The symbol γ

Mar 08, 2011 21:34

Is anyone familiar with the use of γ as a symbol for a prefix? I've never come across it before, and according to Wikipedia, γ is used for "antibiotic concentration (1 γ = 1 µg/ml) in microbiology ( Read more... )

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vurumai March 9 2011, 06:44:53 UTC
surrey_sucks March 9 2011, 06:47:11 UTC
Most definitely not. I am very familiar with the symbol for micro, and the symbol was a gamma.

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ammonoid March 9 2011, 08:44:39 UTC
You are correct, it is not the mu=micro symbol, it predates it.

I thought it was a lambda, which I am too lazy to insert into lj, but it is like the gamma upside down.

It is something only old fogeys use, but I was taught it was ul, not a concentration. So for example 5 lambda = 5 ul.

This was from an old, and totally nuts, prof I worked for almost 10 years. Maybe she was using it wrong, wouldn't suprise me.

Or the thought just struck me that the gamma does mean 1 ug/ml and the lambda thing I was remembering was something else. In any case it was a system that predated the milli/micro/nano/femto/pico system we have now.

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surrey_sucks March 9 2011, 15:04:46 UTC
The paper was from 1949!

If it does in fact mean 1 ug/ml, that makes a lot of sense, because we were not getting results with nanogram concentrations, but only with microgram concentrations!

Thanks for your insight.

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