Equal Meaning

"Dr. [Eugenia] Cheng's latest book, Unequal: The Math of When Things Do and Don’t Add Up, is all about equations and will be released in the United States on Tuesday. But it is more than a regurgitation of the many formulas you may recall learning in high school. In the book, Dr. Cheng argues that an equation — in its barest sense, a declaration that two things are equal — can be a profound statement on the choices we make about what is or is not the same. For example, 2 × 3 may equal 3 × 2. But two packs of three cookies each is distinct from three packs of two cookies each. A cube drawn face-on versus from one edge looks different, though we understand the two shapes to be the same. "Almost everything can be considered equal and unequal at the same time," Dr. Cheng wrote. "And it's up to us what we do about it."" — 2025 August 30, Katrina Miller, “You Don't Need to Be Good at Math to Enjoy It. In her latest book, Eugenia Cheng, a mathematician, explores the choices we make to determine if two things — numbers, shapes, words and even people — are equal. 'A Conversation With' column”, in New York Times:

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than the others." — 1945, George Orwell, Animal Farm:

"[Under] the combat exclusion [preventing women from serving in combat...] Women are not equal citizens; women are a certain kind of citizen, a separate class with distinctly lower status." — 1983, Law & Inequality:

"[…] women and men should be equal regarding civil rights / the right to occupational work." — 2009, Kari Melby, Christina Carlsson Wetterberg, Anna-Birte Ravn, Gender Equality and Welfare Politics in Scandinavia: The Limits of Political Ambition?, Policy Press, →ISBN, page 57:

"They who are not disposed to receive them may let them alone or reject them; it is equal to me." — 1705, George Cheyne, The Philosophical Principles of Religion Natural and Revealed: