An open note to Craig Laughton
Dear Craig,
In your journal entry dated 11/12/04 you express discomfort with the operator ≥. I'm not sure how you feel about it now, but just in case you're still unsure about it I thought I'd write this little note.
I think the first thing getting you into trouble is your pronunciation. ≥ is best pronounced 'at least'. The problem with `greater than or equal to' is that it leaves one with the mistaken impression that ≥ is a special case of > (as the commenter on your entry demonstrates). In fact it is better the other way round. We define > in terms of ≥ i.e.
≥, of course has a counterpart, ≤, pronounced `at most' and you can find a nice little note about it here.
One property of ≥ is that it is reflexive i.e. x ≥ x for all x. Thus expressions like 14≥14 and 9≥9 are perfectly fine.
Regards,
Eric M.
In your journal entry dated 11/12/04 you express discomfort with the operator ≥. I'm not sure how you feel about it now, but just in case you're still unsure about it I thought I'd write this little note.
I think the first thing getting you into trouble is your pronunciation. ≥ is best pronounced 'at least'. The problem with `greater than or equal to' is that it leaves one with the mistaken impression that ≥ is a special case of > (as the commenter on your entry demonstrates). In fact it is better the other way round. We define > in terms of ≥ i.e.
x > y ≡ x ≥ y ∧ ¬(y ≥ x)
≥, of course has a counterpart, ≤, pronounced `at most' and you can find a nice little note about it here.
One property of ≥ is that it is reflexive i.e. x ≥ x for all x. Thus expressions like 14≥14 and 9≥9 are perfectly fine.
Regards,
Eric M.
posted by Eric at 4:27 AM
2 Comments:
Well that's what I get for being pedantic - a public telling-off :)
Just to reiterate, I never marked anyone down for it, I'm not a complete bastard!
Well I wasn't telling you off, I just thought that others might have the same feeling you do and so might profit from hearing what I had to say.
Incidentally, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with being pedantic, in the certain situations it can be the difference between success and failure...
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