Florence, which was subsidized in 1536.
It talks about three merchant ships that arrived in Spain. The ships' cargo included containers in which wine was transported, marked with the @ sign. After analyzing data on the price of wine, as well as on the capacity of various medieval vessels, and comparing the data with the universal system of measures used at that time, the scientist concluded that the @ sign was used as a special unit of measurement, which replaced the word anfora (in translation "amphora"). This is the name given to the universal measure of volume since ancient times.
Berthold Ullman's theory
Berthold Ullman is an American scholar who theorized that the @ symbol was developed by medieval monks to shorten the common word ad, of Latin origin, which was often used as a catch-all term meaning “with respect to,” “to,” or “on.”
It should be noted that in French, Portuguese and Spanish the name of the designation comes from the term “arroba”, which in turn denotes an old Spanish measure of weight (about 15 kg), abbreviated in writing with the @ symbol.
Modernity
Many people are interested in what the “dog” symbol is called. Note that the official modern name of this symbol sounds like “commercial at” and originates from the accounts in which it was used in the following context: 7widgets@$2each = $14. This can be translated as 7 pieces for 2 dollars = 14 dollars
Since the dog symbol was used in business, it was placed on the keyboards of all typewriters. He was even present at "Underwood", which was released back in 1885. And only after 80 long years the “dog” symbol was inherited by the first computer keyboards.
Internet
Let's turn to the official history of the World Wide Web. She claims that the Internet dog symbol in email addresses originated with an American engineer and computer scientist named Ray Tomlinson, who in 1971 managed to send the first email message in history over the Internet. In this case, the address had to be composed of two parts - the name of the computer through which registration was made, and the user name. Tomilson chose the “dog” symbol on the keyboard as a separator between these parts, since it was not part of either computer names or user names.
Versions of the origin of the famous name “dog”
There are several possible versions of the origin of such a funny name in the world. First of all, the icon really does look a lot like a dog curled up in a ball.
In addition, the abrupt sound of the word at (the dog symbol in English is read this way) is a bit reminiscent of a dog barking. It should also be noted that with a good imagination you can see in the symbol almost all the letters that are part of the word “dog”, perhaps excluding “k”.
However, the following legend can be called the most romantic. Once upon a time, in that good time, when all computers were very large and screens were exclusively text-based, in the virtual kingdom there lived one popular game that received a name reflecting its content - “Adventure”.
Its meaning was to travel through a labyrinth created by a computer in search of various treasures. There were, of course, battles with underground harmful creatures. The labyrinth on the display was drawn using the symbols “-”, “+”, “!”, and the player, hostile monsters and treasures were indicated by various icons and letters.
Moreover, according to the plot, the player was friends with a faithful assistant - a dog, who could always be sent on reconnaissance into the catacombs. It was indicated by the @ icon. Was this the root cause of the now generally accepted name, or, on the contrary, was the icon chosen by the developers of the game, because that was what it was called? The legend does not answer these questions.
What is a virtual “dog” called in other countries?
It is worth noting that in our country the symbol “dog” is also called a ram, an ear, a bun, a frog, a dog, even a quack. In Bulgaria it is “maymunsko a” or “klomba” (monkey A). In the Netherlands - monkey tail (apenstaartje). In Israel, the sign is associated with a whirlpool (“strudel”).
The Spanish, French and Portuguese call the designation similar to a measure of weight (respectively: arroba, arrobase and arrobase). If you ask what the dog symbol means to the inhabitants of Poland and Germany, they will tell you that it is a monkey, a paper clip, a monkey's ear or a monkey's tail. In Italy it is considered a snail and is called chiocciola.
The least poetic names were given to the symbol in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, calling it “snout a” (snabel-a) or elephant tail (caudate a). The most appetizing name can be considered the variant of the Czechs and Slovaks, who consider the sign to be a herring under a fur coat (rollmops). The Greeks also make associations with cuisine, calling the designation “little pasta.”
