Robert Recorde
Born: 1510 in Tenby, Wales
Died: 1558 in London, England
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Recorde virtually established the English school of mathematics and first introduced algebra into England.
Recorde is best known for inventing the 'equals' symbol '=' which appears in his book The Whetstone of Witte (1557).
Recorde was educated at Oxford and Cambridge. He became physician to King Edward VI and Queen Mary. He served for a time in Ireland as 'Comptroller of Mines and Monies'.
Recorde virtually established the English school of mathematics and first introduced algebra into England.
He wrote many textbooks, for example The Grounde of Artes in 1540 was a very successful commercial arithmetic book teaching the perfect work and practice of Arithmeticke etc in Recorde's own words. The book discusses operations with arabic numerals, computation with counters, proportion, the 'rule of three', and fractions.
In 1551 Recorde wrote Pathwaie to Knowledge which some consider an abridged version of Euclid's Elements . It is the only one of his books not written in the form of a dialogue between a master and scholar.
The 'equals' symbol '=' appears in Recorde's book The Whetstone of Witte published in 1557. He justifies using two parallel line segments bicause noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle .
The symbol = was not immediately popular. The symbol || was used by some and 'ae' ( or 'oe' ), from the word 'aequalis' meaning equal, was widely used into the 1700's.
Recorde died in King's Bench prison in Southwark, where he was committed for debt. Although no official record remains of other crimes, some historians think he was guilty of much more serious offences.
The picture above is the only portrait known of him and was thought to have been made from life in 1556 although more recent research suggests that it is a 17th Century work.
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