Mu is used as an SI prefix to represent one one millionth, or 10-6.
2. The name of a (hypothetical) vanished continent, located in the Pacific Ocean but now, like Atlantis and Lemuria?, sunk beneath the waters. The idea of this continent first appeared in the works of the archaeologist [Augustus Le Plongeon]? (1826-1908), who was one of the first to excavate Mayan? ruins at Yucatan? His attempts to translate surviving Mayan writings resulted in a story of the continent of Mu, which had foundered in a similar fashion to Atlantis, with the survivors founding the Mayan civilisation.
This lost continent was later popularised by James Churchward in a series of books, beginning with `Lost Continent of Mu' (1926). The books still have devotees, but they are not considered serious archaeology, and nowadays are found in bookshops classed under `New Age' or `Religion and Spirituality'
Geologists maintain that we may be quite certain that no such Pacific continent existed. Continental masses are composed of the lighter "sial" (silicon/aluminum) type rocks which literally float on the heavier "sima" (silicon/magnesium} rocks which constitute ocean bottoms. The Pacific basin is noticeably lacking in sial rock. (See [plate tectonics]?)
See also: lost cities and Phantom Islands.
3. A Japanese word meaning "no" or "nothing"; used as a response to koans in Zen Buddhism, with the meaning, "Your question is unanswerable or irrelevant."
The canonical Western comparison is that "mu" is the appropriate answer to the question, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" (When in fact one has never beaten one's wife.)
"Mu" is the canonical reply to the famous koan from the Zen teacher Joshu, "Does a dog have the Buddha nature?" (Ability to attain Enlightenment).
Some earlier thinkers had maintained that creatures such as dogs did have the "Buddha nature", others that they did not. Joshu sought to "cut through" this speculation by maintaining that it was a waste of time.
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