April 15th, 2009
\psi
Also: Happy Birthday, Euler!
(you savvy folks will find the easter egg that tells you how I pronounce this.)
Mathematical Cartoons inspired by Sharpie Fumes
Also: Happy Birthday, Euler!
(you savvy folks will find the easter egg that tells you how I pronounce this.)
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April 15th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Yea, subtle. Really subtle. And yes, I have been tainted by too many physicists.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Oh, i see..well i mean, I psee :D
April 15th, 2009 at 8:55 am
I say “psee” but I’m Dutch and this is how I learned it in grammar school. What does that make me? :-)
April 15th, 2009 at 11:16 am
I say psigh, which I guess means that I’ve been tainted by pretentious physicists.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Is that boy on a stick saying psi?
April 15th, 2009 at 11:56 am
“Sigh” isn’t just corrupted by physicists, it’s also corrupted by Classics (Ancient Greek) teachers. Having taken a year of the language in high school, that’s how I end up saying it, though now I see the light.
I think my Calculus III professor said either ’sigh’ or ’see’, but I can’t remember which, and his accent (Indian) didn’t help my chances of remembering.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I often hear ‘p-sigh’ (mostly from non-native English speakers), and I pronounce it that way myself.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Other: psigh. I’m an English speaker, but my first regular encounters with the letter were through a German-speaking lecturer. Does that help my case?
April 15th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
“Sigh” is also used by those of us who say “pie” and want to be consistent.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Pussy, for us horny bastards
April 15th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I call it scary-pitchfork-thing
April 15th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Serif is ’sigh’ and sans serif is ’see’ for me. I suppose the distinction is lost on the listener when I don’t point it out, but this way I get a laugh when there are a bunch of /phi’s.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:47 am
This easter egg is a little too subtle. Can haz hint? Is it related to the missing 961??
April 16th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Hugh Hamilton, who taught me diff. eqs. and the first half of ad. calc., always said, “Psee” as that let him describe solving diff. eqs. as,”Deep sea fishing.”
REH
April 17th, 2009 at 1:50 am
I actually say ‘psigh’ or ‘psee,’ depending on what other letters are around it. My meager understanding of Greek has led me to believe that those letters, like phi, as well, are pronounced dependant on whether or not the previous letter is a vowel or not. For example, the phi in the fraternity phi-beta-kappa is pronounced ‘figh,’ but the phi in the sorority alpha-phi is pronounced ‘fee,’ because it’s preceded by a vowel.
Adding the ‘p-’ on the front of the word isn’t just pretention; it’s to distinguish the letter from the words sigh and see.
April 17th, 2009 at 7:07 am
I also say “p’sigh.” And I’m a physicist. But most of my teachers have been non-American, so maybe that’s affected how I say it.
April 19th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
I wish I said “backslash pee ess ai”.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
@Eli @Eric Yeah, from dealing with teachers, in class I will say”psigh,” though outside of class I tend to say “see.” does that make me tainted by pretentious physicists?
April 20th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Also, awww, someone said it before I had. Fail.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:42 am
I always say p-sigh, and that was my greek master at school. His mnemonic for those 3 double letters at the end of the greek alphabet being fish and chips.
I’m a brit, if that’s any help
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:08 am
I say Quake! Gamer :P
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I linked to this cartoon from http://www.abstractmath.org/MM/MMAlphabets.htm#psi
April 26th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
I say pitchfork. Sometimes I also say ‘cup’ when the script has heavy serifs.
May 10th, 2009 at 5:24 am
I say “thingie” :(
June 15th, 2009 at 5:31 am
Touchdown!
June 19th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/psi
Physicist FTW!
June 21st, 2009 at 5:16 am
Imagine Leo lecturing at university on quantum mechanics; “Now ket thingie can be defined in a finite dimensional paradigm as the sum of the…” Quite singular.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:57 am
In health care, we use that symbol as an abbreviation to refer to psychiatry. In general, if it was written in someone’s chart, it would be read “psych.”
July 21st, 2009 at 9:28 pm
hehe. people getting defensive about the psee being pretentious clearly didn’t see the easter egg ^_^
July 30th, 2009 at 6:23 am
Or maybe it’s not nice to be called pretentious even if we did see it. Maybe THAT.
July 31st, 2009 at 8:01 am
Psigh as well, but that’s because I’ve spent too much time learning quantum mechanics. Interestingly enough, I say “fee” for \phi
August 10th, 2009 at 10:43 am
[...] Brown Sharpie is an excellent mathematical cartoon series by Courtney Gibbons – it’s like xkcd, but much brainier This one above is a classic about how to pronounce the Greek letter psi: Link [...]
April 2nd, 2010 at 1:53 pm
“wavefunction” (when doing physics)