Question

Why do physicists use the Greek alphabet?

Answer 1

to make it even more confusing

Answer 2

lmfaaooo

Answer 3

many of the foundations of physics began in ancient greece, its tradition i guess

Answer 4

thank youuu

Answer 5

είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα

Answer 6

Well, this may be a subjective opinion but i have often wondered why greek symbols seem to be the conventional go-to when a new variable/parameter is defined. For example, the typical energy scale is always ϵ0 when e0 would have sufficed, the relevant length scales are more often λ1 and λ2 than l1 and l2 and the most popular variational parameter is always λ even if the entire latin alphabet is at your disposal. Considering that it takes an extra bit of effort to enter these symbols in tex compared to the latin counterparts, why are they so popular? Is it just convention at work, and if so, why did it turn out that way, when the language of science (after mathematics) is english not greek?

Answer 7

from the internet

Mathematics requires a large number of symbols to stand for abstract objects, such as numbers, sets, functions, and spaces, so the use of Greek letters was introduced long ago to provide a collection of useful symbols to supplement the usual Roman letters.
To us these symbols may seem quite foreign, and they are difficult to become familiar with. However, at the time they were introduced most scholars had been taught at least some Latin and Greek during their education, so the letters did not seem nearly so strange to them as they do to us. Since then, each new generation of mathematicians has just gotten used to using them.

Makes sense and yes we just got use to it.

Answer 8

Imagine 6 pages of variables if you only had one alphabet. A second alphabet is more flexible than a single alphabet, and all scientists knew some Greek back in the day.
It helps, but I admit it's still confusing sometimes.

In mathematics, ℵ from the Hebrew alphabet is used, but I'm not aware of any other alphabets in common use. Chinese has plenty of characters to use, but the Chinese don't even use their characters for their variables. They could use 力 for "force," but they don't because it's conventional to use F in their equations just like all of the Western books.

Perhaps the ultimate cause of the problem is the insistence on using only a single character (perhaps with subscripts, superscripts, or diacritical marks) per variable. In programming, single-character variables are abandoned completely, but in physics, we insist on single characters so that we can write deceptively simple equations. E.g., Fαβ;β=0.

Answer 9

if this makes any sense i hope it helps :)

Answer 10

PLEASE HELP WILL FAN AND MEDAL

According to an article in Runners' World magazine:

On average the human body is more than 50 percent water [by weight]. Runners and other endurance athletes average around 60 percent. This equals about 120 soda cans' worth of water in a 160-pound runner!


Investigate their calculation. Approximately how many soda cans’ worth of water are in the body of a 160-pound runner? What unprovided information do you need to answer this question?