Name that Symbol
This uppercase Greek letter is used to represent the difference or change from an initial to final value.
Delta Δ
Having played a key role in cracking the German “Enigma,” this English computer scientist was arrested for “gross indecency.”
Alan Turing
This subfield is simply defined as “the biology of animals.”
Zoology
This Italian scientist has three discoveries named after him: a lunar crater, a mineral (potassium-caesium tetrafluoroborate), and the number 6.022*10^23.
Amadeo Avogadro
In this space science-fiction film, seven years pass every one hour on “Miller’s Planet,” causing the protagonists to lose 23 years in just 3 hours spent on the planet.
Interstellar
Often used to represent an angle measure, this lowercase Greek letter is often seen in trigonometry.
Theta θ
This theoretical physicist studied cosmology and black holes, and suffered from ALS (a motor neuron disease) until dying on pi day in 2018.
Stephen Hawking
This math subfield, which investigates the properties of whole numbers, is more widely known for its studies of prime numbers.
Number Theory
This mathematician, who wrote Passions of the Soul (a treatise on emotions), famously stated “I think, therefore I am.”
Rene Descartes
Used to determine the age of an object containing organic material, this means of chronological dating involves an element that has three natural isotopes.
This lowercase Greek letter is used to represent a force present during deformation, with SI units “pascal” or “PSI.”
Sigma σ
This biologist/anthropologist, considered the “father of biogeography,” performed the first serious attempt to evaluate the probability of life on other planets, and assisted in developing Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Alfred Russel Wallace
This subfield of biology studies the interactions between living things and the physical environment.
Ecology
In the late 1480s, this Italian artist of the High Renaissance, who painted The Last Supper, also designed the “Aerial Screw,” an early design of the modern helicopter.
Leonardo da Vinci
In this science-fiction film based on a 2014 novel, a mysterious shimmering material encloses an “Area X,” altering and transferring the hox genes of living organisms within it.
Annihilation
This symbol, used to represent gradient, divergence, and curl, was featured in “Name That Symbol 100,” but is now upside down.
Nabla ∇
This German engineer and physicist spent his spare time developing meteorological instruments, one of which precisely measured a temperature system (that he also developed) with one end of its scale based on the average human body temperature.
Gabriel Fahrenheit
This subfield of computer science studies the conceptual design, structure, and optimization of computer systems.
Computer Architecture
This computer scientist, who created a computer operating system written in his own programming language, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and believed God had commanded him to program.
Terry A. Davis
Andy Weir, who wrote and adapted Project Hail Mary, also wrote and adapted this earlier work, which features many real-world accurate NASA technologies, and was theorized to be promotional material for a real Mars mission.
The Martian
In James Watmough’s “Introduction to Mathematical Ecology,” the time a creature has been alive is denoted by t. The time a creature has before dying is called the “waiting time,” and is represented by this lowercase Greek letter.
Tau τ
Having proposed the fourth most recent model of the atom, this chemist/physicist called the particles that make up cathode rays “corpuscles,” and his model seemed to resemble a certain British Christmas desert.
J. J. Thompson
This subfield, whose calculations often involve “air parcels,” studies the physics surrounding atmospheric motions.
Dynamic Meteorology
DOUBLE JEOPARDY: In his piece on transcendentalism (religion and concepts beyond life & death) titled “Eureka,” this poet proposes one of the first ideas of black holes and multiple universes.
Edgar Allen Poe
This term, originally rejected in 2024 when proposed as the modern geological epoch/era, refers to the period of time in which humanity has become a planetary force of change.
Anthropocene