A Note on Equality

I am slightly tired of writing 3+4 is 7, so I think it is time to introduce the equal sign. The symbol '=' means that the values on either side of it are actually the same. As another of my colleagues pointed out a while back, due to its use on a calculator, students sometimes think of '=' as having the same meaning as the Enter key, in that it signifies that a computation need be performed. However '=' is simpler than that, it just indicates that the left side and right side are quantitatively the same. So 3+4=4+3=5+2=1+1+1+1+1+1+1.