What is the meaning of the math symbol $\because$?

Question

This is essentially a $\therefore$ symbol upside down, and I have seen it in some proofs, not many. What does it mean?

Hint: If I can't find out a symbol I try to draw it here: http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html most of the time it's recognized (your symbol was a bit hard though, but it recognized it on the second try) — Verena Praher, Apr 13 '17 at 07:39
@VerenaHaunschmid That site looks really cool, but I still can't get it to do anything more than three dots in horizontal line for the symbol in question :) Although, trying to draw the "therefore" sign I wound up with the "because" sign by accident lol — Brian J, Apr 13 '17 at 14:34
@VerenaHaunschmid This site worked better for me. It's not for LaTeX, but it does Unicode, which is helpful in most cases. Once you find what the character is called, you can probably figure out how to use it or look it up on Google. — mbomb007, Apr 13 '17 at 16:38
@BrianJ: I found that it initially gave me five symbols of the form "three dots in a horizontal line", but it offered a "Show more" link, and the next five symbols included the desired one. (That said, I'm not sure that finding out how to write a symbol in LaTeX is, in general, sufficient for finding out what it means.) — ruakh, Apr 14 '17 at 00:58

score 51 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 13 '17 at 02:51

51

The inverted form of the therefore sign ( $\therefore$ ) used in proofs before logical consequences, is known as the because sign ( $\because$ ) and it is used in proofs before reasoning.

answered Apr 13 '17 at 02:51

score 27 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 23:46

27

This symbol just means 'because'. If it was facing up, it means 'therefore'.

Kinda feel like this is too short but I guess there's not much to this question.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 23:46

Aganju

794

answered Apr 13 '17 at 02:38

Robin Aldabanx

1,908

18

I read the answer as "It's just because. Period." Couldn't help laughing... +1 – Tobias Kienzler Apr 13 '17 at 14:09
7

I suggest putting "because" and therefore in quotes or italics to avoid this ambiguity. – Apr 13 '17 at 17:55
3

It's sometimes read as "since". – Ethan Bolker Apr 13 '17 at 23:55
Maybe you could offer some speculation as to why one seems to be used more than the other. – Robert Soupe Apr 14 '17 at 01:13

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 23 '17 at 19:29

0

$\therefore $ You will have seen it next to the conclusions ... it is equivalent to "therefore", "then", "consequently", "in conclusion", "we obtain" and a long etcetera.

Its inverse is $\because $ that it means << because >>.

answered Apr 23 '17 at 19:29

Guillemus Callelus

1,057

What is the meaning of the math symbol $\because$?

3 Answers3

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