(but it's not as simple as you think)
A good equation is not simply a formula for computation. Nor is it a
balance scale confirming that two items you suspected were nearly
equal really are the same. Instead, scientists started using the "="
symbol as something of a telescope for new ideas—a device for
directing attention to fresh, unsuspected realms. This is how
Einstein used the "=" in his 1905 equation. Einstein made a giant
intellectual leap when he realized that mass and energy are
interchangeable—that with the right "conversion factor" of
c2, they can straddle an equal sign.
But where did the seemingly mundane symbol at the heart of
Einstein's profound equation come from? It can be traced to an
enterprising academic of the 1500s named Robert Recorde.
Birth of the equal sign
Bibles of the 14th century often had text that looked much like
telegrams:
IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH
AND THE EARTH WAS WITHOUT FORM AND VOID AND DARKNESS
WAS UPON THE FACE OF THE DEEP
Major typographic symbols were locked in rather quickly once
printing began at the end of the 1400s. Texts began to be filled in
with the old "?" symbols and the newer "!" marks. Minor symbols took
longer.
Through the mid-1500s there was still space for entrepreneurs to set
their own mark by establishing minor symbols. In 1543, Robert
Recorde, a pioneering mathematics textbook writer in Great Britain,
tried to promote the new-style "+" sign, which had achieved some
popularity on the Continent. The book he wrote didn't make his
fortune, so in the next decade he tried again, this time with a
symbol, which probably had roots in old logic texts, that he was
sure would take off.
In the best style of advertising hype everywhere, he even tried to
give it a unique selling point: "...And to avoide the tediouse
repetition of these woordes: is equalle to: I will sette ... a pair
of parallels, or ... lines of one lengthe, thus: ====== bicause noe
.2. thynges, can be moare equalle..."
It doesn't seem that Recorde gained from his innovation, for it
remained in bitter competition with the equally plausible "//" and
even with the bizarre "[;" symbol, which the powerful German
printing houses were trying to promote. But by Shakespeare's time a
generation later Recorde's victory was finally certain.
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