Interpunct
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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An interpunct (·), also known as an interpoint, middle dot, middot, and centered dot or centred dot, is a punctuation mark consisting of a vertically centered dot used for interword separation in ancient Latin script. (Word-separating spaces did not appear until some time between Template:Sc 600 and 800.) It appears in a variety of uses in some modern languages and is present in Unicode as code point Template:Unichar.
The multiplication dot or dot operator Template:Unichar indicates multiplication and is optionally used instead of the styled × for multiplication of real numbers: Template:Nowrap is equivalent to Template:Nowrap or "a times b". The same sign is also used in vector multiplication to discriminate between the scalar product (Template:Nowrap) and the vector cross product (Template:Nowrap) or exterior product (Template:Nowrap). As a multiplication operator, it is also encountered in symbols for compound units such as the newton-meter (N·m or Template:Nowrap). The multiplication dot is a separate Unicode character (U+22C5), but is often silently replaced by the interpunct or bullet (Template:Unichar), another similar glyph which is intended for lists.
