Rho (letter)

Greek alphabet

Αα Alpha	Νν Nu
Ββ Beta	Ξξ Xi
Γγ Gamma	Οο Omicron
Δδ Delta	Ππ Pi
Εε Epsilon	Ρρ Rho
Ζζ Zeta	Σσς Sigma
Ηη Eta	Ττ Tau
Θθ Theta	Υυ Upsilon
Ιι Iota	Φφ Phi
Κκ Kappa	Χχ Chi
Λλ Lambda	Ψψ Psi
Μμ Mu	Ωω Omega
Obsolete letters
Digamma	Qoppa
San	Sampi
Other characters
Stigma	Sho
Heta

Greek diacritics

Rho (uppercase Ρ, lowercase ρ or ϱ) is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic Rêš "head" (see Resh). Its uppercase form is not to be confused with the Roman letter P.

Rho is generally classed as a liquid (together with lambda and sometimes the nasals mu and nu), which has important implications for morphology. It is pronounced similarly to the letter r in languages with a Latin-derived alphabet. In polytonic orthography a rho at the beginning of a word is conventionally written with a rough breathing (equivalent to h) — ῥ — and a double rho within a word is written with a smooth breathing over the first rho and a rough breathing over the second — ῤῥ — apparently reflecting an aspirated or voiceless pronunciation in Ancient Greek, hence the various Greek-derived English words which start with rh or contain rrh. The name of the letter is written in Greek as ῥῶ (polytonic) or ρω/ρο (monotonic).

Letters that arose from rho include Roman R and Cyrillic Er (Р).

If a person is a former Rhodes Scholar, they are entitled to use the Greek letter rho. If used, the symbol should precede the name. (citation, http://www.ox.ac.uk/gazette/calendar/style.pdf)

Common notational uses

The characters Ρ, ρ and ϱ are also used outside its Greek alphabetical context in Science, and Mathematics.

In Physics
- to represent Density (ρ)
- to represent Momentum (Ρ)
- to represent Resistivity (ρ)

In Mathematics
- to represent the Radius in a system of spherical polar coordinates
- to represent the correlation coefficient of a population parameter
- to represent the Spectral radius of a matrix $A$ denoted as $\rho(A)$
- to represent a Plastic number

In Economics to represent the discount rate of future pence cash flows

In Molecular Biology to represent the Rho protein responsible for termination of RNA synthesis. In such occasions, it is often represented as ϱ ("rho symbol" U+03F1), to avoid confusion with the Latin letter p

In Programming
- For LaTeX, the symbols are P (Ρ), \rho ( $\rho$ ), and \varrho ( $\varrho$ )
- The lower-case rho ρ has a special meaning in the APL programming language

Rho (letter)

Common notational uses

See also