omitted wherever it would not cause confusion: " multiplied by " can be written as or . Other symbols can also be used to denote multiplication, often to reduce confusion between the multiplication sign × and the common variable . In some countries, such as Germany, the primary symbol for multiplication is the "dot operator" (as in ). This symbol is also used in algebraic notation to resolve ambiguity (for instance, "b times 2" may be written as , to avoid being confused with a value called ). This notation is used wherever multiplication should be written explicitly, such as in " for "; this usage is also seen in English-language texts. In some languages, the use of full stop as a multiplication symbol, such as , is common when the symbol for decimal point is comma. Historically, computer language syntax was restricted to the ASCII character set, and the asterisk became the de facto symbol for the multiplication operator. This selection is reflected in the numeric keypad on English-language keyboards, where the arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are represented by the keys , , and , respectively. Typing the character Unicode and HTML entities Other variants and related characters: (a zero-width space indicating multiplication) (the interpunct, may be easier to type than the dot operator) (intended to explicitly denote the cross product of two vectors) See also Division sign List of mathematical symbols Plus and minus signs Reference mark X mark References External links Mathematical symbols Multiplication