Incubator escapee wiki

Omega

Article Discussion

Template:Short description Template:Redirect Template:About {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Template:More citations needed Template:Use dmy dates Template:Greek AlphabetOmega (Template:IPAc-en, Template:IPAc-en;<ref>Template:Cite LPD</ref> uppercase Ω, lowercase ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and last letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" (o mega, mega meaning "great"), as opposed to omicron, which means "little O" (o mikron, mikron meaning "little").<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In phonetic terms, the Ancient Greek Ω represented a long open-mid back rounded vowel {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, comparable to the "aw" of the English word raw in dialects without the cot–caught merger, in contrast to omicron, which represented the close-mid back rounded vowel {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, and the digraph ου, which represented the long close-mid back rounded vowel {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. In Modern Greek, both omega and omicron represent the mid back rounded vowel {{#invoke:IPA|main}} or {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. The letter omega is transliterated into a Latin-script alphabet as ō or simply o.

As the final letter in the Greek alphabet, omega is often used to denote the last, the end, or the ultimate limit of a set, in contrast to alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet; see Alpha and Omega.

HistoryEdit

Ω was not part of the early (8th century BC) Greek alphabets. It was introduced in the late 7th century BC in the Ionian cities of Asia Minor to denote a long open-mid back rounded vowel {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. It is a variant of omicron (Ο), broken up at the side (File:Greek Omega 09.svg), with the edges subsequently turned outward (Template:GrGl, Template:GrGl, Template:GrGl, Template:GrGl).<ref name="Jeffery37f">Anne Jeffery (1961), The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, pp. 37–38.</ref> The Dorian city of Knidos as well as a few Aegean islands, namely Paros, Thasos and Melos, chose the exact opposite innovation, using a broken-up circle for the short and a closed circle for the long {{#invoke:IPA|main}}.<ref name=Jeffery37f/>

The name Ωμέγα is Byzantine; in Classical Greek, the letter was called ō ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) (pronounced /ɔ̂ː/), whereas the omicron was called ou ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) (pronounced /ôː/).<ref>Herbert Weir Smyth A Greek Grammar for Colleges §1.</ref> The modern lowercase shape goes back to the uncial form File:Greek uncial Omega.svg, a form that developed during the 3rd century BC in ancient handwriting on papyrus, from a flattened-out form of the letter (File:Greek Omega 08.svg) that had its edges curved even further upward.<ref>Edward M. Thompson (1912), Introduction to Greek and Latin Paleography, Oxford: Clarendon, p. 144.</ref>

In addition to the Greek alphabet, Omega was also adopted into the early Cyrillic alphabet (see Cyrillic omega (Ѡ, ѡ)). A Raetic variant is conjectured to be at the origin or parallel evolution of the Elder Futhark ᛟ.

Omega was also adopted into the Latin alphabet, as a letter of the 1982 revision to the African reference alphabet. It's in sparse use (see Latin omega).

The symbol Ω (uppercase letter)Edit

File:Kos città, piazza eleftherias, edificio razionalista, targa.JPG
Plaque in Kos with "underlined O" form of omega

The uppercase letter Ω is used as a symbol:

  • In chemistry:
    • For oxygen-18, a natural, stable isotope of oxygen<ref name="geoENV2012">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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    • For omega loop, a protein structural motif consisting of a loop of six or more amino acid residues in any sequence, a structure named for its resemblance to the Greek letter.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • In physics:
    • For ohm – SI unit of electrical resistance.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Unicode has a separate code point Template:Unichar (HTML entity &ohm;), but it is included only for backward compatibility, and the canonically equivalent code point Template:Unichar (&Omega;) is preferred. Also formerly also used upside down (Template:Unichar) to represent mho, the old name for the inverse of an ohm (now siemens with symbol S), the SI unit of electrical conductance.<ref>Excerpts from The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0. Retrieved 11 October 2006.</ref>

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    • Part of the original Pioneer logo<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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    • Part of the mission patch for STS-135, as it was the last mission of the Space Shuttle program<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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    • The final form of NetNavi bosses in some of the Mega Man Battle Network games
    • A secret boss in the Final Fantasy series called Omega ( Ω ) Weapon.
    • A character from the series Doctor Who called Omega, believed to be one of the creators of the Time Lords of Gallifrey.
    • The symbol for the highest power level of a PSI attack in the Mother/EarthBound games
    • A symbol used by U.S. citizens in the 1960s & 1970s to denote resistance to the U.S. war in Viet Nam. Adapted from the SI unit for electrical resistance.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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The symbol ω (lowercase letter)Edit

The minuscule letter ω is used as a symbol:

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    • In economics (specifically like in general equilibrium theory), the endowments of agents
    • In shift_JIS art, used to represent the cat's mouth. (e.g. {{#invoke:Lang|lang}})
    • In actuarial sciences, used to represent the maximum life span that characterizes a mortality table<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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UnicodeEdit

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ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

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