Why are there so many different symbols to represent the Heaviside (unit step) function

99 Views Asked by At

In signal processing, the unit step function is typically written as $u(t)$. In other references though I have seen it represented as $H(t)$ and even $\theta(t)$. The unit impulse is fairly ubiquitously represented as $\delta(t)$. Why the inconsistency in giving the unit step function a symbolic representation?