For many, this is still a monkey, namely for Slovenia, Romania, Holland, Croatia, Serbia (maymun; alternative: “crazy A”), Ukraine (alternatives: snail, doggie, dog). The terms Lithuania (eta - “this”, a borrowing with the addition of a Lithuanian morpheme at the end) and Latvia (et - “this”) were borrowed from English. The version of the Hungarians, where this cute sign has become a tick, can be depressing.
Cat and mouse is played by Finland (cat's tail), America (cat), Taiwan and China (mouse). The people of Turkey turned out to be romantics (rose). And in Vietnam this badge is called “crooked A”.
Alternative hypotheses
There is an opinion that the name of the designation “dog” in Russian speech appeared thanks to the famous DVK computers. In them, a “dog” appeared while the computer was loading. And indeed the designation resembled a small dog. All DCK users, without saying a word, came up with a name for the symbol.
It is curious that the original spelling of the Latin letter “A” involved decorating it with curls, thus it was very similar to the current spelling of the “dog” sign. The translation of the word “dog” into Tatar is “et”.
Where else can you find a “dog”?
There are a number of services that use this symbol (except email):
HTTP, FTP, Jabber, Active Directory. In IRC, the symbol is placed before the name of the channel operator, for example, @oper.
The sign is also widely used in major programming languages. In Java it is used to declare an annotation. In C# it is necessary to escape characters in a string. The operation of taking an address is designated accordingly in Pascal. For Perl, this is an array identifier, and in Python, accordingly, it is a decorator declaration. The field identifier for a class instance is a sign in Ruby.
As for PHP, the “dog” is used to suppress error output or to warn about a task that has already occurred at the time of execution. The symbol became a prefix for indirect addressing in the MCS-51 assembler. In XPath, it is short for the attribute axis, which selects a set of attributes for the current element.
Finally, Transact-SQL assumes that a local variable name must begin with an @, and a global variable name must begin with two @s. In DOS, thanks to the symbol, echoing is suppressed for the command being executed. An action designation such as echo off mode is usually used before entering a mode to prevent a specific command from being displayed on the screen (for clarity: @echo off).
So we looked at how many aspects of virtual and real life depend on the regular symbol. However, let's not forget that he became most recognizable thanks to the emails that are sent in the thousands every day. We can assume that today you will also receive a letter with a “dog”, and it will bring only good news.
who invented the first punctuation mark? what was the name of this sign? what was his appointment?
Punctuation(from Latin punctus - point) - signs that divide words into groups that are convenient for perception, introduce order into these groups and help to correctly perceive or at least prevent false interpretation of words and expressions.However, until the middle of the 17th century. "Punctuation" was the practice of placing dots around consonants to indicate vowel sounds in Hebrew text, while writing signs in Latin text was called dotting. Sometime around 1650, these two words exchanged their meanings.
2000 years ago, there was no use of dots to separate text, nor was there a rule for separating words with spaces. Apparently, some Greek writers used individual punctuation marks as early as the 5th century. BC e. For example, the playwright Euripides marked the change of speaker with a pointed sign, and the philosopher Plato sometimes ended a section of a book with a colon.
The first punctuation mark was invented by Aristotle (384–322 BC) in order to indicate a change in semantic meaning. It was called paragraphos (writing on the side) and was a short horizontal line at the bottom at the beginning of the line. In the 1st century The Romans, already using periods, began to mark paragraphs by writing the first few letters of a new section in the margins. In the late Middle Ages, the letter “c” began to be placed in this place as an abbreviation of the word capitulum (chapter). As noted above, the modern practice of separating paragraphs in the form of indentations and line breaks was adopted only in the 17th century.
The use of signs to separate small semantic sections of text began around 194 BC. e., when the grammarian Aristophanes of Alexandria invented a three-point system for dividing text into large, medium and small segments. Thus, he placed a point at the bottom and called “comma” at the end of the shortest segment, a point at the top (periodos) divided the text into large segments, and a point in the middle (colon) into medium ones. It is likely that it was Aristophanes who introduced the hyphen to write compound words, and the slash, which he placed next to words with an unclear meaning.
