Problems with mathematical symbols?
Is this:
Öp
the square root of the Greek letter pi?
Help is at hand!
Listed here are some of the mathematical symbols you
are likely to meet early in your course; some of them
have been used in the these web pages.
Greek letters
There are certain conventions which symbols are used
for which purpose in mathematics, for example x and y
usually denote real variables; a, b and c usually
denote real constants; i, j, k, m and n usually denote
integers. Consequently, we soon exhaust our usual
alphabet and we have to turn to Greek. The following
lists those which are used in mathematics (two lower
case letters, omicron and upsilon, and several upper
case letters, are rarely used because of their
similarity to other symbols).
Lower case
-
| a |
alpha |
i |
iota |
r |
rho |
| b |
beta |
k |
kappa |
s |
sigma |
| g |
gamma |
l |
lambda |
t |
tau |
| d |
delta |
m |
mu |
f or j |
phi |
| e |
epsilon |
n |
nu |
c |
chi |
| z |
zeta |
x |
xi |
y |
psi |
| h |
eta |
p |
pi |
w |
omega |
| q |
theta |
|
|
|
|
|
Upper case
|
| G |
Gamma |
X |
Xi |
F |
Phi |
| D |
Delta |
P |
Pi |
Y |
Psi |
| Q |
Theta |
S |
Sigma |
W |
Omega |
| L |
Lambda |
|
|
|
|
|
Some special sets
The following are standard ways of denoting some
special sets of numbers.
-
C or  |
The set of all complex numbers |
N or  |
The set of all positive integers |
Q or 
|
The set of all rational numbers |
R or  |
The set of all real numbers |
Z or  |
The set of all integers |
| (a,b) |
The set of all real numbers x such that a
< x < b |
| [a,b] |
The set of all real numbers x such that a
£ x
£ b |
| (a,¥) |
The set of all real numbers x such that a
< x |
|
N.B: ¥ is not a real
number; it is a symbol used in certain specific
contexts with specific meanings.
Set-theoretic symbols
The following is standard notation for the set of
all those elements x which have a given property P:
The following is a list of some of the most commonly
used set-theoretic symbols.
-
| Symbol |
Name |
Example |
Interpretation |
| |
|
|
|
| Î
|
belongs to |
a Î
A |
a is a member of the set A |
| È
|
union |
A
ÈB |
{x: x
Î A or x Î B} |
| Ç
|
intersection |
A
ÇB |
{x: x
Î A and x Î B} |
| \ |
difference of sets
|
A \B |
{x: x
Î A and x Ï B} |
| × |
product of sets
|
A ×B |
The set of all ordered pairs
(a,b), |
| |
|
|
where a
Î A and b Î B |
| |
| Í
|
subset |
A Í
B |
A is a subset of B, i.e. |
| |
|
|
every member of A is a member of
B |
| Æ
|
empty set |
|
the set with no members |
|
Other notation
-
| f : A
® B
|
f is a function from A to B,
i.e. |
|
|
to each member a of A, f assigns a
value f(a) in B |
|
|
|
implies (see Implications) |
|
|
| Û
|
if and only if (see Implications) |
|
N.B: Do not use as shorthand for ``Therefore'' or ``It follows
that ...''.
Problems with Seeing Maths Symbols?
The mathematics for these Study Guide pages were
prepared by
TTH, which converts latex to
HTML.
This should mean you can see mathematical
symbols, subscripts and superscripts on any
browser.
However, there is a small, and easily correctable,
problem, with Netscape and the window system X on unix
machines.
If the following does not display as the square root
of the Greek letter pi, and you are using Netscape on a
unix system, follow the instructions below:
Öp
Instructions:
- in a terminal type: emacs
.Xdefaults
- an emacs window will appear, go to the end of the
file, and on a blank line add:
Netscape*documentFonts.charset*adobe-fontspecific:
iso-8859-1
- save the file
- in a terminal type: xrdb -merge
.Xdefaults
- restart Netscape, and return to these pages.
