Ar 09:23 -0800 1997-12-01, scr�obh Kenneth Whistler:
>
>It doesn't have anything to do with their mathematical function, but
>rather with the source encoded character sets that were in consideration
>when the original collection of characters was pulled together.
>
>U+00B5 MICRO SIGN is in ISO/IEC 8859-1 ("Latin-1"), and in the preexisting
>ISO nomenclature was distinguished from U+03BC GREEK SMALL LETTER MU. There
>was no choice but to provide for separate encoding in Unicode.
>
>The encoding for Greek Sigma is dependent on the preexisting encoding of
>ISO/IEC 8859-7, as well as the Greek encodings that standard is derivative
>from.
>
>U+2126 OHM SIGN and U+2135 ALEF SYMBOL, and other letterlike symbols that
>ended up with separate encodings also had preexisting separate treatments
>in at least one source encoded character set.
This is why GREEK SMALL LETTER PI is used for 3.14... and why that
important number doesn't have its own encoding? I always felt that it was
weird that such an important number was left as a letter while so many
others were not.
-- Michael Everson, EGT * http://www.indigo.ie/egt 15 Port Chaeimhghein �ochtarach; Baile �tha Cliath 2; �ire (Ireland) Guth�in: +353 1 478-2597, +353 1 283-9396 27 P�irc an Fh�ithlinn; Baile an Bh�thair; Co. �tha Cliath; �ire
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