Say that you know that thing1.equals( thing2 ) is FALSE.

What can you then say about (thing1 == thing2 ) ?

A good answer might be:

(thing1 == thing2 ) will be false, because the only way for thing1.equals( thing2 ) to be false if for there to be two objects.

You may wish to review the following subjects. Each blue phrase is a reference to the web page which contains the data for the topic.

• Data type.
• Primitive data types vs. objects.
• Picture of a String object.
• The two steps of an assignment operator.
• Definition of object reference.
• What each type of variable contains, and how each type is used.
• Garbage and garbage collection.
• Assigning a new value to a reference variable.
• The == operator and reference variables.
• Two references to one object.
• String literals.
• equals() method.