BUILT-IN MATHEMATICA SYMBOL

GreaterEqual

or

yields True if

is determined to be greater than or equal to

.

yields True if the

form a non-increasing sequence.

MORE INFORMATION

can be entered as x Esc >= Esc y or .

GreaterEqual gives True or False when its arguments are real numbers.

GreaterEqual does some simplification when its arguments are not numbers.

For exact numeric quantities, GreaterEqual internally uses numerical approximations to establish numerical ordering. This process can be affected by the setting of the global variable $MaxExtraPrecision.

In StandardForm, GreaterEqual is printed using .

, entered as x Esc >/ Esc y or x\[GreaterSlantEqual]y, can be used on input as an alternative to .

EXAMPLES

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Basic Examples (2)

Compare numbers:

Represent an inequality:

Compare numbers:

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Out[1]=

In[2]:=

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Represent an inequality:

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Scope (9)

Inequalities are defined only for real numbers:

Compare rational numbers:

Approximate numbers that differ in at most their last eight binary digits are considered equal:

Compare an exact numeric expression and an approximate number:

Compare two exact numeric expressions; a numeric test may suffice to prove inequality:

Proving this inequality requires symbolic methods:

Symbolic and numeric methods used by GreaterEqual are insufficient to prove this inequality:

Use RootReduce to decide the sign of algebraic numbers:

Numeric methods used by GreaterEqual do not use sufficient precision to disprove this:

RootReduce disproves the inequality using exact methods:

Increasing $MaxExtraPrecision may disprove the inequality:

Symbolic inequalities remain unevaluated, since x may not be a real number:

Use Refine to reevaluate the inequality assuming that x is real:

A symbolic inequality:

Use Reduce to find an explicit description of the solution set:

Use FindInstance to find a solution instance:

Use Minimize to optimize over the region defined by the inequality:

Use Refine to simplify under assumptions defined by the inequality:

Properties & Relations (12)

The negation of two-argument GreaterEqual is Less:

The negation of three-argument GreaterEqual does not simplify automatically:

Use LogicalExpand to express the negation in terms of two-argument Less:

This is not equivalent to three-argument Less:

When GreaterEqual cannot decide an inequality it returns unchanged:

FullSimplify uses exact symbolic transformations to prove the inequality:

NonNegative[x] is equivalent to

:

Use Reduce to solve inequalities:

Use FindInstance to find solution instances:

Use RegionPlot and RegionPlot3D to visualize solution sets of inequalities:

Inequality assumptions:

Use Minimize and Maximize to solve optimization problems constrained by inequalities:

Use NMinimize and NMaximize to numerically solve constrained optimization problems:

Integrate a function over the solution set of inequalities:

Use Median, Quantile, and Quartiles to the

greatest number(s):

Possible Issues (3)

Inequalities for machine-precision approximate numbers can be subtle:

The result is determined based on extra digits:

Arbitrary-precision approximate numbers do not have this problem:

Thanks to automatic precision tracking, GreaterEqual knows to look only at the first 10 digits:

In this case, inequality between machine numbers gives the expected result:

The extra digits in this case are ignored by GreaterEqual: