## Friday, December 21, 2007

### Your favourite Greek letter.

So which letter from the Greek alphabet is your favourite?After some serious thought, I have decided to choose two favourite letters:${\Huge \eta}$ & ${\Huge \varepsilon}$ i.e. eta and epsilon.

Epsilon has been an old favourite of mine from last year, but eta is a new one. Naturally epsilon was chosen due to its common occurrence in analysis; and the phrase "Let $\varepsilon >0$0" alt="\varepsilon >0" style="vertical-align:-0pt;" /> be given" is quickly becoming another favourite of mine! (If I ever forget to write that in an analysis proof in the exam then I will say some very horrible words to myself...)

Eta on the other hand is different. It has no "mathematical connection" to being my favourite. I like it because I could write $\eta$ a million times on paper and still find it cool to write. It has a nice action to it... Whoops I am sounding sad again, but the pronunciation of it rolls of the tongue nicely too.

I like the way epsilon is said as well. Some people say "ep- sil- on" but I say "ep- sile-on" which has more authority to it (as it rightly deserves). Both these letters seem very royal (one could say!)

My worse letter at this moment in time (and possibly forever) is... $\xi$ (xi). A little birdie tells me that they are used a lot in applied mathematics! Not deliberately of course, but the horribleness of this letter is the only thing which can reflect the material. (*cue evil laugh*) I don't have any others that I "dislike" at the moment for I am waiting to read through my numerical analysis notes!

I might as well two other letters which I find cool as well (but not as cool as eta and epsilon): $\tau$ (tau) and $\varphi$ (phi). Tau is another royal sounding one, and phi is one which I could write for a long period of time.

Maybe your reasoning will have more mathematical back bone than my own- please feel free to enlighten (or embarrass) me! (But whatever you do, please don't say you like capital Gamma due to stats...please)!

PS: I really should stop making digs at applied mathematics, but seriously in my notes it's a xi here and another there. They are everywhere and not very nice to write as well. (You all know (I hope) that I don't really dislike applied maths that much. I have just tried to be diplomatic when mentioning my reason for my partial change in attitude towards it. Memories of sequences and series lectures last year still scar my thoughts, and part of this semester has been a repeat of that. Painful indeed.)