Math Is Fun Forum

mikau

Member

Registered: 2005-08-22

Posts: 1,504

the wierd "w"

I'm pretty sure its called omega, it looks like a w drawn with curves. Or kind of like a horizontal "8"

I've seen this symbol several times. What does it mean? My mathbook used it once to stand for radians per second, in angular velocity problems. But I tend to see it a lot in places where its meaning appears to be undefined.

What does this symbol stand for? Is it just used for variables or does it always mean the same thing?

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A logarithm is just a misspelled algorithm.

Jai Ganesh

Administrator

Registered: 2005-06-28

Posts: 46,171

Re: the wierd "w"

It is omega, and looks a little like w.
In physics, omega stands for angular velocity.
w = dθ /dt where θ is angular displacement and t is time.
In many electricity/magnetism formulae, 2*pi*w is found.
The unit of angular velocity is radians and 2*pi radians is equal to 360 degrees.
Interestingly, alpha is angular acceleration, dw/dt or d²θ /dt².
The Greek alphabets are used to represent various parameters in Physics, like mu is refractive index, rho is specific gravity (and specific resistance too), lambda is wavelenght etc.

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It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils. - Niels Henrik Abel.

Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge - Stephen William Hawking.

mikau

Member

Registered: 2005-08-22

Posts: 1,504

Re: the wierd "w"

Right then. What do alpha, beta, and gamma stand for in matrices?

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A logarithm is just a misspelled algorithm.