Although these innovations were not widely adopted, they were used sporadically until the 8th century. By this time, scribes began to separate words in sentences and also use capital letters. Since it was quite inconvenient to read text without punctuation marks with letters changing size, the Anglo-Saxon scholar Alcuin (735–804), who led the court school in Aachen (Germany), somewhat reformed Aristophanes’ system, making a number of additions. Some of them reached England, where by the 10th century. Punctuation marks appeared in manuscripts to indicate pauses and changes in intonation.
For the first time, punctuation marks, in the form in which they have survived to this day, were introduced at the end of the 15th century. Venetian printer Aldus Manutius. It was his books that paved the way for most of the signs used today - the period, semicolon and colon. 60 years later, the grandson of the printer Aldus Manutius the Younger first identified the role of punctuation marks as auxiliary in determining the structure of a sentence.
This symbol is familiar to any Internet user. But it did not appear in the age of universal computer literacy; the symbol that we call “dog” was known back in the Middle Ages, and it had several different purposes. There are also several versions of its origin, all of them are interesting and deserve attention.
The @ symbol has been known since at least the 15th century., but it is quite possible that it was invented earlier. It has not yet been established for certain how and where it came from, and the time of the first mention is only approximately determined. According to one version, the first to use the @ sign in writing were monks who translated treatises that were also written in Latin. In Latin there is a preposition “ad”, and in the script adopted at that time for writing, the letter “d” was written with a small tail curled up. When writing quickly, the preposition looked like an @ icon.
Thanks to Florentine merchants, the @ sign began to be used as a commercial symbol from the 15th century. It denoted a measure of weight equal to 12.5 kg. - an amphora, and according to the tradition of that time, the letter “A”, which indicated weight, was decorated with curls and looked like a symbol known to everyone today. The Spaniards, Portuguese and French have their own version of the origin of the designation - from the word “arroba” - an old Spanish measure of weight of about 15 kg, which was denoted in writing by the symbol @, also taken from the first letter of the word.
In modern commercial language, the official name of the @ sign - “commercial at” comes from accounting accounts, where it denoted the preposition “in, on, by, to”, and in Russian translation it looked something like this - 5 pcs. $3 each (5 widgets @ $3 each). Since the symbol was used in trade, it was placed on the keyboards of the first typewriters, from where it moved to the computer keyboard.
The @ symbol appeared on the Internet thanks to the creator of email, Tomlinson. Tomlinson explained why he chose this character to separate the username and email server simply - he was looking for a character that would not appear in names or titles and could not cause confusion in the system. IN different countries The symbol is called differently, like a dog, it is known only in Russian. There are several versions of the appearance of this funny name. According to one of them, the sound of the English “at” resembles a dog barking, according to another, the icon itself resembles a small dog curled up. But the most popular is associated with one of the first text games. According to the plot, the player had an assistant, a faithful dog, who helped look for treasures, protected him from various monsters, and went on reconnaissance and into the catacombs. And of course, the dog was indicated by the @ sign.
By the way, in many countries, users associate the @ symbol in one way or another with animals - among the Germans and Poles it is a monkey, among the Italians it is a snail, in America and Finland it is a cat, in Taiwan and China it is a mouse. In other countries, the symbol means something tasty - a cinnamon bun for the Swedes, strudel for the Israelis. Only disciplined Japanese are far from romantic comparisons and prefer to call the sign “attomark”, as it sounds English language, and don’t come up with their own names for it.
History of the compass
Compasses are familiar to every person from school - in drawing lessons you cannot do without this tool for drawing circles and arcs. In addition, it is used to measure distances, for example, on maps, it is used in geometry and for navigation. Typically, a compass is made of metal and consists of two “legs”, at the end of one of them there is a needle, on the second there is a writing object, usually a graphite lead. If the compass is a measuring compass, there are needles at both ends.
