If you are a watch collector, you may have wondered what the meaning of the Omega symbol is? Especially if you are a James Bond fan or a fan of Daniel Craig who is the current Bond, you will want to know the history of the symbol.
The Omega brand started back in 1848 with a young watchmaker named Louis Brandt. He opened a small watch making shop in the Swiss village La Chaux-de-Fonds. His sons took over the business after his death and they moved the business to the towns of Biel/Bienne in 1880 and eventually to 96 Rue Jakob-Stampfli where it is still home of Omega today.
In 1894, the Brandt brothers created a new caliber – the 19 ligne which was revolutionary in its design with stem and crown. This caliber was named the “Omega” which to them signified the ultimate accomplishment. The public praised their achievement and the reputation grew so large that the brothers decided to change the name of the company to Omega Watch Co. in 1903 and helped lead them to beign the largest manufacturer of watches in Switzerland.
The Omega symbol has ties to the ancient Greek deity Chronos who carried the name Omega written on the globe with his lance in his hand.
There are two pronunciations of Omega today. In America, the “me” would be pronounced like the month of “May” – O – May – Ga. However, in Britain, and James Bond in particular pronounces Omega with the sound of the word “Me” – O – Me – Ga.
Alpha and Omega Symbol
Omega has several definitions, depending on what science you might be referring to. Most people might know of Omega as an often used symbol for Greek clubs found in colleges and universities today. The Greek letter Omega is found in the Greek alphabet – as the last and 24th letter of the Greek alphabet.
The symbol of Omega which is used in the Omega brand ” Ω ” is actually the capitalized Omega letter in the Greek alphabet. The lowercase Omega symbol is not used in the branding ” ω “. The word itself means the “Great O”. The lowercase letter is referred to as omicron, or the “Little O”.
The historical use of the Omega symbol was first seen in the 700’s AD in the Aegean Islands. The symbol has the added meaning of the number value of 800 in the Greek numeric system.
The meaning of the omega symbol takes on a bit of a religious tone because the book of Revelation refers to Jesus as the “Alpha and the Omega,” or the first and last. So, the Alpha and Omega symbolizes the infiniteness of God, and expresses that he came before all else and will be here long after all has passed on. Many Christian paintings depict the Alpha and Omega symbols on a halo that hovers over Jesus’ head, and even convert the Omega symbol as a symbol of Christ on the cross.
In general Eschatology the Omega symbolizes the end of history and the ultimate destiny of humanity. Although the symbol of the Omega is used for the destruction or the end of things and is often considered a positive thing involving rebirth, some cult groups take it to the negative extreme and are often referred to as “Doomsday cults”.
Meaning of the Omega Symbol In Chemistry
The Omega symbol ” Ω ” is used for oxygen-18, which is also depicted as 18O. The two notations are used interchangeably. It refers to a naturally occurring and stable isotope of Oxygen and environmental isotopes. For this reason it is often used in Paleoclimatology to determine the temperature of precipitation in the polar regions. It is used to produce Fluorodeoxyglucose for medical testing used in the radiopharmaceutical industry. In fact, enriched water includes H218O (or H2Ω ) and this is used to inject into patients.
Omega Symbol Meaning In Physics
The International System of Units derived the symbol Ω and calls it ohm to depict the unit of electrical resistance. It is named after the German physicist Georg Ohm. The reverse of this is the use of the term MHO (OHM spelled backwards) to indicate electric conductance. It is symbolized by the upside-down Omega symbol ℧.
Meaning of the Omega Symbol In Astronomy
In Cosmology Ω refers to the density of the universe. It is used in calculating orbital mechanics and Ω refers to the longitude of the ascending node of an orbit. In particle physics it represents the Omega baryons. It is used in statistical mechanics to show the multiplicity of microstates in a system.
Meaning of the Omega Symbol In Mathematics
In Lambert’s W function the Omega Constant is a mathematical constant that satisfies the equation:
The numerical value of Omega Ω is:
Ω = 0.567143290409783872999968662210
It is used to indicate a fixed point representation and often appears in quadratic equations. Interestingly, Religion and Mathematics converge to provide an almost homage to the Omega symbol as the constant of Ω is considered transcendental which comes from the Latin meaning “to climb over or beyond, surmount”. In fact it was proven to be a transcendental number by Chaitin’s Constant since it was a non-computable number.
Gregory Chaitin was a mathematician and computer scientist who developed digital philosophy claiming that “mathematical facts that are true for no reason, are true by accident” and that we must abandon the hope of proving these mathematical facts. The Chaitin Omega Number is a halting probability that represents that a randomly constructed program will halt.
Inset theory Ω represents the first uncountable ordinal number. In number theory, Ω(n) is the number of prime divisors of n.
In statistics, it used in probability theory as a symbol for “sample space” or “possibility space”. If you look at the prospect of flipping a coin and you wanted to note its sample space for the reliability of the coin appearing on the Heads or the Tails, you could assume that both outcomes are roughly equally likely. So, therefore they note this with the equation
Omega appears in many other areas of math including in Group theory, combinatory logic, topos theory, differential geometry, and in calculus.
In computer science the Ω appears in various character typesetting depending on the type of font used. It also has values in the Unicode, Numeric Character Reference, Named Character Reference, UTF-8, UTF-16, DOS, DOS-2, and Windows.
How to type the Omega Symbol?
You can type the Ohm Sign in Microsoft Word by going to the Insert Ribbon bar and then the Symbols section. Here you will see the ” Ω Symbols” dropdown button and you can easily click on it and select the Ohm sign or Omega symbol and insert it into your Word Document. You can also type in 2126 and then hit the Alt button and hold it down and click on the X key. This will convert the numbers 2126 to the symbol Ω . This is in Unicode.
Meaning of the Omega Symbol In Other Areas
Besides appearing as the logo for Omega Watches SA, it has also appeared on the original logo for Pioneer Corporation – the multinational corporation based in Tokyo which focuses primarily in digital entertainment products between 1989 and 1998.
It is used in Star Trek to refer to the Omega Particle.
It is used in Star Trek to refer to the Omega Particle. It is a highly unstable particle that could render subspace travel impossible. Essentially Warp drives and Warp speed were essential to the Star Trek universe and so there was a directive to destroy any known Omega Particles found in the universe. Omega is known to gather energy, like a sponge in water, which is how a single particle generates so much power.
It is used as the logo in the video game God of War, and also for Darkseid in the DC universe.
It appears as the logo for the Ultramarines in Warhammer, and is a character in Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy, Dr. Who, and also in Pokemon.
It is part of the badge for the Supreme Court in the UK.
