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Phi

Phi ( ; uppercase Φ, lowercase φ or ϕ; pheî ; Modern Greek: fi ) is the twenty-first letter of the Greek alphabet. In Archaic and Classical Greek ( 9th to 4th century BC), it represented an aspirated voiceless bilabial plosive ( ), which was the origin of its usual romanization as . During the later part of Classical Antiquity, in Koine Greek (c. 4th century BC to 4th century AD), its pronunciation shifted to a voiceless bilabial fricative ( ), and by the Byzantine Greek period (c. 4th century AD to 15th century AD) it developed its modern pronunciation as a voiceless labiodental fricative ( ). The romanization of the Modern Greek phoneme is therefore usually . It may be that phi originated as the letter qoppa (Ϙ, ϙ), and initially represented the sound before shifting to Classical Greek . In traditional Greek numerals, phi has a value of 500 ( ) or 500,000 ( ). The Cyrillic letter Ef (Ф, ф) descends from phi. Like other Greek letters, lowercase phi (encoded as the Unicode character ) is used as a mathematical or scientific symbol. Some uses require the old-fashioned 'closed' glyph, which is separately encoded as the Unicode character .

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Article summary

Phi ( ; uppercase Φ, lowercase φ or ϕ; pheî ; Modern Greek: fi ) is the twenty-first letter of the Greek alphabet. In Archaic and Classical Greek ( 9th to 4th century BC), it represented an aspirated voiceless bilabial plosive ( ), which was the origin of its usual romanization as . During the later part of Classical Antiquity, in Koine Greek (c. 4th century BC to 4th century AD), its pronunciation shifted to a voiceless bilabial fricative ( ), and by the Byzantine Greek period (c. 4th century AD to 15th century AD) it developed its modern pronunciation as a voiceless labiodental fricative ( ). The romanization of the Modern Greek phoneme is therefore usually . It may be that phi originated as the letter qoppa (Ϙ, ϙ), and initially represented the sound before shifting to Classical Greek . In traditional Greek numerals, phi has a value of 500 ( ) or 500,000 ( ). The Cyrillic letter Ef (Ф, ф) descends from phi. Like other Greek letters, lowercase phi (encoded as the Unicode character ) is used as a mathematical or scientific symbol. Some uses require the old-fashioned 'closed' glyph, which is separately encoded as the Unicode character .

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Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.