Question

Snippets:

 private double memberVal;   
 public double MemberVal   
 {   
  get { return memberVal; }   
  set { memberVal= value; }   
 }

and

public double MemberVal   
 {    
  get; set;  
 }

Answer 1

No, but now they are the same

private double memberVal;
public double MemberVal
{
    get { return memberVal; }
    set { memberVal= value; }
} 

and

public double MemberVal
{
get; set;
}

Update
Except – as pointed out by Johannes Rössel – that you can access the field from code in the first case but not in the latter 🙂 –

Meaning that in the first code sample, within your class you can directly set the backing member for the property (i.e. private double memberVal1 e.g. memberVal = 1.1;), where in the second, there is still a private backing member for the property, but it’s now invisible.
You can only access it through the property.