Tau (Name?)

[Hrw-Amen]

This is a simple question based on something I read earlier today.

I was just flicking through an old Star Trek technical manual that I have, as i had to take it out of the booshelf to get somthing under it.

I was looking at the sction dealing with the Warp Drive relativistic (Is that a real word?) effects of Time Dilation and tey were refering to somthing known as the 'Tau Factor.'

Now this book was published many years ago when STTNG was reasonaby new, so long before the Tau were part of 40K. It did not however expand on what this was in any way.

I then decided to loo up Tau in my Oxford dictionary, which whilst it is rather old, around 1930 edition, was after Eienstein's theory time, so I figured it may say something about the Tau Factor if it was a real thing.

However all the Oxford dictionary told me was that a Tau is some kind of north American Toad?

Can anyone expand on either of these, or indeed any other meaning?

[WGMelchior]

Tau is a greek letter often used in mathematics to signify something that has to do with time. As an example of what they might have tried to conjure up with the name "Tau Factor", check Wikipedia for proper time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_time).

Any connection to Warhammer is purely coincidental.

[Crazy Ivan]

I think in this case Tau comes from the Chinese word Tao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao), the main concept in the philosphy of Taoism with which the Greater Good has some things in common.

Also, "Tau (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau)" is just the name of the Greek letter "T".

I have never heard of that toad before, though...

[Bookwrak]

Tau is a greek letter used in several different scientific capacities, such as representing time in varying capacities.

[Bregalad]

Now we come to the question: Can GW sue the old Greek for using the name of a 40k race ;)

[puppetmaster24]

Now we come to the question: Can GW sue the old Greek for using the name of a 40k race ;)

i wouldnt try. despite being dead socrates could still win in court against the people who work at GW.