Greek Letters Everywhere! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Iota

Scholars believe the Greek letter iota was borrowed from the tenth Phoenician letter, yodh, which means hand. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet and subsequently gave rise to the Latin letters "I" and "J."

It has been proposed that the phrase "not an iota," meaning an extremely small amount, comes from its place as the smallest Greek letter. Sometimes the lowercase Greek letter iota denotes imaginary numbers, though most mathematicians use the more common Latin i.

Answer: Gamma

The Phoenician letter giml gave rise to the Greek letter gamma. Interestingly, due to the Greeks writing from left to right instead of the Phoenicians' right to left, the giml became a gamma. The letter originally may have represented a camel's neck or possibly a throwing stick.

Gamma radiation is the shortest wavelength of electromagnetic radiation released when an atomic nuclei decays. Due to their tiny wavelength, these particles require thick shielding, like lead, to contain them. Unfortunately, for the Hulk, in real life, getting hit with a massive dose of gamma rays would cause death or, at minimum, brittle bones and the development of cancer.

Answer: Sigma

The eighteen letter of the Greek alphabet, sigma has its origins in the Phoenician letter shin. It is theorized that shin was designed to look like a tooth and possibly the origin of the character. During the Hellenistic period, scholars often wrote sigma as [C] which became known as a lunate sigma.

In mathematics, the uppercase sigma represents summation. The lowercase sigma is often used for an unknown angle in geometry or as one standard deviation in statistics.

Answer: Omega

The last letter of the Greek alphabet is omega; it literally means "big O" as opposed to the fifteenth letter omicron "small O." While the Greek omicron got its meaning from the Phoenician ayin the Greek name comes from the phonetic sound of "oh." Originally omicron was used for both the short and long "O" sound but eventually, omega was introduced as its own letter.

In 1894 a Swiss luxury watchmaker came up with a revolutionary design that inspired the name Omega as being the last modification needed for a perfect watch. In physics the uppercase omega is used to represent a unit of electrical resistance called an ohm.

Answer: Alpha

The first letter of the Greek alphabet is Alpha which was originally taken from the Phoenician aleph which was in turn thought to come from Egyptian hieroglyphs. The hieroglyph is a picture of an ox head with earlier versions having the "A" on its side with the legs looking like horns. As the first Greek letter, it is not surprising that alpha is still frequently used today.

Alpha is used in physics to represent the radioactive decay of a helium-4 nucleus from an atom. In chemistry, the alpha is used to denote the thermal expansion coefficient to measure the expansion of matter as temperature increases. As for generations, after the Baby Boomers (1946-1964) come Generation X (1965-1980), then Millennials (1981-1996), Generation Z (1997-2012), and then Alpha (2013-2025). Generation Beta is from 2025 to 2039. Finally, many Christians will recognize the term Alpha and Omega as representing God who is the first and last.

Answer: Nu

The thirteenth Greek letter nu comes from the Phoenician letter nun which comes from the Egyptian hieroglyph for the snake.

Nu metal is a music style that combines heavy metal with other types of music like hip hop or funk. Some examples would be Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Linkin Park. As for other uses of the lowercase Greek nu, it is used in statistics to represent degrees of freedom. It is also used to represent the frequency of a wavelength. I bet you were like me in physics class thinking the symbol was the English letter v.

Answer: Tau

The tau is the nineteenth letter of the Greek alphabet which gives rise to the T of the Roman and English alphabets. The Greeks adopted the tau from the Phoenician taw which looks a lot like the English x. It is thought that the Phoenicians took the letter from the Egyptian hieroglyph for a tally mark.

Since the tau is shaped like a cross used by the Romans for execution, it became a popular symbol for Christianity. As a result, the tau-shaped T has been given the name Saint Anthony's Cross, from Saint Anthony of Egypt. Legend has it that the Egyptian monk had a tau-shaped cross on his tunic and had a crutch also in a tau shape. In astronomy, tau is used to measure how much sunlight is blocked by an atmosphere.

