Signs and Symbols

Symbols are visual shorthand used to represent something else. Other common terms are signs and ideographs (or ideograms). I have a couple books about symbols and there are thousands of examples.

In essence, these marks are used to represent an idea or concept - sometimes vaguely and sometimes quite precisely.

For example, this means recycling ♲   and this means recycling a certain type of plastic  ♴

☃  it's clear that this means a snowman. That's a cheerful but irrelevant symbol.

☹ you might be slightly down when you use this, but it's not as serious as using this!  ☠

In mathematics, we use lots of symbols, both to save space, and to convey specific meanings that are inconvenient to express in words.

Here are a few for you to review:

+ - × ÷  ± =    Arithmetic, easy right?

How about these modified equal signs?

≇ Neither approximately nor exactly equal to


≈ Almost or approximately equal to


≤ Less than or equal to
 

≥ More than or equal to

Still with me? Let's try a few more

⋚  This must mean everything because its title is Less-Than, Equal-To or Greater-Than

⩐  This is a Closed Union with Serifs and Smash Product. I have no idea what that means!

⨋  Summation with Integral

It goes on and on. Every technical field is filled with symbols.

��__  This invisible musical symbol is called a clef. It appears only if your software supports it. My desktop displays this symbol but the browsers don't!

(This introduces a concept called FONTS and we don't want to get started on that slippery slope!!!)

Symbols are useful in everyday life too.

⌘ This means a place of interest, and you can get information about it here  i

∞ This means infinity (and literally there is no end to the symbols you can create)
 .  In American we call this a period. The English call it a FULL STOP and we might as well make one now