Tuesday Night Open Thread: For the Recorde

I had no idea that math symbols were so recent:

It is believed that the equals sign was invented around 1557 by Robert Recorde. Recorde was a Welsh Mathematician who first used a much larger, wider equals sign to represent two equivalent items, calling them parallel lines or “Gemowe lines” (twin lines).  Recorde is reported to have found the act of having to repeatedly state that two values were equal to one another time consuming and irritating, developing a shorthand to convey the meaning of equivalency.

While Recorde’s new equals sign succinctly implied equality between two values, it wasn’t widely adopted until much later. One reason that Recorde’s symbol may have been slow to catch on was that in the 16th century Latin still heavily influenced communication, and the term “aequalis” was frequently just shortened to “Ae” or “oe” if an abbreviation was required. However, Recorde had introduced English speakers to the now-famous German symbols for subtraction and addition: “+” and “-”. This gave Recorde’s equals sign some extra influence, as when combined with + and – the equals sign could easily be used to assert mathematical equations that took much longer to write out. A vertical equals sign, rather than a horizontal equals sign, may have been used throughout the 1600s, with the now universally used horizontal equal sign becoming standardized over the course of the 1700s.

— Daniel Nelson, ScienceTrends.com

Just another thing to keep in mind if you ever travel(led) back in time to before 1600: no one could understand your math notation.

Do you have something you’d like to share? A link? A joke? Some words of wisdom? A topic to discuss? It’s our nightly Open Thread, and you have the floor.

How Liberals See Non-Liberals

Or should.

Shakespeare Knew

Julius Seizure

Act 1

Cassius: Upon what meat doth this our Biden feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!
America, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!

Brutus: Brutus had rather be a villager
Than to repute himself a son of liberty
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.

The games are done and Biden is returning.

Casca: I know not what you mean by that; but, I am sure,
Biden fell down. If the tag-rag people did not
clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and
displeased them, as they use to do the players in
the theatre, I am no true man.

And so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said,
If he had done or said any thing amiss, he desired
their worships to think it was his infirmity. Three
or four wenches, where I stood, cried “Alas, good
soul!” and forgave him with all their hearts: but
there’s no heed to be taken of them; if Biden had
stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less.

Those that understood him smiled at
one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own
part, it was Greek to me.

Casca: Against the Capitol I met a lion,
Who glared upon me, and went surly by,
Without annoying me: and there were drawn
Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw
Men all in fire walk up and down the streets.

Let not men say
“These are their reasons; they are natural”;
For, I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.

Cicero: Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:
But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
Comes Biden to the Capitol to-morrow?

Casca: He doth; for he did bid the media
Send word to you he would be there to-morrow.

Cassius: Let it be who it is: for Americans now
Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;
But, woe the while! our fathers’ minds are dead,
And we are govern’d with our mothers’ spirits;
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

Casca: Indeed, they say the senators tomorrow
Mean to establish Biden as a king;
And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
In every place, save here in our hearts.

Cassius: That part of tyranny that I do bear
I can shake off at pleasure.

Casca: So can I:
So every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity.

Cassius: And why should Biden be a tyrant then?
Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,
But that he sees the Americans are but sheep:
He were no lion, were not Amercans hinds.
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire
Begin it with weak straws: what trash is D.C.,
What rubbish and what offal, when it serves
For the base matter to illuminate
So vile a thing as Biden!

Straight Line of the Day: Kim Jong Un Has Admitted His Five-Year Plan Failed Tremendously. Similarly,…

Straight Line of the Day: Kim Jong Un has admitted his five-year plan failed tremendously. Similarly,…

Kim Jong Un Admits Five-Year Economic Plan Failed “Tremendously”
NY Post | 01/06/2021 | Lia Eustachewich

Kim Jong Un admitted Wednesday that his five-year economic plan failed “tremendously” on nearly every front, state media reported.

The North Korean leader made the comments at a rare days-long Workers’ Party gathering, which was last hosted in 2016 when he first set forth the plan.

“The strategy was due last year but it tremendously fell short of goals on almost every sector,” Kim said in opening remarks to the congress, according to KCNA.

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