Who here writes the prettiest greek letters?

[Nikitin]

So as this forum is frequented by allot of math, engineering, physics etc. folks, I guess you guys love the Greek alphabet?

OK; but who here has possesses the greatest mastery of the Greek alphabet? Who here writes Greek letters in the most cool,spectacular, outrageous (or refined) way? Write down some of your favourite greek letters (or normal letters if your handwriting is extraordinary) using your normal handwriting, take a picture with your camera (phone camera or webcam should be easy enough) and post it here.

I'll start:

https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/t31.0-8/p180x540/1980200_10202688563671894_451657684_o.jpg

(small beta, small pi, large psi, small gamma and small epsilon).

 

[AlephZero]

Single letters are too simple. See grbs.library.duke.edu/article/viewFile/11391/4169 (start at page 12) for some really pretty Greek.

 

[1MileCrash]

I love your small gamma, but your small pi looks like an abortion.

 

[strangerep]

[...] but your small pi looks like an abortion.

Oh, that was a pi?? I thought it was a tau vomiting. Or, now that you mention it, a tau having a miscarriage.

 

[drizzle]

Xi is the real challenge.

 

[micromass]

Xi is the real challenge.

 

[dipole]

Ha, so very true. $\zeta$ is another tough one for me, and $\iota$ strangely too - the rest I'm pretty good at. If there were a convienent way of posting photos I'd share.

 

[drizzle]

For me it's not that hard, it's similar to the Arabic letter 'ع' just twisted in both ends.

 

[Nikitin]

Every one of my professor has his own way of writing xi, while I have none. that letter is impossible

Oh, that was a pi?? I thought it was a tau vomiting. Or, now that you mention it, a tau having a miscarriage.

lol thanks guys :p

 

[WannabeNewton]

$\xi$ shows up a lot in GR. I'm not sure how good mine is though. Here's some scrap work for good measure.

 

[D H]

For me it's zeta. Uppercase zeta? No problem: It's just an uppercase Z. Lowercase zeta, $\zeta$? My handwritten attempts to recreate that look downright ugly.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

$\xi$ shows up a lot in GR. I'm not sure how good mine is though. Here's some scrap work for good measure.

Too many indices!

I should note that almost every non-Greek person writes Greek letters wrong. We are trying to mimic Greek typefaces, but actual Greek handwriting is simpler. Imagine if someone's only exposure to Latin letters was via Times New Roman, and they attempted to mimic all of its details.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

That said, here are my Greek letters:

 

[leroyjenkens]

My problems so far with the Greek alphabet:

In quantum mechanics, my professor was writing capital psi for a few weeks, and then I find out later he was writing capital and lower case psi's that look nearly identical, so my notes were all messed up.

And I was writing lower case deltas as lower case sigmas for a long time.

Lower case kappa is used in some quantum mechanics equations where lower case k is also used. Genius.

I hate when professors add extra squiggly to some of the letters, making them look indistinguishable. Stop trying to be creative and focus on being understood. It's not about art.

In textbooks, lower case gamma just looks like a lower case y with some extra curve to it. I didn't realize for a while that that was the same symbol as the "support your troops ribbon" symbol my professors were writing.

I hate how some Greek letters get way too much use and show up all the time, making their presence confusing, when other Greek letters get almost no use from what I've seen. For instance capital lambda. Never seen that used.

Rho, representing density, always gives me trouble because it's just a lower case p. I try to stretch it out some, but it always looks sloppy.

I guess that's all for now.

 

[JorisL]

Overall mine look a lot like Ben's letters.
Except the small rho, I let that curve to the other side at the bottom to distinguish it from a bad written p.

 

[Nikitin]

My problems so far with the Greek alphabet:

In quantum mechanics, my professor was writing capital psi for a few weeks, and then I find out later he was writing capital and lower case psi's that look nearly identical, so my notes were all messed up.

And I was writing lower case deltas as lower case sigmas for a long time.

Lower case kappa is used in some quantum mechanics equations where lower case k is also used. Genius.

I hate when professors add extra squiggly to some of the letters, making them look indistinguishable. Stop trying to be creative and focus on being understood. It's not about art.

In textbooks, lower case gamma just looks like a lower case y with some extra curve to it. I didn't realize for a while that that was the same symbol as the "support your troops ribbon" symbol my professors were writing.

I hate how some Greek letters get way too much use and show up all the time, making their presence confusing, when other Greek letters get almost no use from what I've seen. For instance capital lambda. Never seen that used.

Rho, representing density, always gives me trouble because it's just a lower case p. I try to stretch it out some, but it always looks sloppy.

I guess that's all for now.

You don't happen to be studying in Trondheim, do you? Because those are my problems with my QM prof exactly :p

 

[Hepth]

I hate how some Greek letters get way too much use and show up all the time, making their presence confusing, when other Greek letters get almost no use from what I've seen. For instance capital lambda. Never seen that used.

Rho, representing density, always gives me trouble because it's just a lower case p. I try to stretch it out some, but it always looks sloppy.

I guess that's all for now.

$\Lambda$ is used all the time in particle physics/quantum field theory. Usually to represent a mass scale, like $\Lambda_{QCD}$. It is also used for some of the heavier-quark baryons (like a proton), $\Lambda_s, \Lambda_c, \Lambda_b$.

In my entire physics career I don't believe I've ever written by hand an iota, $\iota$,$\Iota$
I think uppercase is just an $I$ right? We don't seem to have the command in our LaTex here on the board.

 

[JorisL]

I have used a iota once, my professor in a Lie algebra class used it as an index ^^
Other than that I don't recall any use of it.
Here are listed 2 places it's used
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_...ence,_and_engineering#.CE.99.CE.B9_.28iota.29

 

[AlephZero]

In my entire physics career I don't believe I've ever written by hand an iota, $\iota$,$\Iota$
I think uppercase is just an $I$ right? We don't seem to have the command in our LaTex here on the board.

Lowercase iota is an i without a dot. Upper case Iota is the same as I.

I can understand why Knuth didn't bother to create new symbols for the uppercase Greek letters that are the same as in English, and lowercase omicron which looks like o (his home-made Rube Goldberg system for handling fonts didn't have enough room for them) but my brain isn't big enough to understand why he didn't create macros for the whole Greek alphabet in plain TeX, or why the inventors of LaTeX didn't fill that logical gap.

 

[*now*]

In my entire physics career I don't believe I've ever written by hand an iota, $\iota$,$\Iota$

Lol, not an Iota, using the phrase.

 

[Mandelbroth]

I'm self-conscious about my phi because a classmate told me that mine looked like I had drawn an upside down...well, something offensive. Otherwise, enjoy.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Too many indices!

No such thing!

But in all reality, look at page 42 of the following notes to see a true madness of indices: http://www.strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/geroch-geom-qm.pdf

 

[AlephZero]

But in all reality, look at page 42 of the following notes to see a true madness of indices: http://www.strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/geroch-geom-qm.pdf

I sometimes wonder how much of theoretical physics is based only on a bug in Mathematica that hasn't been discovered yet