History of imperative in hypotheses

105 Views Asked by At

In mathematical hypotheses it is traditional to use the imperative instead of a declarative sentence.

What is the origin of this tradition? Does it go back to ancient Greek mathematics? Or maybe to Bourbaki?

This is clearly a usage that exists in different languages:

Let $n$ be an integer ...
Soit $n$ un entier ...
Sei $n$ eine ganze Zahl ...