Nu (letter)

Template:Short description Template:Other uses Template:Dist Template:Greek Alphabet Nu (Template:IPAc-en; uppercase Ν, lowercase ν; Template:Langx ni Template:IPA) is the thirteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced alveolar nasal Template:IPA. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 50. It is derived from the Phoenician nun . Its Latin equivalent is N, though the lowercase ($\nu$) resembles the Roman lowercase v.

The name of the letter is written Template:Lang in Ancient Greek and traditional Modern Greek polytonic orthography, while in Modern Greek it is written Template:Lang Template:IPA.

Letters that arose from nu include Roman N and Cyrillic script En.

Symbology

Bust of Nikos Kazantzakis with the traditional Greek nu

The lower-case letter Template:Mvar is used as a symbol in many academic fields. Uppercase nu is not used, because it appears identical to Latin N.

• Mathematics:
  • Degrees of freedom in statistics.
  • The greatest fixed point of a function, as commonly used in the μ-calculus.
  • Free names of a process, as used in the π-calculus.
  • One of the Greeks in mathematical finance, known as "vega".
  • The reciprocal of 1 plus the interest rate in finance.
  • The [[p-adic valuation|Template:Mvar-adic valuation or Template:Mvar-adic order]] of a number.
• Physics:
  • Kinematic viscosity in fluid mechanics.
  • The frequency of a wave in physics and other fields; sometimes also spatial frequency; wavenumber
  • The specific volume in thermodynamics.
  • Poisson's ratio, the ratio of strains perpendicular with and parallel with an applied force.
  • Any of three kinds of neutrino in particle physics.
  • The number of neutrons released per fission of an atom in nuclear physics.
  • Molecular vibrational mode, Template:Math where Template:Mvar is the number of the vibration (a label).
  • The true anomaly, an angular parameter that defines the position of a body moving along an orbit (see orbital elements).
• Biology:
  • A DNA polymerase found in higher eukaryotes and implicated in translesion synthesis.
• Chemistry:
  • The stoichiometric coefficient.
• Psychology:
  • The maximum conditioning possible for an unconditioned stimulus in the Rescorla-Wagner model.

Unicode

Encodings of Greek Nu and Coptic Ni.

• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar (Template:Code in TeX)
• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar
• Template:UnicharTemplate:Efn
• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar

See also

• Movable nu