Omega

For other uses, see Omega (disambiguation).

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 "great O" (ō mega, mega meaning 'great'), as opposed to Omicron, which means "little O" (o mikron, micron meaning 'little'). This name is Byzantine; in Classical Greek, the letter was called ō (Template:Polytonic), whereas the Omicron was called ou (Template:Polytonic).

The form of the letter derives from a double omicron, which came to be written open at the top.

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 British 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".

Omega was also adopted into the early Cyrillic alphabet. See omega (Cyrillic) (Ѡ, ѡ). A Raetic variant is at the origin of Elder Futhark ᛟ.

The symbol Ω (upper case letter)

The upper-case letter Ω is used as a symbol, it is also used often outside its Greek alphabetical context in literature, advertising and other forms of human expression.

Some uses of Omega

• The trade mark of Omega Engineering, Inc, USA. [1]
• Omega Watches, a luxury watch company.
• Omega is a famous Hungarian rock group from the 1970s and 1980s.
• In the late 1960s United States, it was used as an icon/symbol for draft resistance.
• Codex Athous Dionysii, an 8th/9th century uncial Greek manuscript of the Gospels on Mount Athos
• For the Lebanese political party: the Free Patriotic Movement
• The logo of Lululemon Athletica is often mistaken for a stylized Ω, but the company claims it is in fact a stylized A.
• Since Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, it sometimes represents endings. The Bible contains the phrase "I am the alpha and the omega" meaning "the beginning and the end," and is a Christian reference to God. Occult magic occasionally uses omega to symbolize the Last Judgement, or the end of the world.
• Naoki Maeda is known to have used the pseudonym Omega.
• The lyric booklet for Marilyn Manson's album Mechanical Animals contains many omega symbols, and the logo for the band's era of 1998-1999 was a stylized Ω made to look like a face. Analysts of the album have also referred to half the album as "the Omega side," with the other half being "the Alpha side."
• In the Digimon franchise, Omnimon's Japanese name is Omegamon.

In science

• For ohm — SI unit of electrical resistance; formerly also used upside down (℧) to represent mho, the old name for the inverse of an ohm (now siemens with symbol S) used for electrical conductance. Unicode has a separate code point for the ohm sign (U+2126, Ω), but it is only included for backwards compatibility and the Greek uppercase omega character (U+03A9, Ω) is preferred.
• In computer science, in notation related to Big O notation to describe the asymptotic behavior of functions. See also Chaitin's constant
• In mathematics, the Omega constant, a solution of Lambert's W function; or the first uncountable ordinal number (also known as $\omega _{1}$)
• In physics, the solid angle.
• In particle physics to represent the Omega baryons. A lowercase omega is used for the omega mesons.
• In combinatory logic, the looping combinator, (λ x. x x) (λ x. x x)
• In astronomy (cosmology) Ω refers to the density of the universe, also called the density parameter.

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 and angular frequency.
• In mathematics, the first transfinite ordinal number
• In number theory, an arithmetic function
• 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.
• In Biochemistry to denote the carbon atom furthest from the carboxyl group of a fatty acid.
• Used in place of ん in Japanese typing shorthand.

Other Uses

Omega is the name of a Time Lord in Doctor Who. E-123 Omega is a member of the E-Series of robots in the Sonic the Hedgehog series.