The Greek letter κ (kappa) was derived from the ancient Phoenician letter 𐤊 (kāp) which meant “palm” (of a hand).
The lower-case κ is pretty much just a smaller version of the upper-case Κ and is virtually indistinguishable from the upper-case Roman K as well as the Cyrillic К/к. I prefer using the cursive ϰ.
The lower-case κ and/or cursive ϰ have quite a few uses in maths, engineering and sciences, for instance:
- in coordination chemistry: a symbol for denticity
- in geometry: kappa curve, or Gutschoven’s curve, a two-dimensional curve resembling the letter ϰ
- in electrical engineering: conductivity (the reciprocal of resistivity ρ)
- in fluid dynamics: the von Kármán constant
- in immunology: a type of the immunoglobulin light chain
- in mathematics and physics: the curvature
- in pharmacology: κ-opioid receptor (KOR)
- in statistics: Cohen’s kappa coefficient
More photos related to letters, numbers and sea glass @ Shutterstock.
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