Algebra

Redundancy pervades our lives. It is often found in writing, as in "she is a popular music singer." Taking the redundancy out of this statement we have: "she is a popular singer."

Algebra takes the redundancy out of numeric values. Its purpose is to simplify. With algebra one merely does to one side of an equals sign what one does to the other side. For example, if 2x is said to equal 10y, one divides both sides of the equation by 2, making x=5y. Scholars speak of elementary algebra, abstract algebra and various other kinds of algebra, but in all its complexity it is merely removing redundancy. That is what solving any math equations is about.