Question

What is an example of "≥" being used, and how does it work? I can't grasp how one number can be greater/equal to another.

Answer 1

This makes more sense when you are talking about a variable being greater than/less than or equal to a number.

For example, x ≥ 5.

x can be any of the numbers from 5 to infinity, including 5. You can see that 6 is greater than or equal to 5. A trillion is greater than of equal to 5. And 5 itself is greater than or equal to 5. All of these are solutions to x. In interval notation, we could write [5,∞). The solution set of this inequality is all real numbers x such that x ≥ 5. (For just a plain number being greater than/less than or equal to another number, this seems a little unnecessary, so I understand your confusion.)

You can see it graphically in the attached image.

Answer 2

I will explain this to you in the best way I can.

Basically, they are not telling us the EXACT value of x. They are only telling us the possibility of what x can be. This means...

Saying that
x>5
means that x HAS to be greater than 5.
This means that the only numbers included are the value infinitely close to 5 through +∞

If we say
x≥5
this means that x HAS to be 5 or any number above 5.
This means the only numbers included are 5 through +∞

I hope this helps!

Ask any questions if you still don't understand.

Best of luck!