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I'm reading a paper,The Hahn-Banach theorem: The life and times, by Lawrence Narici and Edward Beckesntein, and it says, I quote:

In the nineteenth century, vector meant n-tuple. Toward the end of the century, its scope was extended to include "sequence"-for some, anyway.

What does -for some, anyway mean here?

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  • Source of the quote, please
    – James K
    Commented Aug 11, 2021 at 17:51
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    @JamesK, The source is "The Hahn-Banach theorem: The life and times", by Lawrence Narici and Edward Beckesntein.
    – John Mars
    Commented Aug 11, 2021 at 17:55
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    Thank you. Take a look at my edit, I've included that information in the question and made a link to the source.
    – James K
    Commented Aug 11, 2021 at 17:57

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"for some mathematicians".

So at the start of the 1800s, "Vector" meant something like (4,5,16). By 1900 some people thought it could also mean something like (3,6,9,12,..). Other people didn't think this was the case, and for them a "vector" could not be an infinite sequence.

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Toward the end of the century, its scope was extended to include "sequence"-for some, anyway.

means that at least for some, it was extended to include "sequence". Although it was not universally accepted as such, at least some considered vector as including sequence.

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