Character

My least favorite engineering character is unquestionably lower case zeta.

zeta.PNG

In vibrations, this little guy is the damping ratio. Why don’t I like this character? I guess there are two reasons. Firstly, it’s really tough to draw. Try it. At least for me, it took a bit of practice before it stopped looking like a random squiggle and started looking like its true Greekish form. Secondly, it’s not as widely recognized as, say, the ampersand. That means, that if you screw up in your artistic attempt to draw the little guy then no one will have any idea what you’ve written down.

12 thoughts on “Character

  • 10/27/2008 at 10:41 am
    Permalink

    OMG I feel your pain! When I was taking Vibrations with Jaclyn senior year I think she mentioned that you just called it “squiggle.” I used to just draw the hat part and then squiggle down for a little. That character is so dumb and it’s all over the place in Vibrations, as if the class weren’t frustrating enough

    Reply
  • 10/27/2008 at 10:45 am
    Permalink

    Ah, looks calligraphic. Makes me glad I have nothing to do with engineering. And yet, it’s kind of pretty.

    Reply
  • 10/27/2008 at 11:04 am
    Permalink

    I have memories of going through notes for some class, ‘then we multiply by squiggle, wtf is squiggly???’

    Reply
  • 10/27/2008 at 11:06 am
    Permalink

    Yeah, we called it “the squiggle” and “the crazy.”

    I hate zeta.

    Reply
  • 10/27/2008 at 11:57 am
    Permalink

    That’s not too bad. It’s like a wide cursive ‘C’ with a tail.

    Reply
  • 10/27/2008 at 12:18 pm
    Permalink

    I swear it’s a deceiving little bugger. Deceiving and dangerous. Do not be tricked.

    Reply
  • 10/27/2008 at 12:29 pm
    Permalink

    I’m glad some else shares my detest for this character. It’s near impossible to even do consistently so that you can recognize your own version of it in notes.

    Reply
  • 10/27/2008 at 2:42 pm
    Permalink

    I also hate how in vibrations you somehow end up using both a capital and lowercase X. So you have to spend all that time putting serifs on your stupid capital Xs

    Reply
  • 10/27/2008 at 3:51 pm
    Permalink

    i called it the sperm. and when i drew it it looked like one.

    Reply
  • 10/28/2008 at 7:07 am
    Permalink

    Wow. This takes me back to freshman year and differential equations. I loved the class, but there was one section that used zeta over and over again, and I had a really strange mental block against it. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one.

    Reply
  • 10/28/2008 at 9:43 am
    Permalink

    What a fantastic response from Zeta Haters!!

    Thanks to everyone for helping me cope with frustrating variables.

    Reply
  • 10/28/2008 at 9:40 pm
    Permalink

    Ah, yes, “squigma” — such a foul character.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Lauren Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *