noe .2. thynges, can be moare equalle.

December 16, 2005 10:05 AM

"To avoide the tediouse repetition of these woordes: is equalle to: I will settle as I doe often in woorke use, a paire of paralleles, or gemowe lines of one lengthe: ======, bicause noe .2. thynges, can be moare equalle." Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde (1510–1558) invented the equals sign in his 1557 work The Whetstone of Witte, which also introduced "Zenzizenzizenzic", the eighth power of a number. Recorde had advocated the + and – symbols in his 1540 work The Grounde of Artes. He died in debtor's prison in 1558. Read, watch, or listen to a recent lecture that links the equals sign to developments in art, navigation, and astronomy. (Wikipedia)
posted by goatdog (14 comments total)

This post = cool.
posted by darkstar at 10:06 AM on December 16, 2005

Also:

He also introduced Algebra to English speakers, the word itself appearing for the first time in Recorde’s Pathway of Knowledge in 1551.
posted by darkstar at 10:08 AM on December 16, 2005

Awesome post. Thank you!
posted by selfmedicating at 10:25 AM on December 16, 2005

æ from the word 'æqualis' meaning equal, was widely used into the 1700s.
posted by stbalbach at 10:46 AM on December 16, 2005

Students everywhere began misusing the new symbol as a generic connector, punctuation mark, and decoration the very next day after it was invented.
posted by Wolfdog at 11:03 AM on December 16, 2005

Well, if he was really ahead of his time he would have also invented the emoticon -- "to expresse the attendante humourse of our scriveners."
posted by CommaTheWaterseller at 11:11 AM on December 16, 2005

He died in debtor's prison in 1558.

How many of us would die in debtor's prison, if such an institution were around today?

From the link: In Maryland, a committee in 1736 described the local Annapolis jail where debtors were held as "a place of Restraint and confinement has also been a place of Death and Torments to Many Unfortunate People." In 1766 the same jail was described as "so filthy and nasty that it is excessively Nauseous." Some prisoners in nearby jails were held, under these conditions, for debts as little as fifty cents.
posted by Faze at 11:40 AM on December 16, 2005

DUDE! Spellcheck is there for a reason!

This is a great post.
posted by piratebowling at 11:40 AM on December 16, 2005

That bookpages index is full of all sorts of neat stuff. I've always called that = thing the "isos." Have I been incorrect?
posted by steef at 11:53 AM on December 16, 2005

Somehow the picture of him added to this for me. He looks as though he was a nice friendly chap, and it made me all the sadder to hear he died in prison.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:56 PM on December 16, 2005

Political misjudgements were to prove his undoing. In the turmoil followed the death of the sickly boy-king Edward VI in 1553 Recorde’s old enemy the Earl of Pembroke became the powerful man in the kingdom. Unwisely, Recorde tried to have Pembroke arrested and put on trial.

Not too bright outside of mathematics, was he?

a recent lecture that links the equals sign to developments in art, navigation, and astronomy.

If by "links" you mean "mentions in the same article," then sure. But there's nothing there suggesting that there was any causal relation. It talks about translations from Latin and Greek, math textbooks, Recorde, Simon Stevin's book on fractions, Henry Billingsley's edition of Euclid, &c &c, and then talks about Thomas Harriot, "possibly the greatest English mathematician that ever lived," who "busied himself with every aspect of navigational theory and practice." No indication that the equals sign created the modern world.

Excellent post!
posted by languagehat at 1:35 PM on December 16, 2005

...links discusses the equals sign to along with developments in art, navigation, and astronomy...

grumble grumble. read the whole article before you post it, goatdog.
posted by goatdog at 1:45 PM on December 16, 2005

How can I have gotten a bachelors degree in mathematics and never learned where +, -, and = come from? It's surpassing strange what we take for granted.

Thanks for the post goatdog. I love it when I suddenly learn the origin of things that I just accept and hadn't bothered to ponder why they are the way they are.
posted by afflatus at 2:44 PM on December 16, 2005

fantastic! thank you.
posted by jann at 6:44 PM on December 16, 2005