The word compass itself comes from the Latin circulus - “circle, circle, circle”, from the Latin circus - “circle, hoop, ring”. The compass or compass came into Russian from the Polish cyrkuɫ or German Zirkel.
Now it is no longer possible to say who exactly invented this instrument - history has not preserved his name for us, but legends Ancient Greece The authorship is attributed to Talos, the nephew of the famous Daedalus, the first “aeronaut” of antiquity. The history of the compass goes back several thousand years - judging by the surviving drawn circles, the instrument was familiar to the Babylonians and Assyrians (2nd - 1st centuries BC). On the territory of France, in a Gallic mound, an iron compass was found (1st century AD); during excavations in Pompeii, many ancient Roman bronze compasses were found. Moreover, quite modern instruments were found in Pompeii: compasses with curved ends for measuring the internal diameters of objects, “calipers” for measuring the maximum diameter, proportional ones for multiple increases and decreases in size. During excavations in Novgorod, a steel compass-cutter was found for applying an ornament of small regular circles, very common in Ancient Rus'.
Over time, the design of the compass has remained virtually unchanged, but a lot of attachments have been invented for it, so now it can draw circles from 2 mm to 60 cm, in addition, the usual graphite lead can be replaced with an attachment with a drawing pen for drawing with ink. There are several main types of compasses: marking or dividing compasses, they are used for taking and transferring linear dimensions; drawing or circular, it is used for drawing circles with a diameter of up to 300 millimeters; drawing calipers for drawing circles from 2 to 80 millimeters in diameter; drawing calipers for drawing circles with a diameter greater than 300 millimeters; proportional - to change the scale of the photographed size.
The compass is used not only in drawing, navigation or cartography - it has also found application in medicine: for example, large and small thick compasses are used to measure the transverse dimensions of the human body and to measure the size of the skull, respectively, and a caliper compass is used to measure the thickness of the subcutaneous fat folds. Also known is the compass of Weber, a German psychophysiologist and anatomist, which he developed to determine the threshold of skin sensitivity.
But the compass is not only a well-known tool. This word refers to a small constellation in the southern hemisphere to the west of the “Angle” and the “Southern Triangle”, next to α-Centauri. Unfortunately, this constellation is not observed on Russian territory.
In addition, the compass is a symbol of unwavering and impartial justice, a perfect circle figure with a central point, the source of life. Along with the square, the compass determines the limits and boundaries of a straight line. In ritual architecture, the compass symbolizes transcendental knowledge, the archetype that controls all work, the navigator. For the Chinese, a compass means correct behavior. The compass is an attribute of Fo-hi, the legendary Chinese emperor, who was considered immortal. Sister Fo-hi has a square, and together they are the masculine and feminine principles, the harmony of yin and yang. Among the Greeks, the compass, along with the globe, was a symbol of Urania, the patroness of astronomy.
A compass combined with a square is one of the most common emblems, symbols and signs of the Masons. On this emblem, the compass symbolizes the Firmament, and the square symbolizes the earth. The sky in this case is symbolically connected with the place where the Great Builder of the Universe draws the plan. The letter "G" in the center in one of the meanings is an abbreviation of the word "geometer", used as one of the names of the supreme being.
History of the protractor
Since ancient times, people have been faced with the need to measure. The concept of a degree and the appearance of the first instruments for measuring angles are associated with the development of civilization in ancient Babylon, although the word degree itself is of Latin origin (degree - from the Latin Gradus - “step, step”). The degree will be obtained if you divide the circle into 360 parts. The question arises - why did the ancient Babylonians divide it into 360 parts? The fact is that in Babylon the sexagesimal number system was adopted. Moreover, the number 60 was considered sacred. Therefore, all calculations were related to the number 60 (the Babylonian calendar included 360 days).
In addition to the degree, units of measurement such as the minute (part of a degree) and second (part of a minute) were introduced. The names “minute” and “second” come from partes minutae primae and partes minutae sekundae, which translated means “smaller first parts” and “smaller second parts”. In the history of science, these units of measurement were preserved thanks to Claudius Ptolemy, who lived in the 2nd century.
