Mu (letter)

Twelfth letter of the Greek alphabet

For other uses, see MU.

Not to be confused with Nu (letter), M, or Em (Cyrillic).

"µ" redirects here. For the micro sign, see Micro-.

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
History

Archaic local variants

|  Ϝϝ|  Digamma|  Ͱͱ|  Heta

|
|
|

Ϻϻ|  San|  Ϙϙ|  Koppa
Ͷͷ|

* Tsan
* Digamma

|  Ͳͳ|  Sampi
Ϸϸ|  Sho| |
Diacritics and other symbols

Diacritics

* ά
* ὰ
* ᾶ
* ἀ
* ἁ
* ᾱ
* ᾰ
* ϊ
* ᾳ
* σ̌

Ligatures

* ȢȢ
* Ϗϗ
* Ϛϛ
* ⳨
* ☧

Numerals (Attic)

* ϛ (6)
* ϟ (90)
* ϡ (900)

Related topics

* Use as scientific symbols
* Orthography
* Romanization
* Cyrillization

* Category

* v
* t
* e

Mu, or my (/ˈm(j)uː/ ⓘ;[1][2] uppercase Μ, lowercase μ; Ancient Greek μῦ [mŷː], Greek: μι or μυ—both [mi]), is the twelfth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced bilabial nasal IPA: [m]. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 40.[3] Mu was derived from the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for water, which had been simplified by the Phoenicians and named after their word for water, to become 𐤌 img (mem). Letters that derive from mu include the Roman M and the Cyrillic М, though the lowercase resembles a small Latin U (u).

Greek letter mu

## Names

[edit]

### Ancient Greek

[edit]

In Greek, the name of the letter was written μῦ and pronounced [mŷː].

### Modern Greek

[edit]

In Modern Greek, the letter is spelled μι and pronounced [mi]. In polytonic orthography, it is written with an acute accent: μί.[4][5]

## Use as symbol

[edit]

The lowercase letter mu (μ) is used as a special symbol in many academic fields. Uppercase mu is not used, because it appears identical to Latin M.

### Prefix for units of measurement

[edit]

"μ" is used as a unit prefix denoting a factor of 10−6 (one millionth), in this context, the symbol's name is "micro".

* Metric prefix
* International System of Units prefix, also known as "SI prefix"
* The micrometre with a symbol of "μm" can also be referred to as the non-SI term "micron".

### Mathematics

[edit]

"μ" is conventionally used to denote certain things; however, any Greek letter or other symbol may be used freely as a variable name.

* a measure in measure theory
* minimalization in computability theory and Recursion theory
* the integrating factor in ordinary differential equations
* the degree of membership in a fuzzy set[6]
* the Möbius function in number theory[7][8]
* the population mean or expected value in probability and statistics[9]
* the service or departure rate in queueing theory[10]
* the Ramanujan–Soldner constant[11]

### Physics and engineering

[edit]

In classical physics and engineering:

* the coefficient of friction[12] (also used in aviation as braking coefficient (see Braking action))
* reduced mass in the two-body problem[13]
* Standard gravitational parameter in celestial mechanics[14]
* linear density, or mass per unit length, in strings and other one-dimensional objects[15]
* permeability in electromagnetism[16]
* the magnetic dipole moment of a current-carrying coil
* dynamic viscosity in fluid mechanics
* the amplification factor or voltage gain of a triode vacuum tube[17]
* the electrical mobility of a charged particle
* the rotor advance ratio, the ratio of aircraft airspeed to rotor-tip speed in rotorcraft[18][19]
* the pore water pressure in saturated soil

In particle physics:

* the elementary particles called the muon and antimuon
* the proton-to-electron mass ratio[20]

In thermodynamics:

* the chemical potential of a system or component of a system

### Computer science

[edit]

In evolutionary algorithms:

* μ, population size from which in each generation λ offspring will generate (the terms μ and λ originate from evolution strategy notation)

In type theory:

