7

Is there a substantial difference between $\leq$ and $\leqslant$? My textbook uses both, but I could not tell why the authors selected one or the other. I asked my teacher, and she said that there was no difference between the two, but if there is no difference, why were both used? When I am writing solutions and proofs, is there any time when it would be considered better practice to use one than the other?

nosyarg
  • 157
  • 4
    Poor editing? I can't imagine why they would mean something different. The only rational explanation I can come up with would be fonts/environments. Perhaps in plain text $\leq$ is used and in theorem boxes $\leqslant$ is used (or vice versa or neither). – Jared May 15 '15 at 01:46
  • 1
    It's odd that both are used within the same text, but they're just different "fonts." – zahbaz May 15 '15 at 01:56
  • There is no difference in meaning. It's a stylistic difference only, the way $A$ and A are both the letter “A”. As Jared says above, it's just bad editing. – MJD May 15 '15 at 02:15
  • 1
    I personally prefer $\leqslant$ and $\geqslant$. Similar to how I prefer $\varnothing$ to $\emptyset$. It's just preference. – Math1000 May 15 '15 at 02:30
  • My mobile browser finds first one easy to load! Other is a black dot for a while (till Mathjax does the magic) – Jesse P Francis May 15 '15 at 02:39

1 Answers1

2

http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/u+2a7d/properties

http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/u+2264/properties

Both symbols exist in unicode simply because they were both used on paper. But they mean the same.

Dleep
  • 874