The Greeks

Options price sensitivity is different from that of other financial market instruments. An option contract s value can be affected by changes in any one or any combination of the five factors considered in option pricing models (of course, strike prices are constant in plain vanilla contracts). In contrast, swaps values are sensitive to one variable only—the swap rate—and bond futures prices are functions of just the current spot price of the cheapest-to-deliver bond and the current money market repo rate. Even more important, unlike for the other instruments, the relationship between an option s value and a change in a key variable is not linear. 

All this makes risk management more complex for option books than for portfolios of other instruments. Each variable must be considered and, in some cases, derivatives of these variables. The latter are often referred to as the Greeks, because Greek letters are used to denote them all, except volatility sensitivity. This is most commonly represented by vega, although the Greek kappa is also sometimes used. 

The N di) term in the Black-Scholes equation represents an option s delta. Delta indicates how much the contract s value, or premium, changes as the underlying asset s price changes. An option with a delta of zero does not move at all as the price of the underlying changes one with a delta of 1 behaves the same as the underlying. The value of an option with a delta of 0.6, or 60 percent, increases 60 for each 100 increase in the value of the underlying. The relationship is expressed formally in (9-1). 

C = call option price S = the price of the underlying asset 

Mathematically, an options delta is the partial derivative of its premium with respect to the price of the underlying. This is expressed in equation (9-2). 

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Eddy Currents ttike their name from the swirls (eddies) observed in turbulent water flow. The Greek mythology tells us about Charybdis. A monster eddy current between Italy and Sicily whose attractive field pulled unwary sailors to their destruction. Our kind of eddy currents are usually not so dangerous, they flow in electrical conductors and are a branch of Electromagnetics. Where does that spring from Could it make eddy currents the very oldest NDT technique ... 

Friction can now be probed at the atomic scale by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM) (see Section VIII-2) and the surface forces apparatus (see Section VI-4) these approaches are leading to new interpretations of friction [1,1 a,lb]. The subject of friction and its related aspects are known as tribology, the study of surfaces in relative motion, from the Greek root tribos meaning mbbing. 

Schrddinger E 1996 Nature and the Greeks (Cambridge Cambridge University Press)... 

The motion of particles in a fluid is best approached tlirough tire Boltzmaim transport equation, provided that the combination of internal and external perturbations does not substantially disturb the equilibrium. In otlier words, our starting point will be the statistical themiodynamic treatment above, and we will consider the effect of botli the internal and external fields. Let the chemical species in our fluid be distinguished by the Greek subscripts a,(3,.. . and let f (r, c,f)AV A be the number of molecules of type a located m... 

Ihe one-electron orbitals are commonly called basis functions and often correspond to he atomic orbitals. We will label the basis functions with the Greek letters n, v, A and a. n the case of Equation (2.144) there are K basis functions and we should therefore xpect to derive a total of K molecular orbitals (although not all of these will necessarily 3e occupied by electrons). The smallest number of basis functions for a molecular system vill be that which can just accommodate all the electrons in the molecule. More sophisti- ated calculations use more basis functions than a minimal set. At the Hartree-Fock limit he energy of the system can be reduced no further by the addition of any more basis unctions however, it may be possible to lower the energy below the Hartree-Fock limit ay using a functional form of the wavefunction that is more extensive than the single Slater determinant. 

Palladium was named after the asteroid Pallas, which was discovered at about the same time. Pallas was the Greek goddess of wisdom. 

Petroleum—a natural mineral oil—was referred to as early as the Old Testament. The word petroleum means rock oil [from the Greek petros (rock) and elaion (oil)]. It has been found for centuries seeping out of the ground, for example, in the Los Angeles basin in what are now called the La Brea tar pits. Vast deposits were found in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa. 

The suffix /Tier in the word isomer is derived from the Greek word meros meaning part share or por tion The prefix /so is also from Greek (isos meaning the same ) Thus isomers are different molecules that have the same parts (ele mental composition)... 

Hydrocarbons are divided into two mam classes aliphatic and aromatic This classifi cation dates from the nineteenth century when organic chemistry was devoted almost entirely to the study of materials from natural sources and terms were coined that reflected a substance s origin Two sources were fats and oils and the word aliphatic was derived from the Greek word aleiphar meaning ( fat ) Aromatic hydrocarbons irre spective of their own odor were typically obtained by chemical treatment of pleasant smelling plant extracts... 

Steric IS derived from the Greek word stereos for solid and refers to the three dimensional or spatial aspects of chemistry... 

The prefix stereo is derived from the Greek word stereos meaning solid Stereochemistry is the term applied to the three dimensional aspects of molecular structure and reactivity... 

