N

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For other uses, see N (disambiguation).

Look up N, n in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

OSI basic Latin alphabet
	Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd
Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj
Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp
Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv
	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz

The letter N is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is en /ɛn/.

It is often used as a variable in algebra.

1 History of the form
2 Usage
3 Codes for computing
4 Meanings for N
5 See also

[edit] History of the form

The most common snake hieroglyphic was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like English 'J', because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet. It is speculated that Semitic people working in Egypt adapted hieroglyphics to create the first alphabet, and that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, because their word for "snake" may have begun with that sound. However, the name for the letter in the Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic alphabets is nun, which means "fish" in some of these languages. The sound value of the letter was /n/ - as in Greek, Etruscan, Latin and all modern languages.

Egyptian hieroglyph for 'J'	Proto-Semitic N	Phoenician N	Etruscan N	Greek Nu
<hiero>D</hiero>	Image:Proto-semiticN-01.png	Image:PhoenicianN-01.png	Image:EtruscanN-01.png	Image:Nu uc lc.svg

[edit] Usage

N serves as a dental or alveolar nasal in virtually all languages that use the Latin alphabet. A common digraph with <n> is <ng>, which produces a velar nasal in a variety of languages, usually final in English. In languages like Italian and French, <gn> represents a palatal nasal (/ɲ/). The Portuguese spelling for this sound is <nh>. In English, n is silent when it is preceded by an m, in words like hymn (although it is pronounced in words such as damnation).

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the lowercase [n] represents the alveolar nasal sound. A small capital [ɴ] represents the uvular nasal.

N is the second-most commonly used consonant in the English language (after T).

[edit] Codes for computing

Alternative representations for N

NATO phonetic		Morse code
November		–·
Image:ICS November.svg	Image:Semaphore November.svg	Image:ASL November.png	Image:Braille N.svg
Signal flag	Semaphore	ASL Manual	Braille

In Unicode the capital N is codepoint U+004E and the lowercase n is U+006E.

The ASCII code for capital N is 78 and for lowercase n is 110; or in binary 01001110 and 01101110, correspondingly.

The EBCDIC code for capital N is 213 and for lowercase a is 149.

The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "N" and "n" for upper and lower case respectively.

[edit] Meanings for N

In astronomy,
- N stands for a reddish class of stars, M carbon stars.
- N stands for the planet Neptune; for example, S/2002 N 4 is the fourth satellite of Neptune sighted in 2002.
- N stands for a July 1 through 15 discovery, in the provisional designation of a comet (e.g. C/1825 N1, Comet Pons) or asteroid (e.g. (5387) 1980 NB).
In biochemistry, N is the symbol for asparagine
In calendars, N is often an abbreviation for the month November
In chemistry,
- N is the symbol for Nitrogen.
- N can denote a measure of purity, referring to the number of nines after the comma. So a substance of purity 3N is 0.999 (99.9%) pure, while a substance of purity 6N is 0.999999 (99.9999%) pure.
- n can be used to denote number of moles.
- N can be used to denote Normality, a measure of concentration
In computer science and set theory, n is frequently used as a generic counting number
in chess, N is a notation symbol for the knight piece, as the letter K is used for the king.
In driving a motor vehicle, N designates the neutral gear of a transmission
In electronics, N stands for a type of RF connector
In finance, N is the U.S. ticker symbol for Inco Limited
In Japanese, N is a romanization of the kana ん and ン.
In international licence plate codes, N stands for Norway
In mathematics
- n can denote "number of" in algebraic equations.
- blackboard bold <math>\mathbb{N}</math> represents the set of all natural numbers.
- In the 1995 Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (a printed predecessor to the OEIS) sequences were numbered by lexicographic order prefixed by the letter N. Some older mathematical papers use these N numbers.
In the metric system,
- N is the symbol for the newton, the SI derived unit for force (physics)
- n, nano, is the SI prefix meaning 10^-9
In Microsoft Windows, Ctrl-N, and Mac OS, Command-N, creates a new document, a new window or a new folder.
In particle physics,
- n is the symbol for a neutron.
- N is the symbol for a nucleon.
In physics,
- n is the recommended symbol for: refractive index (optics), principal quantum number (atomic and nuclear physics), order of reflexion, electron number density (solid state physics), amount of substance (chemical physics)
- N is the recommended symbol for: number of molecules (molecular physics), number of turns (electricity and magnetism), neutron number (atomic and nuclear physics), quantum number of total angular momentum (molecular spectroscopy)
As the first letter of a postal code,
- In Canada, N stands for Western Ontario.
- In the United Kingdom, N stands for North London.
In radio communication, N is one of the ITU prefixes allocated to the United States. Call signs beginning with N are generally used by U.S. Navy radio stations, as well as civilian aircraft.
In Roman numerals, N was used around 725 by Bede, or one of his colleagues, as the initial of nullae (i.e., none or zero) in a table of epacts.
In route numbering, N may be used as a prefix,
- In the Republic of Ireland, standing for a National Primary Route or National Secondary Route.
- In South Africa, standing for a national road.
In statistics, n is the size of a sample.
In video games, N is the abbreviation for Nintendo ("The Big 'N'"). Also the Nintendo 64 logo is a three-dimensional "N".
- N is also the name of a Macromedia Flash game.
In weather forecasting and geography, N stands for north, one of the 4 cardinal directions.
When displayed on the back of a vehicle in British Columbia, N means a novice driver.
N is for Ninja.

[edit] See also

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Two-letter combinations
Na	Nb	Nc	Nd	Ne	Nf	Ng	Nh	Ni	Nj	Nk	Nl	Nm	Nn	No	Np	Nq	Nr	Ns	Nt	Nu	Nv	Nw	Nx	Ny	Nz
NA	NB	NC	ND	NE	NF	NG	NH	NI	NJ	NK	NL	NM	NN	NO	NP	NQ	NR	NS	NT	NU	NV	NW	NX	NY	NZ
Letter-digit & Digit-letter combinations
								N0	N1	N2	N3	N4	N5	N6	N7	N8	N9
								0N	1N	2N	3N	4N	5N	6N	7N	8N	9N