Lambda
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Lambda (/ˈlæmdə/ ⓘ;[1] uppercase Λ, lowercase λ; Greek: λάμ(β)δα, lám(b)da) is the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced alveolar lateral approximant IPA: [l]. In the system of Greek numerals, lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is derived from the Phoenician Lamed. Lambda gave rise to the Latin L and the Cyrillic El (Л). The ancient grammarians and dramatists give evidence to the pronunciation as [laːbdaː] (λάβδα) in Classical Greek times.[2] In Modern Greek, the name of the letter, Λάμδα, is pronounced [ˈlam.ða].
In early Greek alphabets, the shape and orientation of lambda varied.[3] Most variants consisted of two straight strokes, one longer than the other, connected at their ends. The angle might be in the upper-left, lower-left ("Western" alphabets) or top ("Eastern" alphabets). Other variants had a vertical line with a horizontal or sloped stroke running to the right. With the general adoption of the Ionic alphabet, Greek settled on an angle at the top; the Romans put the angle at the lower-left.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/NAMA_Alphabet_grec.jpg/220px-NAMA_Alphabet_grec.jpg)
Symbol
[edit]Upper-case letter Λ
[edit]Examples of the symbolic use of uppercase lambda include:
- The lambda particle is a type of subatomic particle in subatomic particle physics.
- Lambda is the set of logical axioms in the axiomatic method of logical deduction in first-order logic.
- There is a poetical allusion to the use of Lambda as a shield blazon by the Spartans.[citation needed][4]
- Lambda is the von Mangoldt function in mathematical number theory.[5]
- Lambda denotes the de Bruijn–Newman constant which is closely connected with Riemann's hypothesis.[6]
- In statistics, lambda is used for the likelihood ratio.
- In statistics, Wilks's lambda is used in multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA analysis) to compare group means on a combination of dependent variables.[7]
- In the spectral decomposition of matrices, lambda indicates the diagonal matrix of the eigenvalues of the matrix.
- In computer science, lambda is the time window over which a process is observed for determining the working memory set for a digital computer's virtual memory management.
- In astrophysics, lambda represents the likelihood that a small body will encounter a planet or a dwarf planet leading to a deflection of a significant magnitude. An object with a large value of lambda is expected to have cleared its neighbourhood, satisfying the current definition of a planet.[8]
- In crystal optics, lambda is used to represent a lattice period.
- In electrochemistry, lambda denotes the "equivalent conductance" of an electrolyte solution.[9]
- In cosmology, lambda is the symbol for the cosmological constant, a term added to some dynamical equations to account for the accelerating expansion of the universe.[10]
- In optics, lambda denotes the grating pitch of a Bragg reflector.[11]
- In politics, the lambda is the symbol of Identitarianism, a white nationalist movement that originated in France before spreading out to the rest of Europe and later on to North America, Australia and New Zealand. The Identitarian lambda represents the Battle of Thermopylae.
Lower-case letter λ
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Greek_lc_lamda_thin.svg/110px-Greek_lc_lamda_thin.svg.png)
Examples of the symbolic use of lowercase lambda include:
- λ indicates the wavelength of any wave, especially in physics, electrical engineering, and mathematics.[12]
- In evolutionary algorithms, λ indicates the number of offspring that would be generated from μ current population in each generation. The terms μ and λ are originated from Evolution strategy notation.[13]
- λ indicates the radioactivity decay constant in nuclear physics and radioactivity. This constant is very simply related (by a multiplicative constant) to the half-life of any radioactive material.
- In probability theory, λ represents the density of occurrences within a time interval, as modelled by the Poisson distribution.[14]
- In mathematical logic and computer science, λ is used to introduce anonymous functions expressed with the concepts of lambda calculus.
- λ indicates an eigenvalue in the mathematics of linear algebra.
- In the physics of particles, lambda indicates the thermal de Broglie wavelength[15]
- In the physics of electric fields, lambda sometimes indicates the linear charge density of a uniform line of electric charge (measured in coulombs per meter).
- Lambda denotes a Lagrange multiplier in multi-dimensional calculus.[16]
- In solid-state electronics, lambda indicates the channel length modulation parameter of a MOSFET.[17]
- In ecology, lambda denotes the long-term intrinsic growth rate of a population.[18] This value is often calculated as the dominant eigenvalue of the age/size class matrix.
