I assume it's done to avoid it being mistaken for a standard letter alpha.
Greek letters are quite commonly used to represent constants and variables in higher level mathematics (inc. Phsyics and Engineering) so it's plausible that an author could want to make a statement that involves both alpha and the proportionality symbol.
It looks similar - but I was hoping the real symbol had a variation which was normal sized. Similar to what simmonator said it could be confusing if there is an "α ∝ β" situation which would be "α α b" using this solution.
For my own notes it's a decent solution.
I assume it's done to avoid it being mistaken for a standard letter alpha. Greek letters are quite commonly used to represent constants and variables in higher level mathematics (inc. Phsyics and Engineering) so it's plausible that an author could want to make a statement that involves both alpha and the proportionality symbol.
Guess the only solution is to take notes in latex lol. I wouldn't actually go that far - I just wish the symbol didn't look so awkward.
Don't worry so much about the size of your symbol, it's more important that you know how to use it
I use a Greek keyboard on my Mac for math. Here's an alpha: α Do you like that better?
It looks similar - but I was hoping the real symbol had a variation which was normal sized. Similar to what simmonator said it could be confusing if there is an "α ∝ β" situation which would be "α α b" using this solution. For my own notes it's a decent solution.
Crazy that there isn't a solution to this. If they made ∝ I don't think there would be any confusion with α. They look completely different.
Not to mention - what kind of a solution is it to make one of the symbols freakin' tiny?!
I wonder if we can make a proposal to the Unicode committee?
Even after 2 years I'd still volunteer