The name in English is pronounced /taʊ/ or /tɔː/,[2] but in
Greek it is [taf].[3][4] This is because the pronunciation of the combination of Greek letters αυ can have the pronunciation of either [ai], [av] or [af], depending on what follows and if a
diaeresis is present on the second vowel (see
Greek orthography).
Tau was derived from the
Phoenician lettertaw (𐤕).[5] Letters that arose from tau include Roman
T and Cyrillic
Te (Т, т).
The expressed period of the
freerunning rhythm of an animal, i.e., the length of the daily cycle of an animal when kept in constant light or constant darkness
In thermal physics, the symbol for the fundamental temperature
Symbolism
In ancient times, tau was used as a symbol for
life or
resurrection, whereas the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet,
theta, was considered the symbol of
death.[citation needed]
In Biblical times, the
taw was put on men to distinguish those who lamented sin, although newer versions of the Bible have replaced the ancient term taw with mark (Ezekiel 9:4) or signature (Job 31:35). Its original sound value is a
voiceless alveolar plosive, IPA /t/[citation needed]
The symbolism of the
cross was connected not only to the letter
chi but also to tau, the equivalent of the last letter in the
Phoenician and Old Hebrew alphabets, and which was originally cruciform in shape; see
Cross of Tau.[citation needed]
Men weep, and bewail their lot, and curse Cadmus with many curses for introducing Tau into the family of letters; they say it was his body that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they set up structures on which men are crucified. Stauros (cross) the vile engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him. Now, with all these crimes upon him, does he not deserve death, nay, many deaths? For my part I know none bad enough but that supplied by his own shape — that shape which he gave to the
gibbet named stauros after him by men
Tau is usually considered as the symbol of
Franciscan orders due to
St. Francis' love for it, symbol of the redemption and of the
Cross. Almost all Franciscan churches have painted a tau with two crossing arms, both with
stigmata, the one of Jesus and the other of Francis; members of the
Secular Franciscan Order usually wear a wooden τ in a string with three knots around the neck
The title and symbol of "Tau" is used by
neo-Gnostic bishops as it has some symbolism in many of the modern branches of Gnosticism.
These characters are used only as mathematical symbols. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using the normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate text style.
^
abcThe date given on the source is after that of the archive. This is because the original publishing date is unknown, so the latest update date is stated instead.
^The archived version of this source may take a few minutes to render the
TeX math codes properly.
References
Look up Τ or τ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
^C, González; G, Farías; RB, Maccioni (1 Nov 1998). "Modification of tau to an Alzheimer's type protein interferes with its interaction with microtubules". Cell Mol Biol (Noisy-le-grand). 44 (7): 1117–1127.
PMID9846894 – via EuropeMC.
^M, Sjögren; E, Englund (2004). "Negative neurofilament light and tau immunostaining in frontotemporal dementia". Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders. 17 (4): 346–349.
doi:
10.1159/000077169.
PMID15178951.
S2CID9306507.
^Weisstein, Eric W. (27 Oct 2017).
"Divisor Function". MathWorld --A Wolfram Web Resource.
Archived from the original on 29 Jun 2017. Retrieved 28 Oct 2017.
^Weisstein, Eric W. (27 Oct 2017).
"Golden Ratio". Mathworld -- A Wolfram Web Resource.
Archived from the original on 22 Aug 2017. Retrieved 28 Oct 2017.