- In formal language theory and in computer science, lambda denotes the empty string.[19]
- Lambda is a nonstandard symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for the voiced alveolar lateral affricate [dɮ].[20]
- Lambda denotes the Lebesgue measure in mathematical set theory.[21]
- The Goodman and Kruskal's lambda in statistics indicates the proportional reduction in error when one variable's values are used to predict the values of another variable.[22]
- Lambda denotes the oxygen sensor in a vehicle that measures the air-to-fuel ratio in the exhaust gases of an internal-combustion engine.[23]
- A Lambda 4S solid-fuel rocket was used to launch Japan's first orbital satellite in 1970.[24]
- Lambda denotes the failure rate of devices and systems in reliability theory, and it is measured in failure events per hour. Numerically, this lambda is also the reciprocal of the mean time between failures.[25]
- In criminology, lambda denotes an individual's frequency of offences.[26]
- In electrochemistry, lambda also denotes the ionic conductance of a given ion (the composition of the ion is generally shown as a subscript to the lambda character).
- In neurobiology, lambda denotes the length constant (or exponential rate of decay) of the electric potential across the cell membrane along a length of a nerve cell's axon.
- In the science and technology of heat transfer, lambda denotes the heat of vaporization per mole of material (a.k.a. its "latent heat").[27]
- In the technology and science of celestial navigation, lambda denotes the longitude as opposed to the Roman letter "L", which denotes the latitude.
- A block style lambda is used as a recurring symbol in the Valve computer game series Half-Life,[28] referring to the Lambda Complex of the fictional Black Mesa Research Facility, as well as making appearances in the sequel Half-Life 2, and its subsequent prequel Half-Life: Alyx as an in-universe symbol of resistance.[29]
- In 1970, a lowercase lambda was chosen by Tom Doerr as the symbol of the New York chapter of the Gay Activists Alliance.[30][31] The lambda symbol became associated with gay liberation[32][33] and recognized as an LGBTQ symbol for some time afterwards, being used as such by the International Gay Rights Congress in Edinburgh.[34]
- Golomb–Dickman constant[35]
Litra symbol
[edit]The Roman libra and Byzantine lítra (λίτρα), which served as both the pound mass unit and liter volume unit, were abbreviated in Greek using lambda with modified forms of the iota subscript ⟨λͅ⟩. These are variously encoded in Unicode. The Ancient Greek Numbers Unicode block includes 10183 GREEK LITRA SIGN (𐆃) as well as 𐅢, which is described as 10162 GREEK ACROPHONIC HERMIONIAN TEN[36] but was much more common as a form of the litra sign. A variant of the sign can be formed from 0338 COMBINING LONG SOLIDUS OVERLAY and either 039B GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA (Λ̸) or 03BB GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA (λ̸).[37]
Unicode
[edit]Unicode uses the (Modern Greek-based) spelling "lamda" in character names, instead of "lambda", due to "the pre-existing names in ISO 8859-7, as well as preferences expressed by the Greek National Body".[38] Latin versions of lambda were added to Unicode in 2024 for the Salishan and Wakashan languages in Canada.[39]
- U+039B Λ GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA (Λ)[40]
- U+03BB λ GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA (λ)
- U+1D27 ᴧ GREEK LETTER SMALL CAPITAL LAMDA
- U+2C96 Ⲗ COPTIC CAPITAL LETTER LAULA
- U+2C97 ⲗ COPTIC SMALL LETTER LAULA
- U+A7DA LATIN CAPITAL LETTER LAMBDA
- U+A7DB LATIN SMALL LETTER LAMBDA
- U+1038D 𐎍 UGARITIC LETTER LAMDA
- U+1D6B2 𝚲 MATHEMATICAL BOLD CAPITAL LAMDA[a]
- U+1D6CC 𝛌 MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL LAMDA
- U+1D6EC 𝛬 MATHEMATICAL ITALIC CAPITAL LAMDA
- U+1D706 𝜆 MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL LAMDA
- U+1D726 𝜦 MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC CAPITAL LAMDA
- U+1D740 𝝀 MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC SMALL LAMDA
- U+1D760 𝝠 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD CAPITAL LAMDA
- U+1D77A 𝝺 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD SMALL LAMDA
- U+1D79A 𝞚 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD ITALIC CAPITAL LAMDA
- U+1D7B4 𝞴 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD ITALIC SMALL LAMDA
- ^ The MATHEMATICAL characters should only be used in math. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using the normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate text style.
