Talk:Greek letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering

Edits to upper and lower case letters

A few edits ago the lower and upper case Greek letters were the combined under one heading. In many cases the indication of which one is meant was lost. This needs some cleaning.

Additionally, the explanations in the bullets start at random with a small or capital letter. Usage in wikipedia seems to be small letters in lists. −Woodstone 11:43, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

The small/capital letters in the lists are not random. Concepts listed under a small letter are designated specifically by the small letter, and those listed under a capital, by the capital - in fact, if you look at some of the letters, for instance delta, there are two sub-lists of things small delta stands for, and things capital delta stands for. CarrieVS (talk) 21:46, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

You are reacting to a 7-year old comment. Just before it, someone had merged small and capital letter sections. The "random" remark was addressed at the bulleted explanations, not the symbols. −Woodstone (talk) 05:40, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Greek letters in science and engineering

A lot of Greek letters are also used in science and engineering. What do you think, should we add them here (perhaps after appropriate rename) or start a new article? −Woodstone 20:33, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

• I'd say add them here. A comprehensive single list beats multiple lists – this can always be renamed to, say, Greek letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 20:45, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

I've moved the page to Greek letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering and merged it with Greek letters used in physics. There were some concepts that I couldn't find a proper link for. Also I believe it would be better if the concepts under each letter were arranged from general to esoteric, because I think this list is of most use to students. Yardleydobon 02:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Chemistry symbols

I know this list is never going to be exhaustive – and as a chemist myself I am biased – but chemistry, both physical and general, does seem woefully underrepresented here! 89.168.81.58 (talk) 22:49, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Wow

I had no idea this subject would be so popular. Nor did I think the other topic I made would be that popular as well. Thanks to all who contributed to both of them. --Admiral Roo 17:17, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Greek pronunciation

Would it be more appropriate to mention inside the brackets the correct pronunciation of some of the letters in the actual greek language? Some of them are correctly pronounced but for the following here is the correct pronunciation:

• μ (Me as in 'me')
• ν (Ne as in 'need')

3.141 *π (pe as in 'peek')

• ξ (kse as in 'anxious')
• τ (taf as in 'tough')
• υ (is eepsilon)

1.618*φ (phe as in 'feel')

• χ (che as in 'he', strong 'h')
• ψ (pse as in 'autopsy')

I know they're commonly referred to with the current pronunciation. As a native greek I would like to point out the correct one as a suggestion for an addition -not substitution- to the current. −Arheos 00:15, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

These letters are borrowed from the "classical" Greek alphabet. How they are pronounced in modern Greek is not that relevant to this subject. There is an article Greek alphabet that contains that information.−Woodstone 10:10, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Since these letters have to be pronounced when used in context I think it is useful for people to know how to properly pronounce them. I have seen the discussion over at Greek alphabet but the interest here is that this article will be more often referred to when people look up a certain letter used in mathematics. The greek language is the only one that still uses these letters actively together with their pronunciation and it seems strange that a whole nation has a certain way of pronouncing them be it mathematics or not, whereas the rest of the world completely ignores that, a large portion of it at least, for one reason or another and uses something completely different for some of them. Well it's just my opinion after all.−Arheos 16:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

it's true that modern Greeks don't pronounce these letters in the same way that (non-Greek) mathematicians and scientists do. However, if you pronounced, say, τ as "taf", no English-speaking mathematician (and I think English-speaking mathematicians are probably the right sample to take here, as this is the English-language wikipedia) would understand you. Since this page is presumably meant to aid mathematical communication, it should reflect the pronunciations used by mathematicians.

However, it's probably worth mentioning in the article that there is this difference of pronunciation. I'll add something to that effect. Izzycat 21:27, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to provide this page as a link to students in my lower-division college math courses such as Trigonometry; I think an elementary pronunciation guide would be very useful for them. I'd want the pronunciations in use by mathematicians. Midnight Creek 06:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Html code for non-varphi?

Is there html code for a character that looks like $\phi$ but not $\varphi$? Also the table listing tex code does not mention $\varphi$. Instead it seems to put $\phi$ and φ together. Thenub314 (talk) 11:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

$\epsilon$ as an ordinal

I've never seen an unadorned $\epsilon$ used to refer to that ordinal, only $\epsilon _{0}$. Does it still belong? If we're including decorated uses, then the use of $\Sigma$, $\Pi$ and $\Delta$ in the arithmetical hierarchy also belongs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.137.149 (talk) 10:14, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Concepts represented by a Greek letter

Somebody has recently removed GAMMA from this part of the page. May I ask why ??

--Andre anckaert (talk) 13:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Other HTML Greek letter variants such as ß

A variant of β that should also be considered is ß also known as "sharp s" or "s z ligature" at code point U+00DF. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.96.80.15 (talk) 18:50, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The Eszett is an unrelated ligature of ſ and z and not a variant of beta. 86.130.188.210 (talk) 00:39, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Chi - algebraic variable

One of the listed uses of Chi is as 'a variable in algebraic equations'. I don't know of, and can't find any other reference to any such use. The only thing I can think of is that this is referring to the common use of 'x' as an unknown in equations, but not only is this not really a convention or understood meaning - x is only a commonly used letter, and any symbol can be (and often are) used with equal validity - more importantly, it's the Latin letter x, not Chi.

Does anyone know if this is what was meant (or know of such a use of Chi)?CarrieVS (talk) 19:28, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree, any Greek or Latin letter could be used as a "variable in algebraic equations", and the entry contains no blue links, so I have been bold and deleted it. -- Dr Greg  talk  19:54, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Greek Letter ∂ (curly small delta)

The Greek letter ∂ (curly small delta) plays an important role in mathematics and physics, one notable place is calculus, where it is used to denote partial derivative, such as ${\frac {\partial ^{2}}{\ \partial x\ \partial y\ }}$. However, this letter is missing from the table of Greek letters in this article. Therefore, I suggest that it be inserted there as follows (showing only the part of the table for letter delta):

Greek letters
Name	TeX	HTML
Delta	$\Delta \,\delta \,\partial \,$	Δ δ ∂

I suggest that one of the more-frequent editors of this page or this topic should make this change in order to avoid controversy, as I am relatively unknown. Alternatively, I would be happy to make the change myself, provided that no one objected.

Regards,

Plamen Grozdanov (talk) 22:35, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, any comments at all? Agreement or disagreement, any objections? Should I make this proposed change? Plamen Grozdanov (talk) 00:10, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's been now a couple of years and no one has objected or disagreed with the above-proposed change, so I presume that I have now the mandate to make the change (unless anyone objects right now, although whoever that would be clearly had a few years of a notice to make their mind and object earlier). Plamen Grozdanov (talk) 00:58, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that character is a "Greek delta" at all. The Wikipedia article ∂ makes no mention of "Greek" or "delta"; it calls it a "curly dee", not "curly delta"; in Unicode it is called "partial differential"; in LATEX it's called "\partial"; and in HTML it's called "∂" -- Dr Greg  talk  01:21, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Upsilon as frequency?

I've never seen anybody use small upsilon as frequency. The article vaguely cites "textbooks", but I think whoever added that was thinking of small nu. 138.16.104.236 (talk) 16:40, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

β coefficients in regression

β represents the coefficients in (multiple) regression. Should this be added to the list or is it implied by an existing item?

Earcanal (talk) 17:03, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

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Suggestions regarding moving this article

Hi, everyone! Won't the title name better if it was List of Greek letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering, rather than Greek letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering. Thanks! Justlookingforthemoment (talk) 14:01, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think so. A list is a list, we don't need to name it as such.--عبد المؤمن (talk) 10:45, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Delta

isn't one of the most common uses in physics that Delta represents change in velocity? 2600:1000:B153:2780:CDF7:12B2:D1EA:AEDD (talk) 03:15, 21 December 2022 (UTC)