History has not preserved the name of the scientist who invented the protractor - perhaps in ancient times this instrument had a completely different name. The modern name comes from the French word “TRANSPORTER”, which means “to carry”. Presumably, the protractor was invented in ancient Babylon.
But ancient scientists made measurements not only with a protractor - after all, this instrument was inconvenient for taking measurements on the ground and solving applied problems. Namely, applied problems were the main subject of interest of ancient geometers. The invention of the first instrument that allows measuring angles on the ground is associated with the name of the ancient Greek scientist Heron of Alexandria (1st century BC). He described the “diopter” tool, which allows one to measure angles on the ground and solve many applied problems.
Thus, we can talk about the emergence of geodesy - a system of sciences about determining the shape and size of the Earth and about measurements on the earth's surface to display it on plans and maps. Geodesy is related to astronomy, geophysics, cosmonautics, cartography, etc., and is widely used in the design and construction of structures, shipping canals, and roads.
A protractor (French transporteur, from Latin transporto “carry”) is a tool for constructing and measuring angles. The protractor consists of a ruler (straight-line scale) and a semicircle (protractor scale), divided into degrees from 0 to 180°. In some models - from 0 to 360°.
Protractors are made of steel, plastic, wood and other materials. The accuracy of a protractor is directly proportional to its size.
Types of protractors
Semicircular (180 degrees) are the simplest and most ancient protractors.
Round (360 degrees).
Geodesics, which come in two types: TG-A - for constructing and measuring angles on plans and maps; TG-B - for drawing points on a drawing basis at known angles and distances. The division value of the goniometric scale is 0.5°, the rectilinear scale is 1 millimeter.
More advanced types of protractors that are necessary for more accurate constructions and measurements. For example, there are special protractors with a transparent ruler with a goniometric vernier, which rotates around the center.
History of mathematical symbols
Have you ever thought about where mathematical signs came to us and what they originally meant? The origin of these signs cannot always be accurately determined.
There is an opinion that the signs “+” and “-” arose in trading practice. The wine merchant marked with dashes how many measures of wine he sold from the barrel. By adding new supplies to the barrel, he crossed out as many expendable lines as he restored. This is how the signs of addition and subtraction allegedly originated in the 15th century.
There is another explanation regarding the origin of the “+” sign. Instead of “a + b” they wrote “a and b”, in Latin “a et b”. Since the word “et” (“and”) had to be written very often, they began to shorten it: first they wrote one letter t, which eventually turned into a “+” sign.
The name “term” first appears in the works of mathematicians of the 13th century, and the concept of “sum” received modern interpretation only in the 15th century. Until this time it had more broad meaning- the sum was the result of any of the four arithmetic operations.
To denote the action of multiplication, some of the European mathematicians of the 16th century used the letter M, which was the initial letter in the Latin word for increase, multiplication - animation (from this word the name “cartoon” came). In the 17th century, some mathematicians began to denote multiplication with an oblique cross “×”, while others used a dot for this.
In Europe, for a long time, the product was called the sum of multiplication. The name "multiplier" is mentioned in works of the 11th century.
For thousands of years, the action of division was not indicated by signs. The Arabs introduced the line “/” to indicate division. It was adopted from the Arabs in the 13th century by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci. He was the first to use the term “private”. The colon sign ":" to indicate division came into use at the end of the 17th century. In Russia, the names “divisible”, “divisor”, “quotient” were first introduced by L.F. Magnitsky at the beginning of the 18th century.
The equal sign was denoted in different ways at different times: both by words and by different symbols. The “=” sign, so convenient and understandable now, came into general use only in the 18th century. And this sign was proposed by the English author of an algebra textbook, Robert Ricord, to indicate the equality of two expressions in 1557.