See also
[edit]- Barred lambda - ƛ
- El (Cyrillic) – Л, л
- Fraser alphabet#Consonants
- Greek letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering
References
[edit]- ^ "lambda". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ Herbert Weir Smyth. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. I.1.c
- ^ "Epigraphic Sources for Early Greek Writing". Poinikastas.CSAD.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2011-10-03.
- ^ Philodemus (2003). On Poems. Oxford University Press. p. 212. ISBN 9780199262854.
- ^ Deza, Elena (2023). Perfect and amicable numbers. Selected chapters of number theory : special numbers. New Jersey: World Scientific. p. 79. ISBN 978-981-12-5962-3.
The von Mangold function Λ(n) is defined as…
- ^ Broughan, Kevin A. (2024). Equivalents of the Riemann hypothesis. Volume 3: Further steps towards resolving the Riemann hypothesis / Kevin Broughan (University of Waikato, New Zealand). Encyclopedia of mathematics and its applications. Cambridge, United Kingdom New York, NY, USA Port Melbourne, VIC, Australia New Delhi, India Singapore: Cambridge University Press. p. 63. ISBN 978-1-009-38480-3.
Now we can give the definition of the de Bruijn–Newman constant Λ.
- ^ Everitt, Brian (2011). An introduction to applied multivariate analysis with R. Use R! Ser. Torsten Hothorn. New York, NY: Springer New York. ISBN 978-1-4419-9649-7.
In the current case of one-way MANOVA, it can be shown that the LR test statistic is a monotone function of what is called Wilks' lambda (Λ, capital Greek letter lambda):
- ^ Wilkinson, John (2016). The Solar System in Close-Up. Astronomers' Universe Ser. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG. p. 7. ISBN 978-3-319-27627-4.
American planetary scientists Alan Stern and Harold Levison introduced a parameter Λ (lambda) to express the likelihood of a body "clearing the neighborhood around its orbit".
- ^ Kuhn, Reinhard; Hoffstetter-Kuhn, Sabrina (1993). Capillary electrophoresis: principles and practice. Springer Laboratory. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-387-56434-0.
According to the first Kohlrausch law, anions and cations contribute independently to the conductance, which means that the equivalent conductance Λ is the sum of the…
- ^ Liddle, Andrew R. (2015). An introduction to modern cosmology (Third ed.). Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-118-50214-3.
The cosmological constant Λ appears in the Friedman equation as an extra term,
- ^ Pal, Bishnu, ed. (2010). Frontiers in Guided Wave Optics and Optoelectronics. Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar: IntechOpen. p. 352. ISBN 978-953-7619-82-4.
The circular Bragg grating on the bottom DBR gives high reflection for Bragg wavelength which is decided, for first order grating in slab hollow waveguide [25], by the following equation… where Λ is grating pitch.
- ^ Nelkon, Michael (1977). Fundamentals of Physics. St. Albans, Hertfordshire: Hart-Davis Educational. p. 329.
- ^ Baragona, Roberto (2011). Evolutionary statistical procedures: an evolutionary computation approach to statistical procedures designs and applications. Statistics and computing. Francesco Battaglia, Irene Poli. Berlin: Springer. p. 16. ISBN 978-3-642-16217-6.
… ,and λ is the number of offsprings at each generation:
- ^ Panik, Michael J. (2005). Advanced statistics from an elementary point of view. Boston: Elsevier/Academic Press. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-12-088494-0.
Since λ is the mean number of occurrences per unit time of the Poisson process,
- ^ Tabatabaian, Mehrzad; Rajput, R. K. (2018). Advanced thermodynamics: fundamentals, mathematics, applications. Dulles, Virginia Boston, Massachusetts New Delhi: Mercury Learning and Information. p. 434. ISBN 978-1-936420-27-8.
A gas of atoms reaches quantum degeneracy when the matter waves of neighbouring atoms overlap – i.e. when the thermal de Broglie wavelength, λ, which means as the temperature falls,…
- ^ Ito, Kazufumi (2008). Lagrange multiplier approach to variational problems and applications. Advances in Design and Control. K. Kunisch, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Philadelphia, Pa: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM, 3600 Market Street, Floor 6, Philadelphia, PA 19104). pp. xii. ISBN 978-0-89871-649-8.
Here the Lagrange multiplier λ is treated like an independent variable just like y and u.
- ^ Wiegerink, Remco J. (1993). Analysis and synthesis of MOS translinear circuits. The Kluwer international series in engineering and computer science ; Analog circuits and signal processing. Boston: Kluwer Academic. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-7923-9390-0.
