# Why do only capital Latin letters respond all font switches in math mode?

$\mathbf{\omega}$, for example, does not respond the font switch. Why do only capital Latin letters respond all font switches in math mode?

Note: To bold the \omega, we have to use \boldsymbol{\omega}.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{bm}
\begin{document}
Need \verb|\boldsymbol| to bold the \verb|\omega|: $\boldsymbol{\omega}$

No need \verb|\boldsymbol| to bold A: $\mathbf{A}$
\end{document}

-
This calls for MWE. Do you use (pdf|Xe|Lua|{})LaTeX? In what order you load the packages? Remember that bm should be loaded for \boldsymbol and it has to be loaded after you load your main document font (bm sets the correct fonts from the active fonts at the moment of loading the package). –  yo' Jan 28 '13 at 17:40

\mathbf changes the current math group (\fam) This means that characters or commands defined by \chardef (\DeclareMathSymbol) such that their math class is 7 will switch to the specified font. In the standard TeX font settings this only affects upper and lower case latin letters. \omega is treated as a symbol from a fixed font (and in the standard TeX math font encodings changing fonts would not produce the desired result as most of the fonts do not have Greek letters.
Despite the Question Title lower case latin letters do change family (and are affected by \mathbf although some fonts notable \mathcal and \mathbb only have uppercase so while the font switches for lowercase letters, an undesired glyph is selected.