How is ħ pronounced and what is its significance in physics?

[Emily111]

I'm translating a fascinating science movie script, and there is ħ - Planck's constant in it. That text will be read aloud, so I cannot just write ħ, because the speaker will choke. He/she will probably have little idea about physics.

Is it true, that only ħ (in italics), the reduced Planck's constant, is pronounced h-bar? If so, how do you spell the regular ħ?

Thanks in advance!

 

[ZapperZ]

I'm translating a fascinating science movie script, and there is ħ - Planck's constant in it. That text will be read aloud, so I cannot just write ħ, because the speaker will choke. He/she will probably have little idea about physics.

Is it true, that only ħ (in italics), the reduced Planck's constant, is pronounced h-bar? If so, how do you spell the regular ħ?

Thanks in advance!

I've seen odd questions in the many years I've been here, but this has got to rank among the top.

Shouldn't they be pronounced the SAME way? The only difference is the typesetting. That has "no sound". Can you produce a citation where the italics and non-italics symbols have different pronunciation and represents different things?

Zz.

 

[Emily111]

OK Not sure why, but I thought ħ is Planck's constant, and ħ is reduced Planck's constant. You are dealing with a laywoman here. I know better now, and I'd be happy if someone would delete this thread.

 

[anorlunda]

If I understand the question right, it is pronounced "h bar".

 

[TeethWhitener]

OK Not sure why, but I thought ħ is Planck's constant, and ħ is reduced Planck's constant. You are dealing with a laywoman here. I know better now, and I'd be happy if someone would delete this thread.

Planck's constant is $h$, the reduced Planck constant is $\hbar = \frac{h}{2\pi}$.

 

[PeroK]

OK Not sure why, but I thought ħ is Planck's constant, and ħ is reduced Planck's constant. You are dealing with a laywoman here. I know better now, and I'd be happy if someone would delete this thread.

Just plain $h$ is Planck's constant. In Quantum Mechanics $h$ appears divided by $2\pi$ all the time. At some point, someone must have got fed up writing $\frac{h}{2\pi}$, and the reduced Planck's constant came about: "h-bar" $\hbar = \frac{h}{2\pi}$.

 

[Dr Transport]

one of my professors called it h-a-srash

 

[berkeman]

I know better now, and I'd be happy if someone would delete this thread.

No need to delete -- it has been useful to summarize the difference...

Planck's constant is $h$, the reduced Planck constant is $\hbar = \frac{h}{2\pi}$.

 

[BvU]

Getting used to this nerdy culture, Emily ?