Channel length modulation in an MOS transistor causes the drain current to be dependent on the drain voltage.… and λ the channel-length modulation parameter.
- ^ Li, Xue-Zhi; Yang, Junyuan; Martcheva, Maia (2020). Age Structured Epidemic Modeling. Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG. p. 7. ISBN 978-3-030-42495-4.
λ* is called the Malthusian parameter or intrinsic growth rate.
- ^ Tourlakis, George J. (2024). Discrete mathematics: a concise introduction. Synthesis lectures on mathematics & statistics. Cham: Springer. p. 37. ISBN 978-3-031-30487-3.
The symbols prevalent in the literature used to denote the empty string are ϵ or λ. We will choose λ…
- ^ International Phonetic Association (2021). Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: a guide to the use of the international phonetic alphabet (22. printing ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-521-63751-0.
λ lambda voiceless dental or alveolar lateral fricative Not IPA usage
- ^ Bierens, Herman J. (2004). Introduction to the mathematical and statistical foundations of econometrics. Themes in modern econometrics. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-521-83431-5.
This function λ is called the Lebesgue measure on ,...
- ^ Leong, Frederick; Austin, James T. (2024). The psychology research handbook: a guide for graduate students and research assistants (Third ed.). Thousand Oaks London New Delhi Singapore: Sage. p. 280. ISBN 978-1-4522-1767-3.
If the independent and dependent variables are nominal, the contingency coefficient, Cramer's V, or Goodman–Kruskal's λ may be chosen.
- ^ Ribbens, William B. (2017). Understanding automotive electronics: an engineering perspective (8th ed.). Oxford: Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann, an imprint of Elsevier. p. 215. ISBN 978-0-12-810434-7.
As a result, one of the most significant automotive engine sensors in use today is the exhaust gas oxygen (EGO) sensor. This sensor is often called a lambda sensor from the Greek letter lambda (λ), which is commonly used to denote the equivalence ratio (as defined in chapter 4):
- ^ "Encyclopedia Astronautica: Lambda". Astronautix.com. Archived from the original on 2012-10-22. Retrieved 2012-12-18.
- ^ Geng, Hwaiyu (2021). Data center handbook: plan, design, build, and operations of a smart data center (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Wiley. p. 278. ISBN 978-1-119-59753-7.
Commonly, the failure rate is assumed to be constant and written as λ.
- ^ Farrington, David; Kazemian, Lila; Piquero, Alex R., eds. (2019). The Oxford handbook of developmental and life-course criminology. The Oxford handbooks in criminology and criminal justice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-19-020137-1.
In order to evaluate acceleration and deceleration in criminal activity over the life-course, it is first necessary to determine the individual crime rate, or lambda (λ), for each offender of interest.
- ^ Wankat Separation Process Engineering 2nd ed, Prentice Hall
- ^ "Half-Life on Steam". store.steampowered.com. Valve. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
- ^ "Half-Life 2 on Steam". store.steampowered.com. Valve. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
- ^ Rapp, Linda (2004). "Gay Activists Alliance" (PDF). glbtq.com.
- ^ "1969, The Year of Gay Liberation". The New York Public Library. June 2009. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
- ^ Goodwin, Joseph P. (1989). "It Takes One to Know One". More Man Than You'll Ever Be: Gay Folklore and Acculturation in Middle America. Indiana University Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0253338938.
- ^ Rapp, Linda (2003). "Symbols" (PDF). glbtq.com.
- ^ Haggerty, George E., ed. (2000). Gay Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia (Encyclopedia of Gay Histories and Cultures, Volume II) (1 ed.). London: Garland Publishing. p. 529. ISBN 0-8153-1880-4. OCLC 750790369.
- ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Golomb-Dickman Constant Continued Fraction". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2025-01-31.
- ^ Unicode Ancient Greek Numbers block.
- ^ "Thesaurus Linguae Graecae" (PDF). Stephanus.TLG.UCI.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-16.
- ^ "Unicode Mail List Archive: RE: Greek letter "LAMDA"?".
- ^ Humchitt, Robyn; Jacquerye, Denis; King, Kevin (2023-07-17). "L2/23-191: Proposal to Encode 3 Additional Latin Characters for Wakashan and Salishan Languages to the Unicode Standard" (PDF).
- ^ "HTML 4.01 Specification. 24. Character entity references in HTML 4". World Wide Web Consortium.