Since the occurrence of various sciences and mathematical calculations, scientists began to use many characters and abbreviations. This is a completely justified decision, because long formulas recorded with the help of words would take a lot of time. According to which principle, these designations are chosen, in particular letters indicating the speed and distance?
How do physical quantities and concepts mean?
In physics, there is a generally accepted list of designations. It includes Latin and Greek letters, Cyrillic (rarely), special symbols, firmware and editing signs, brackets, etc. The physicist was originated as an independent science in the 17th century during the scientific revolution, but many ideas, physical views appeared even in antique period. Hence the use of Latin, Greek.
The number of physical quantities is quite large - the letters in the alphabets are not enough to designate them all. Therefore, the same letters can designate different concepts. It is important to distinguish and writing style.
For example, Latin characters are usually written in italics, Greek - ordinary direct design. Local letters denote intense values (do not depend on the size of the system, for example, temperature), capital - extensive.
An interesting fact: among all the Latin letters, the letter Oh is less common to designate concepts from the field of physics.
In view of the historical reasons, many designations using Latin letters are to reduce words that indicate these concepts. Most often it is Latin, English, German and French words. In order to avoid confusion, Greek capital letters are almost not used if they are similar to Latin in the manner of writing.
Why in physics distance is denoted by the letter s?
The distance in physics is measured by units of length (meter in the international system of units) and has two values:
- The degree of remoteness of objects from each other;
- The length of the path that the object passed.
The distance is one of those cases when the indicating letter is the first in the word-definition. Some sources explain the origin of the letter S:
- From the English word "Space", which means distance, space, area.
- From the Latin "Spatium" - the space between the two objects, the length of length and width.
In fact, both options are correct. According to the etymology, the words "Space", it is used in the 1300s and comes from the French "Espace", and it, in turn, from Latin "Spatium". In the value of the space space "Space" began to be used only from the end of the 17th century, after it appeared in the artistic work of John Milton.
Why in physics speed is indicated by the letter V?
To refer to the speed in physics, the string letter V is also not accidental. This is the first letter in the Latin Word "Velocitas", French "Vitesse" and English "Velocity". All of them mean speed, speed, rapidness.
Another question arises: why exactly "Velocity" became the definition of speed, and not other English words with a similar meaning, for example, "Speed"? The fact is that in physics speed is a vector value that displays the speed and direction of movement of the object relative to the specified reference system.
The word "Speed" indicates a scalar rate - a value that does not depend on the coordinate system. For example, the speed of light is a constant value, so in English this term will look like "The Speed Of Light".
In addition, speed and distance are interrelated values along with time. This connection in physics is expressed by the formula. Knowing two quantities, you can calculate the third. The use of the same letters is inappropriate.
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