# Maths signs and Symbols.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maths-signs-and-symbols/377327>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 21, 2006, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maths-signs-and-symbols/377327 "2006-10-21T04:15:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![RickQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@RickQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickQ)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maths-signs-and-symbols/377327/1 "2006-10-21T04:15:15Z")

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I am looking for a specific maths symbol meaning inversley proportional. I have done some searching on Google but I cannot find one specific symbol to mean that. If anyone could post a link to a site which shows such a symbol that would be great.

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maths-signs-and-symbols/377327/2 "2006-10-21T04:31:10Z")

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[∝](http://www.easymaths.com/getting_things_out_of_proportion.htm).

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**Author:** ![iwakura43](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de0a6/32.png) [@iwakura43](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iwakura43)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maths-signs-and-symbols/377327/3 "2006-10-21T04:34:02Z")

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Back in high school, we used α (that’s supposed to be greek letter alpha) for directly proportional, and 1/α for inversely proportional.

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**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maths-signs-and-symbols/377327/4 "2006-10-21T15:17:36Z")

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There is no symbol for inversely proportional. It would be rather confusing, I think.

Just use

A \<alpha\> 1/B

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**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maths-signs-and-symbols/377327/5 "2006-10-21T16:46:04Z")

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[QUOTE=Absolute]  
There is no symbol for inversely proportional. It would be rather confusing, I think.

Just use

A \<alpha\> 1/B  
[/QUOTE]

Just to be a pedant, that’s not an alpha, it just plays one on TV.

You can compare the symbols in Word’s Insert \> Symbol dialog. Alpha is column 10, row 2; the proportion symbol is column 10, row 5 (at least on my computer; if these don’t work for you, look among the Greek characters and the math symbols, respectively).