The plus and minus signs were apparently invented in the German mathematical school of “Kossists” (that is, algebraists). They are used in Johannes Widmann's Arithmetic, published in 1489. Previously, addition was denoted by the letter p (plus) or the Latin word et (conjunction “and”), and subtraction- letter m (minus). For Widmann, the plus symbol replaces not only addition, but also the conjunction “and.” The origin of these symbols is unclear, but most likely they were previously used in trade as signs of profit and loss. Both symbols almost instantly became widespread in Europe.- with the exception of Italy, which continued to use the old designations for about a century.
The multiplication sign was introduced in 1631 by William Oughtred (England) in the form of an oblique cross. Before him, the letter M was used. Later, Leibniz replaced the cross with a dot (late 17th century) so as not to confuse it with the letter x; before him, such symbolism was found in Regiomontanus (15th century) and the English scientist Thomas Herriot (1560-1621).
Division signs. Oughtred preferred the slash. Leibniz began to denote division with a colon. Before them, the letter D was also often used. Starting with Fibonacci, the fraction line, which was used in Arabic writings, is also used. In England and the USA, the symbol ÷ (obelus), which was proposed by Johann Rahn and John Pell in the middle of the 17th century, became widespread.
The plus-minus sign appeared in Albert Girard (1626) and Oughtred.
The equal sign was proposed by Robert Recorde (1510-1558) in 1557. He explained that there is nothing more equal in the world than two parallel segments of the same length. In continental Europe, the equal sign was introduced by Leibniz.
The “not equal” sign was first used by Euler.
Comparative signs were introduced by Thomas Herriot in his work, published posthumously in 1631. Before him they wrote with the words: more, less.
Wallis proposed symbols for non-strict comparison. Originally, the line was above the comparison sign, and not below it, as it is now.
The percentage symbol appears in the middle of the 17th century in several sources, its origin is unclear. There is a hypothesis that it arose from a typist's mistake, who typed the abbreviation cto (cento, hundredth) as 0/0. It is more likely that this is a cursive commercial icon that appeared about 100 years earlier.
The root sign was first used by the German mathematician Christoph (according to other sources, Thomas) Rudolf, from the Cossist school, in 1525. This symbol comes from the stylized first letter of the word radix (root). At first there was no line above the radical expression; it was later introduced by Descartes for a different purpose (instead of parentheses), and this feature soon merged with the root sign.
Albert Girard (1629) began to use the root symbol of an arbitrary degree.
Exponentiation. The modern notation of the exponent was introduced by Descartes in his “Geometry” (1637), however, only for natural powers greater than 2. Later, Newton extended this form of notation to negative and fractional exponents (1676).
Parentheses appeared in Tartaglia (1556) for radical expressions, but most mathematicians preferred to underline the expression being highlighted instead of parentheses. Leibniz introduced brackets into general use.
The symbols “angle” and “perpendicular” were invented by the French mathematician Pierre Hérigone; however, his perpendicularity symbol was inverted, resembling the letter T.
We owe the “parallel” symbol to Oughtred.
The generally accepted designation for the number 3.14159... was created by William Jones in 1706, taking the first letter of the Greek words περιφέρεια- circle and περίμετρος- perimeter, that is, the circumference.
Both within the city and outside the city, traffic flow needs to be somehow regulated. Not everywhere is a good road and there are no dangerous turns or other potential dangers. How to inform the driver and pedestrian about them?
You can hang up a healthy information board. Or you can put up a not very large, but no less informative symbol that will be understandable to everyone who is at least a little familiar with the rules of the road.
According to the official formulation, a road sign is a standardized graphic design installed near the road to convey certain information to road users. And they are installed in strictly defined places, often next to traffic lights or not far from them.
History and evolution
Of course, road signs in the modern sense of the word appeared not so long ago: 110 years ago at the very beginning of the 20th century - in 1903. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, let's start from the very beginning.
A long time ago, when people in Southern Europe still wore togas... In general, it was in Ancient Greece and no less ancient Rome. It was in ancient times that people first thought about introducing road signs and traffic rules in general.
