Is there any meaningful difference between $\phi$ and $\varphi$?

Question

Are $\phi$ and $\varphi$ characters that symbolise the same thing, and have variations only for stylistic purposes, or do the represent distinct characters?

Answer 1

The difference is only typographic, but some times this is used denote different things with each one. For example, the Euler totient function almost always is denoted by $\varphi$, the same happen when used to denote homomorphisms in Abstract Algebra, but for the golden ratio there's no convention so it's not unusual to find $\phi$ and $\varphi$.