RRFFW- Part II: Alpha of Evil

Ok, this is getting ridiculous. At first it was understandable, I mean, if you went into the field of physics because you were good at it then you probably weren't exactly praised for your visual creativity as a youngster. You are no Picasso, and that's Ok, I get it. Furthermore, I understand that nowadays our communication is limited by what one can easily access in wordprocessing programs and what can be understood by computer langages, and that's understandable too. But there is a limit, and that limit was surpassed long, long ago. This ends here, and this ends now.

What am I talking about? I am talking about the absolute prostitution and exploitation of the greek alphabet. It's disgusting; it's an abomination on society and science; and it needs to be stopped.

We'll start with the worst of the worst- little sigma (σ) and little delta (δ). Little sigma, in this one class alone, can mean a type of bond, the spin portion of a wave function, and reflection symmetry over a plane. And no, none of those really have too much to do with each other (though come to think of it, that's probably a good thing). Delta is even worse. This little whore not only has its own operator in mathematics, in addition to being a core element of calculus, but also represents partial charge distribution, the kroenecker symbol, a d-orbital bond, and an NMR shift. Pute.

And then there's good old alpha and beta (α, β). While seemingly innocent, these two creatures have also committed an unimaginable amount of crimes against human decency. Frequently working in pairs, they signify spin-up and spin-down electrons, neighboring carbon molecules in conjugated systems, and energy comparisons between atomic and molecular orbitals. Honestly, it seems like every time someone comes across a binary property that requires two distinct states they look no further than "Hmm...I know! Alpha and Beta!" Can you give it a break, Already!?

Dear PhDs, Of all the possible symbols, alphabets, and punctuation marks that exist in the world today, why does every scientist seem to insist on returning to the same, tired group of already STD-infested and overexploited letters? Would it kill you to reward all of the hard work that went into creating your very own method or formula by a slighlty more creative name and squiggle?! (PS- It will also make students actually remember your formula. And like you better.)

It's a good thing I'm nearing the end of this class because if one more new concept is introduced with a greek letter I might go back to ancient Greece (AKA CERN, apparently this is a theme in my life) and attempt to destroy them all myself. That might not bode too well for my career. Or Western Civilisation.

Oh well, at least I made my stern, slavic (well, Polish) 'Pheesics Professurr' laugh, which might come in useful when I fail his exam on monday.


...Pute.