* Used to introduce a recursive data type. For example,  list ( τ ) = μ α .1 + τ α {\displaystyle {\text{list}}(\tau )=\mu {}\alpha {}.1+\tau {}\alpha } is the type of lists with elements of type  τ {\displaystyle \tau } (a type variable): a sum of unit, representing nil, with a pair of a  τ {\displaystyle \tau } and another  list ( τ ) {\displaystyle {\text{list}}(\tau )} (represented by  α {\displaystyle \alpha } ). In this notation,  μ {\displaystyle \mu } is a binding form, where the variable ( α {\displaystyle \alpha } ) introduced by  μ {\displaystyle \mu } is bound within the following term ( 1 + τ α {\displaystyle 1+\tau {}\alpha } ) to the term itself. Via substitution and arithmetic, the type expands to  1 + τ + τ 2 + τ 3 + ⋯ {\displaystyle 1+\tau +\tau ^{2}+\tau ^{3}+\cdots } , an infinite sum of ever-increasing products of  τ {\displaystyle \tau } (that is, a  τ list {\displaystyle \tau {}{\text{ list}}} is any  k {\displaystyle k} -tuple of values of type  τ {\displaystyle \tau } for any  k ≥ 0 {\displaystyle k\geq 0} ). Another way to express the same type is  list ( τ ) = 1 + τ list ( τ ) {\displaystyle {\text{list}}(\tau )=1+\tau {}{\text{list}}(\tau )} .

### Chemistry

[edit]

In chemistry:

* the prefix given in IUPAC nomenclature for a bridging ligand

### Biology

[edit]

In biology:

* the mutation rate in population genetics
* A class of Immunoglobulin heavy chain that defines IgM type Antibodies

### Pharmacology

[edit]

In pharmacology:

* an important opiate receptor

### Orbital mechanics

[edit]

In orbital mechanics:

* Standard gravitational parameter of a celestial body, the product of the gravitational constant G and the mass M
* planetary discriminant, represents an experimental measure of the actual degree of cleanliness of the orbital zone, a criterion for defining a planet. The value of μ is calculated by dividing the mass of the candidate body by the total mass of the other objects that share its orbital zone.

### Music

[edit]

* Mu chord
* Electronic musician Mike Paradinas runs the label Planet Mu which utilizes the letter as its logo, and releases music under the pseudonym μ-Ziq, pronounced "music"
* Used as the name of the school idol group μ's, pronounced "muse", consisting of nine singing idols in the anime Love Live! School Idol Project
* Official fandom name of Kpop group f(x), appearing as either MeU or 'μ'
* Hip-hop artist Muonboy has taken inspiration from the particle for his stage name and his first EP named Mu uses the letter as its title.

### Cameras

[edit]

The Olympus Corporation manufactures a series of digital cameras called Olympus μ [mju:][21] (known as Olympus Stylus in North America).

### Linguistics

[edit]

In phonology:

* mora

In syntax:

* μP (mu phrase) can be used as the name for a functional projection.[22]

In Celtic linguistics:

* /μ/ can represent an Old Irish nasalized labial fricative of uncertain articulation, the ancestor of the sound represented by Modern Irish mh.

## Unicode

[edit]

The lowercase mu (as "micro sign") appeared at 0xB5 in the 8-bit ISO-8859-1 encoding, from which Unicode and many other encodings inherited it. It was also at 0xE6 in the popular CP437 on the IBM PC. Unicode designates mu as is the compatibility equivalent of the micro sign.[23]

* U+00B5 µ MICRO SIGN (&micro;)
* U+039C Μ GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU (&Mu;)
* U+03BC μ GREEK SMALL LETTER MU (&mu;)
* U+2C98 Ⲙ COPTIC CAPITAL LETTER MI
* U+2C99 ⲙ COPTIC SMALL LETTER MI
* U+1D6B3 𝚳 MATHEMATICAL BOLD CAPITAL MU[a]
* U+1D6CD 𝛍 MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL MU
* U+1D6ED 𝛭 MATHEMATICAL ITALIC CAPITAL MU
* U+1D707 𝜇 MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL MU
* U+1D727 𝜧 MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC CAPITAL MU
* U+1D741 𝝁 MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC SMALL MU
* U+1D761 𝝡 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD CAPITAL MU
* U+1D77B 𝝻 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD SMALL MU
* U+1D79B 𝞛 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD ITALIC CAPITAL MU
* U+1D7B5 𝞵 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD ITALIC SMALL MU

1. ^ The MATHEMATICAL symbols are only for math. Stylized text should use markup.

