When overriding equals in Java, why does it not work to use a parameter other than Object?

Question

I ran into an interesting behavior recently. It seems that if I override .equals() to take a parameter other than Object, it doesn\'t get called. Can anyone explain to me

Answer 1

there are different types of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymorphism_(computer_science). java does not do http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dispatch.