MATHEMATICS IN MODERN WORLD

The Origin of Signs =, <, >, ≤, ≥ and

its Early Uses
 =
(EQUAL SIGN)

Robert Recorde, the Royal Court Physician for England's King Edward VI and Queen
Mary invented the equal sign. He's the most influential Welsh mathematician of his day
and among other things, he introduced algebra to his countrymen.

Recorde first proposed the equal sign in a 1557 book named The Whetstone of Witte.
He found it irritating to have to state over and over that one side of an equation was
equal to the other side. He wrote, with obvious annoyance and whimsical spelling, "And
to avoide the tedious repetition of these woordes, is equalle to, I will sette as I doe often
in woorke use, a paire of paralleles." Instead of using a phrase to convey meaning, he
would convey the same meaning with a symbol. What symbol could be more
appropriate than a pair of equal-length lines? Nothing, Recorde explained, "noe 2
thyngs, can be moare equalle."

In addition to The Whetstone of Witte, Recorde also wrote a book on arithmetic called
The Grounde of Artes (c. 1542), a book on popular astronomy called The Castle of
Knowledge (1551), and a book on Euclidian geometry called The Pathewaie to
Knowledge (1551). The Encyclopædia Britannica notes that Whetstone was his most
influential work.

As for the reason he invented the equal sign, I think his own words say it best, if you
can decipher the archaic language and odd spellings. Equal signs let us avoid tedious
repetition and, as such, allow a shorthand symbol to show how unknown quantities
relate to known quantities.

Early Use:

 Recorde’s first book The Whetstone Witte (1557)

<,>
(LESS THAN AND GREATER THAN SIGN)

The signs for greater than (>) and less than (<) were introduced in 1631 in “Artis
Analyticae Praxis ad Aequationes Algebraicas Resolvendas.” The book was the work of
British mathematician, Thomas Harriot, and was published 10 years after his death in
1621. The symbols actually invented by the book’s editor. The editor of the book
introduced the signs ∙ for multiplication, > for greater than, and < for less than.

Early Use:

 Harriot’s Artis Analyticae Praxis ad Aequationes Algebraicas Resolvendas (1631)

 ≤, ≥
(LESS THAN or EQUAL TO AND GREATER THAN or EQUAL TO SIGN)

Pierre Bouguer, a French Mathematician used ≤ and ≥ in 1734 (Ball). In 1670, John
Wallis a British Mathematician and Logician used similar symbols each with a single
horizontal bar, but the bar was above the < and > rather than below it.

Early Use:

 In the year 1734, Bouguer first used the sign ≤ ≥.

References:
http://jeff560.tripod.com/relation.html
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Harriot#ref266711
https://sciencing.com/history-equality-symbols-math-8143072.html
http://mentalfloss.com/article/76342/retrobituaries-robert-recorde-inventor-equals-sign
https://www.wired.com/2014/10/invention-equals-sign/
http://www.caltech.edu/news/question-week-who-invented-equal-sign-and-why-171