Answer: Pi

Thanks to the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, the lowercase Greek letter pi is well known to modern societies. It is an irrational number that has been calculated out to trillions of digits.

Uppercase pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet taken from the Phoenician letter Pe which is thought to have come from the pictogram of a mouth.

Answer: Delta

The fourth Greek letter is delta which has its origins in the Phoenician letter dalet based on a glyph that was thought to represent a door.

Delta is used in many different situations including the name of an elite US Army antiterrorist force. The Delta Force was created at the end of the 1970s and due to the nature of their work, most of their operations are top secret until mission accomplished. The uppercase delta is used to denote a change in quantity and the lowercase delta is used in calculus to define limits.

Answer: Phi

The twenty-first letter of the Greek alphabet is phi which is believed to have originally been called qoppa which came from the Phoenician letter qoph. Scholars suggest that the glyph shape of the qoph is a sewing needle.

The Golden Ratio is an irrational number of approximately 1.618 which is obtained by taking a line and dividing it into two parts with the ratio of the longer part to the shorter part being the same as the ratio of the whole line to the longer part. It sounds a bit confusing, but this ratio has frequently been used in history, especially in architecture for buildings like the Parthenon and even the Egyptian pyramids' base compared to height. The Golden Ratio is also very closely linked to the Fibonacci sequence of numbers.

Answer: Mu

Originally taken from the Egyptian hieroglyph for water, mu is the twelfth letter of the Greek alphabet.

The lowercase mu is used to represent the measurement micron [µm] or micrometer which is one millionth of a meter. As for the Steeley Dan Mu Major Chord, the name originally started as a joke. The chord was a favorite of the band Steeley Dan being the backbone of their jazz rock sound. The band was not the first to use the chord, but since they did love to use it the name stuck. Musicians might call the chord an add2 or add9. Since the chord is the combination of 4 notes, it is much easier to play on a piano than on a guitar.

Answer: Lambda

The eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet, lambda, comes from the Phoenician letter lamed which was a pictorial representation of an ox goad or a cattle prod.

In physics, the lambda baryons are subatomic particles made up of three quarks. In statistics, lambda is used to represent the likelihood ratio. Graphic designer Tom Doerr decided to use the lowercase lambda to represent his Gay Activists Alliance chapter in New York City due to its use in physics and chemistry to denote a complete exchange of energy. The symbol became popular with activists around the country and has come to represent the LGBTQ community as a whole. Finally, the lambda is the name for the award for best in LGBTQ literature.

Answer: Chi

Chi is the twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet and is one of the rare letters to have started as part of the Greek language.

The letter chi was originally used to represent the "ch" sound. A few local dialects of Greek used chi to also represent the "ks" sound which is what was adapted into Latin and then English for the letter x. The Greek name for Christ is Christos and over time the first letter X was used to represent Christ. In modern times we most often see the letter chi used for a shortened form of Christmas or X-mas.

Answer: Epsilon

The Greek letter epsilon has its roots in the Phoenician letter He which was from a glyph meaning a window.

In Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" the social hierarchy has Alpha at the top and Epsilon at the bottom. In the dystopian society, all babies are artificially produced with the Alphas getting all the best adaptions while the Epsilons actually have chemicals to handicap their growth. In mathematics, a tiny insignificant amount is sometimes represented as a lowercase epsilon. It is also used in calculus to define a limit.

Answer: Beta

The Egyptian hieroglyphic image of a house gave rise to the Phoenician letter beth which gave rise to the Greek letter beta.

The Greek letter beta is used to measure financial asset sensitivity. In chemistry, the lowercase beta is used to designate beta rays which are highly charged electrons or positrons that are released during radioactive decay. In the world of business, beta testers are a small group of people who test a product before it is released to the public. The beta testers give feedback to help the creator release the best product possible. There are also beta readers who help authors fine-tune a novel before it is released to the public.