## See also

[edit]

Look up Μ or μ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

* Greek letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering
* Fraser alphabet#Consonants

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "mu". The Chambers Dictionary (9th ed.). Chambers. 2003. ISBN 0-550-10105-5.
2. ^ "mu". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
3. ^ Hadley, James (1884). A Greek Grammar for Schools and Colleges. New York: American Book. p. 79.
4. ^ Neoelliniki Grammatiki (Tis Dimotikis).
5. ^ Grammatiki tis Dimotikis Glossas.
6. ^ Chaira, Tamalika (2019). Fuzzy set and its extension: the intuitionistic fuzzy set. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. p. 3\. ISBN 978-1-119-54419-7. "If X be a collection of objects denoted by X, then a fuzzy set A in X is defined as:… where μA X is the degree of membership of X in A."
7. ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Möbius Function". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2025-01-24.
8. ^ "DLMF: §27.2 Functions ‣ Multiplicative Number Theory ‣ Chapter 27 Functions of Number Theory". dlmf.nist.gov. Retrieved 2025-01-31.
9. ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Mean". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2025-01-24.
10. ^ M/M/1 queues and queueing networks, Oxford University lecture notes
11. ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Soldner's Constant". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2025-01-31. "Soldner's constant, denoted μ (or sometimes c)..."
12. ^ Dante, Roberto C. (2016). Handbook of friction materials and their applications. Woodhead Publishing in materials. Cambridge: Woodhead Publishing. p. 2\. ISBN 978-0-08-100619-1. "In the case of dry friction w(X) is the coefficient of friction μ, which is affected by temperature speed and other variables…"
13. ^ Kulp, Christopher W.; Pagonis, Vasilis (2021). Classical mechanics: a computational approach with examples using mathematica and Python (1st ed.). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-138-49528-9. "The single mass μ is called the reduced mass of the two-body system and represents an effective inertial mass appearing in the two-body problem."
14. ^ Dodd, Richard (2012). Using SI units in astronomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 96\. ISBN 978-0-521-76917-4. "The standard gravitational parameter μ, is the product of the Newtonian gravitational constant G, and the mass of a given celestial body."
15. ^ Walker, Jearl; Resnick, Robert; Halliday, David (2014). Halliday & Resnick fundamentals of physics (10th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. p. 452\. ISBN 978-1-118-23376-4. "We call this ratio the linear density μ of the striing."
16. ^ Jiles, David (2016). Introduction to magnetism and magnetic materials (Third ed.). Boca Raton London New York: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group. p. 42\. ISBN 978-1-138-44149-1. "We can now make a general statement for the permeability μ and susceptibility χ"
17. ^ Ballou, Glen (1987). Handbook for Sound Engineers: The New Audio Cyclopedia (1 ed.). Howard W. Sams Co. p. 250\. ISBN 0-672-21983-2. "Amplification factor or voltage gain is the amount the signal at the control grid is increased in amplitude after passing through the tube, which is also referred to as the Greek letter μ (mu) or voltage gain (Vg) of the tube."
18. ^ "Nomenclature" NASA
19. ^ "Definition".
20. ^ Thompson, Rodger I. (2017). "Fundamental constants as monitors of the universe". MG14. WORLD SCIENTIFIC: 3657–3663\. arXiv:1602.03192. doi:10.1142/9789813226609_0476. ISBN 978-981-322-659-3. "There are now observational constraints on the time variation of the proton to electron mass ratio μ at the 10−7 level."
21. ^ "Olympus History : μ[mju:] (Stylus) Series".
22. ^ Johnson, Kyle (1991). "Object Positions". Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. 9 (4): 577–636\. doi:10.1007/BF00134751. S2CID 189901613.
23. ^ Unicode Code Charts: Greek and Coptic (Range: 0370-03FF)

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