Stormgrass

#photolog: Equals

photolog May 16, 2025
Big Data for the Leviathan Tom Johnson quotes the early modern mathematicians Robert Recorde and John Wallis, and remarks on Wallis's invention of the lemniscate symbol to denote infin- ity (LRB, 24 October). Recorde had a far greater influence on the way we write math- ematics: his book The Whetstone of Witte (I557) introduced the = symbol for equal- ity, with the rationale that ' noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle' than a pair of par- allel lines. The book is also notable as the first in English to use the modern plus and minus signs. (Recorde also coined the term zenzizenzizenzic to mean an eighth power which survives today as the solitary entry in the OED with six 'z's.) Artie Prendergast-Smith Loughborough
The moare you know

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