What is the equals sign?

Have you ever wondered where the equals sign came from? Most of us think those two little horizontal lines just mean "ta-da, the answer comes next!" But the true story is much bigger, and it starts all the way back in 1557! Join Mira and Finn as they travel back in time to meet Robert Recorde, a brilliant Welsh doctor and mathematician. Robert was writing a magnificent book called The Whetstone of Witte, but he got completely fed up with writing the words "is equal to" over and over again with his scratchy feather quill. His solution? He drew two giant parallel lines! Why? Because as he put it, no two things can be more equal! But here is the most amazing secret: the equals sign doesn't actually mean "calculate this now." It is actually a picture of perfect balance! Imagine a bright red see-saw hovering perfectly flat, or a fair trade of playing cards with your friends. Discover how this simple shortcut totally changed the world of math, and why Robert’s clever new symbol was surprisingly slow to catch on. Get ready to see tiny see-saws everywhere!