It IS convenient to use the Greek letters a p 7 and so forth to locate the carbons m a molecule m relation to the carbonyl group The carbon atom adjacent to the carbonyl carbon is the a carbon atom the next one down the chain is the p carbon and so on Butanal for example has an a carbon a p carbon and a y carbon... 

Cholesterol is the central compound m any discussion of steroids Its name is a combination of the Greek words for bile (chole) and solid (stereos) preceding the characteristic alcohol suffix ol It is the most abundant steroid present m humans and the most important one as well because all other steroids arise from it An average adult has over 200 g of cholesterol it is found m almost all body tissues with relatively large amounts present m the brain and spinal cord and m gallstones Cholesterol is the chief constituent of the plaque that builds up on the walls of arteries m atherosclerosis... 

A bridging group should be indicated by adding the Greek letter p immediately before its names and separating this from the rest of the complex by a hyphen. The atom or atoms of the characteristic element to which the bridging atom is bonded, is indicated by numbers. 

The term polymer is derived from the Greek words poly and meros, meaning many parts. We noted in the last section that the existence of these parts was acknowledged before the nature of the interaction which held them together was known. Today we realize that ordinary covalent bonds are the intramolecular forces which keep the polymer molecule intact. In addition, the usual type of intermolecular forces—hydrogen bonds, dipole-dipole interactions, and London forces—hold assemblies of these molecules together in the bulk state. The only thing that is remarkable about these molecules is their size, but that feature is remarkable indeed. 

Figure 1.2 shows sections of polymer chains of these three types the substituent R equals phenyl for polystyrene and methyl for polypropylene. The general term for this stereoregularity is tacticity, a term derived from the Greek word meaning to put in order. ... 

Cyclodextrins are macrocyclic compounds comprised of D-glucose bonded through 1,4-a-linkages and produced enzymatically from starch. The greek letter which proceeds the name indicates the number of glucose units incorporated in the CD (eg, a = 6, /5 = 7, 7 = 8, etc). Cyclodextrins are toroidal shaped molecules with a relatively hydrophobic internal cavity (Fig. 6). The exterior is relatively hydrophilic because of the presence of the primary and secondary hydroxyls. The primary C-6 hydroxyls are free to rotate and can partially block the CD cavity from one end. The mouth of the opposite end of the CD cavity is encircled by the C-2 and C-3 secondary hydroxyls. The restricted conformational freedom and orientation of these secondary hydroxyls is thought to be responsible for the chiral recognition inherent in these molecules (77). 

In 1868, within a decade of the development of the spectroscope, an orange-yeUow line was observed in the sun s chromosphere that did not exactiy coincide with the D-lines of sodium. This line was attributed to a new element which was named helium, from the Greek hellos, the sun. In 1891 an inert gas isolated from the mineral uranite showed unusual spectral lines. In 1895 a similar gas was found in cleveite, another uranium mineral. This prominent yellow spectral line was then identified as that of helium, which to that time had been thought to exist only on the sun. In 1905 it was found that natural gas from a well near Dexter, Kansas, contained nearly 2% helium (see Gas, natural). 

The word hormone is derived from the Greek hormaein, meaning to set in motion or to excite. It was used initially to define the activity of secretin [1393-25-5] (1), a gastrointestinal polypeptide released into the blood by the duodenal mucosa to stimulate pancreatic acinar cells to release bicarbonate and water. 

Iodine was discovered by Curtois in 1811—1812, when he observed violet vapors rising upon heating saltpeter pots (1). Following its discovery and exarnination, the new element was named iode in French after the Greek word ioeides meaning violet-colored. The Fnglish term iodine comes from the same root (2). 

The toxic effects of mercury and mercury compounds as well as their medicinal properties have been known for many centuries. In the first century AD, Pliny indicated the use of mercuric sulfide (cinnabar or vermilion) in medicine and in cosmetics. This compound was probably known to the Greeks in the time of Aristotle (13). 

Evidence soon emerged that the endogenous opioids were peptides rather than simple morphine-like molecules (9). The first direct evidence for endogenous opioids in brain extracts was provided in 1975 when two pentapeptides were purified that differed only in the carboxyl terminal amino acids (10) (Table 1). These peptides were called methionine- (Met-) and leucine- (Leu-) enkephalin, from the Greek term meaning "in the head."... 

The potassium or calcium salt form of oxaUc acid is distributed widely ia the plant kingdom. Its name is derived from the Greek o>ys, meaning sharp or acidic, referring to the acidity common ia the foflage of certain plants (notably Oxalis and Mmex) from which it was first isolated. Other plants ia which oxahc acid is found are spinach, rhubarb, etc. Oxahc acid is a product of metabohsm of fungi or bacteria and also occurs ia human and animal urine the calcium salt is a principal constituent of kidney stones. 

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