 | Omega: Encyclopedia - Omega
Omega
Omega (Ω ω) is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system it had a value of 800. The word literally means "big O" (ō mega, mega meaning 'big'), as opposed to Omicron, which means "little O" (o mikron, micron meaning 'little').[1]. This name is Byzantine; in Classical Greek, the letter was called ō (ὦ), whereas the Omicron was called ou (οὖ).
Phonetically, the Ancient Greek Ω is a long o, similar to the vowel of English close. It is transcribed ō or simply o. In Modern Greek Ω is a short o similar to the vowel of English pot.
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. Jesus declares himself to be the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last", (Revelation 22:13, KJV, and see also 1:8), Greek ἐγὼ τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ, ὁ πρῶτος καὶ ὁ ἔσχατος, ἡ ἀρχὴ καὶ τὸ τέλος.
Omega was also adopted into the early Cyrillic alphabet. See omega (Cyrillic) (Ѡ, ѡ).
Omega - The symbol Ω upper-case letter
The upper-case letter Ω is used as a symbol:
- For ohm - SI unit of electrical resistance; also used upside down (℧) to represent the inverse of an ohm (mho/siemens) used for electrical conductance. Note that Unicode has separate code points for the ohm sign (U+2126, Ω) and the Greek uppercase omega (U+03A9, Ω)
- In computer science, in notation related to Big O notation to describe the asymptotic behavior of functions. See also Chaitin's constant
- Codex Athous Dionysii, an 8th/9th century uncial Greek manuscript of the Gospels on Mount Athos
- Omega Point, a theory about computing at the end of the universe
- In mathematics, the Omega constant
- In physics, the solid angle
- In particle physics to represent the Omega baryons
- Naoki Maeda's pseudonym for the Dance Dance Revolution song "MAX 300"
- In combinatory logic, the looping combinator, (λ x. x x)(λ x. x x)
- For a line of clothing produced by a company called "lululemon athletica"
- For the Lebanese political party: the Free Patriotic Movement
Omega - The symbol ω lower-case letter
The lower-case letter ω is used as a symbol:
- In textual criticism, the archetype of a manuscript tradition
- In physics, angular velocity
- In mathematics, the first transfinite ordinal number
- In combinatory logic, the self-application combinator, (λ x. x x)
- In computer science, in notation related to Big O notation, the asymptotically dominant nature of functions
- In Astronomy, as a ranking of a star's brightness
- In particle physics to represent the omega meson
- In Circuit Analysis and Signal Processing to represent frequency.
Category: Greek letters
Other related archivesAlpha, Ancient Greek, Astronomy, Big O notation, Chaitin's constant, Classical Greek, Dance Dance Revolution, Free Patriotic Movement, Gospels, Greek, Greek alphabet, Greek letters, Greek numeric system, Jesus, Lebanese, Modern Greek, Mount Athos, Naoki Maeda, Omega Point, Omega baryons, Omega constant, Omicron, Revelation, SI, Signal Processing, Unicode, angular velocity, archetype, asymptotic behavior, combinatory logic, computer science, early Cyrillic alphabet, frequency, functions, mathematics, mega, mho, mikron, ohm, omega (Cyrillic), omega meson, ordinal number, particle physics, physics, pseudonym, set, siemens, solid angle, textual criticism, transcribed, transfinite, uncial
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Omega", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
