Thetas

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A letter of the Greek alphabet often used in mathematics to represent angles or temperatures
2. A symbol in physics and engineering representing various quantities, commonly used in equations
3. An identifier in statistics and other scientific fields representing parameters or quantities in mathematical models

Etymology: "Thetas" is simply the plural of "theta," the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet in its classical form, and the plural follows the ordinary English pattern of adding an "s." The letter itself was borrowed from Ancient Greek "thēta," which name is the source of the English word. The Greek letter descends from the Phoenician letter "teth," which stood for a sound and whose name meant something like "wheel" or "clay tablet" in the Semitic languages. Greek kept the letter but gave it a new job: it represented an aspirated "t" sound, the "th" of many Greek words, and Greek writers used the symbol for the number nine in their numeral system. Its modern prominence in mathematics and science comes from the same kind of borrowing. Scientists and mathematicians across Europe adopted the Greek letters as a convenient set of symbols, and theta became a standard label for angles and, in physics, for temperature.

Synonyms: theta waves, brain waves, waves, signals, frequencies