#Equal sign how to

Picking and choosing from Latin and German texts, he introduced English speakers to words like 'linear,' 'denominate,' 'binomial,' and 'equation.' He introduced mathematical meanings for words like 'square,' 'compound,' 'rational,' and 'irrational.' Robert Recorde taught people to speak a mathematical, or more importantly, a computational language. Recorde also, it is clear, ushered in a new way of talking about numbers.

#Equal sign how to

His instruction on how to apply mathematics to areas such as commerce, land surveying, navigation, and astronomy imposed a new mindset on people who would previously have talked about quantity in vague terms such as 'a goodlie amount and a fair distance.' Recorde helped introduce precision, exact quantification, and accurate comparison in everyday life. Tucker believes that Recorde introduced Britain to the concepts of quantification and data in ways that were unfamiliar and world-changing. To understand the history of computing, we may follow the data, which leads us to practical mathematics and to writers such as Recorde. It is universal and ubiquitous because it is intimate with the world's work. In Robert Recorde: The Life and Times of a Tudor Mathematician, Tucker describes how Recorde's work laid the foundation for computer science, at least among English-speaking people:Ĭomputing is largely about collecting, creating, and processing data. Tucker, a professor of computer science at Swansea University and an avid researcher of computability theory, argues that Recorde is far more significant than his reputation suggests. Instead of writing, 'A factore added to a quantitie of thryeye is equalle to a dyffyrynte factore frome whyche is takene awaye a quantitie of foure,' a mathematician could write: 'x + 3 = y - 4'.Īt first glance, this makes Robert Recorde an excellent trivia game topic, but not much more. In combination, these signs allowed people to express, quickly and with a minimum of wasted ink, a mathematical equation in symbols. Latin had a word for the concept, 'aequalis,' and if more concision was necessary, people could shorten it to 'ae' or 'oe.' But aiding the popularity of the equals sign was Recorde's introduction, to English-speakers, of the German symbols '+' and '-'. The language of Latin still held sway during the 16th century. Recorde's symbol didn't catch on at first. What symbol could be more appropriate than a pair of equal-length lines? Nothing, Recorde explained, 'noe 2 thyngs, can be moare equalle.' Advertisement He wrote, with obvious annoyance and whimsical spelling, 'And to avoide the tedious repetition of these woordes, is equalle to, I will sette as I doe often in woorke use, a paire of paralleles.' Instead of using a phrase to convey meaning, he would convey the same meaning with a symbol. Recorde found it irritating to have to state over and over that one side of an equation was equal to the other side. Perhaps a man trained to study urine and keep control over currency has a pragmatic mind. His final book, The Whetstone of Witte, published in 1557, gave the world the equals sign. For these busy learners, he came up with his most famous invention. Recorde wrote in English for the British layman. Previous works on mathematics were written in Latin, meaning the only people who could read them already had an extensive education. Not only did Recorde explain astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic in successive textbooks, but he explained them in English. He produced a large and varied body of work: theological tracts defending Protestantism, poems, and most importantly, textbooks. The writer's life, however, clearly appealed to him. Over the next decade, he moved from medicine to finance and oversaw mints in Bristol, London, and Dublin. Over the next few years, he also earned a degree in medicine and wrote the exquisitely titled monograph The Urinal of Physick, detailing what a physician could learn from a patient's urine.Įither medicine proved less fascinating than Recorde had anticipated, or less lucrative. At age 21, he was teaching mathematics there, although scholarship wasn't his first career goal. Recorde was born in 1510 in Tenby, Wales. But his greatest contribution is taught to every elementary school child, and it arguably laid the groundwork for modern computer science. In the 16th century, he made advances in economics, medicine, theology, and poetry. Robert Recorde was one of those people so extraordinarily ahead of his time that he seemed destined to come to a tragic end.