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Symbols · Greek letters

τ Τ Tau

Say it: “tau” · TAW (rhymes with "cow") or TOR

What it means

The nineteenth Greek letter. τ is a time constant, torque, shear stress, proper time in relativity and Kendall's rank correlation.

Read aloud in real formulas

Mechanics

τ = r × F

Aethel says

tau equals r cross F

torque is the cross product of position and force

Circuits

τ = RC

Aethel says

tau equals R C

the time constant of a resistor–capacitor circuit

Typing it

LaTeX
\tau (capital: T)
Unicode
U+03C4, U+03A4

Questions

How do you pronounce tau (τ)?

It is said “tau”, roughly TAW (rhymes with "cow") or TOR.

What does τ mean in maths?

The nineteenth Greek letter. τ is a time constant, torque, shear stress, proper time in relativity and Kendall's rank correlation.

How do you type τ?

In LaTeX, write \tau (capital: T). Its Unicode code point is U+03C4, U+03A4.

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