History

Further information: History of the Greek alphabet

The Greek letter Gamma G was derived from the Phoenician letter for the /g/ phon
eme (?? giml), and as such is cognate with Hebrew gimel ?. Based on its name, th
e letter has been interpreted as an abstract representation of a camel's neck,[1
] but this has been criticized as contrived,[2] and it is more likely that the l
etter is derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph representing a club or throwing sti
ck.[3]
In the archaic period, the shape of gamma was closer to a classical lambda (?),
while lambda retained the Phoenician L-shape (??).
Letters that arose from the Greek gamma include Etruscan (Old Italic) ??, Roman
C and G, Runic kaunan ?, Gothic geuua ??, the Coptic ?, and the Cyrillic letters
? and ?.[4]
Greek phoneme
Further information: Ancient Greek phonology and Modern Greek phonology
The Ancient Greek /g/ phoneme was the voiced velar stop, continuing the PIE voic
ed velar and palatal stops *g, *?.
The modern Greek phoneme represented by gamma is realized either as a palatal /?
/ (before a front vowel, /e, i/), or as a velar /?/ (in all other environments).
Both in Ancient and in Modern Greek, before other velars (?, ?, ? k, kh, ks), g
amma represents a velar nasal /?/. A double gamma ?? represents the sequence /?g
/ (phonetically varying [?g~g]) or /??/.
Phonetic transcription
Look up ? or ? in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Lowercase Greek gamma is used in the Americanist phonetic notation and Uralic Ph
onetic Alphabet to indicate voiced consonants. In International Phonetic Alphabe
t, it represents the voiced velar fricative.
In these contexts, gamma is considered as an addition to Latin alphabet, the socalled Latin or latinized gamma ? (with an upper-case variant ? based on the min
uscule).
Latin gamma is used to represent a voiced velar fricative, both in the Internati
onal Phonetic Alphabet, and in the alphabets of African languages such as Dagban
i, Dinka, Kabiy, and Ewe,[5] some Berber languages using the Berber Latin alphabe
t, and sometimes in the romanization of Pashto.
Lowercase Latin gamma is used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to represen
t the voiced velar fricative. A lowercase Latin gamma that lies above the baseli
ne rather than crossing it (?) represents the close-mid back unrounded vowel. In
certain nonstandard variations of the IPA the uppercase form is used.
Mathematics and science
Lower case
The lower-case letter \gamma is used as a symbol for:
Chromatic number of in graph theory
Gamma radiation in nuclear physics
The photon, the elementary particle of light and other electromagnetic radia
tion
Surface energy in materials science
The Lorentz factor in theory theory of relativity
The heat capacity ratio Cp/Cv in thermodynamics
The activity coefficient in thermodynamics

The gyromagnetic ratio in electromagnetism

Gamma waves in neuroscience
Gamma motor neurons in neuroscience
A non-SI metric unit of measure of mass equal to one microgram (1 g).[6] This
always-rare use is currently deprecated.
A non-SI unit of measure of magnetic flux density, sometimes used in geophys
ics, equal to 1 nanotesla (nT).
The power by which the luminance of an image is increased in gamma correctio
n
The Euler Mascheroni constant
In mechanical engineering:
Specific weight
The shear rate of a fluid is represented by a lower case gamma with a do
t above it: \dot \gamma
Austenite (also known as ?-iron), a metallic non-magnetic allotrope or s
olid solution of iron.
The gamma carbon, the third carbon attached to a functional group in organic
chemistry and biochemistry; see Alpha and beta carbon