Today, on any highway, every kilometer there are posts indicating which kilometer it is. In ancient times, distances were measured in other units, but this does not change the essence. In Greece, for example, special pillars - herms - were placed along the roads at certain intervals (they got their name from the name of the god Hermes, who, among other things, was considered the patron saint of travelers). After some time, sculptures of political figures and prominent philosophers, and then inscriptions, began to be placed on these pillars.
The Romans approached this issue much more thoroughly. A special milepost was installed near one of the main temples of the city, from which all the roads of the empire were measured. On the most important transport routes of the empire, special cylindrical pillars were installed. They contained special information inscriptions indicating the distance from the Roman Forum.
Julius Caesar went even further. The eternal City By that time it was already a real metropolis (albeit an ancient one), an incredible number of people moved along the streets, among whom were visitors, merchants, and local residents. To prevent anyone from being run over, it was necessary to regulate at least some points:
- One-way streets appeared.
- The passage of private chariots, carts and carriages in Rome was prohibited from sunrise to the end of the "working day", which approximately corresponded to two hours before sunset.
- Nonresidents were required to leave their vehicles outside the city limits and could only move around the streets on foot or in hired palanquins.
Compliance with these rules was monitored by a specially created service. Its ranks were recruited mainly from freedmen, who had previously served as firefighters.
Milestones were installed not only in Greece and Rome. Under Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, milestones began to be erected on the roads of the Russian state. Under Peter the Great, the installation of roadside poles was enshrined in law. It was also prescribed to place inscriptions on them indicating directions and distances to a particular settlement.
With the development of the automotive industry, a new problem has arisen: how to prevent road accidents. It is clear that even in the days of horse-drawn carriages, accidents occurred, but horses, after all, are living beings and can react without waiting for the driver to act. But here is one driver, and on an unfamiliar road... As a result, three road signs were installed on the streets of Paris: “steep descent”, “dangerous turn”, “rough road”.
To decide how to make road traffic safer in 1906, European motorists met and developed the “International Convention on the Movement of Motor Vehicles.”
This document contained the requirements for the car itself and the basic rules of the road. In addition, four road signs were introduced: “rough road”, “winding road”, “crossroads”, “intersection with railway”.
The signs should have been installed 250 meters before the dangerous area. A little later, after the ratification of the convention, road signs appeared in Russia. Moreover, the first Russian car enthusiasts did not bother paying attention to these signs.
Types of road signs
The latest document that spells out all the subtleties associated with road signs is the Vienna Convention, adopted on November 8, 1968. The Convention was developed during the UNESCO conference from October 7 to November 8, 1968 in Vienna and entered into force on June 6, 1978.
According to this convention, there are eight groups of road signs:
- Warning signs.
- Right-of-way signs.
- Prohibitory and restrictive signs.
- Mandatory signs.
- Signs of special regulations.
- Information signs, signs indicating objects and service signs.
- Directional signs and information signs.
- Additional signs.
Signs in different countries
Despite the existence of an international standard, road signs differ quite significantly in different countries of the world. Some countries even publish special guidelines for visiting drivers.
In the USA, for example, on many signs, instead of symbols inscriptions are used, which makes them difficult to perceive. In Japanese road signs, which are partially close to international standard, hieroglyphs are often used.
Some signs even have their own homeland. For example, the familiar pedestrian crossing sign was “invented” in the USSR. Today, in Russia alone, more than 250 road signs are used and the system is constantly developing and improving.
There were also downright funny moments: for some time, the “rough road” sign disappeared from the list. It was returned to the list only in 1961. The reason for his exclusion from the set is not clear. Either the roads suddenly became smooth, or their condition was so sad that there was no particular point in issuing a warning.
- Road signs of the Russian Federation (GOST R 52289-2004, GOST R 52290-2004 and Article 12.16 of the Administrative Code)
- Traffic rules of the Russian Federation (GOST 10807-78, GOST R 51582-2000, GOST 23457-86)
- Free electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia, section "Road sign".
- Free electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia, section "Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals".
- Free electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia, section "Comparison of road signs in Europe."
