Beta

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Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Sidebar/configuration' not found. Beta (Page Module:IPA/styles.css has no content.UK: /ˈbiːtə/, Page Module:IPA/styles.css has no content.US: /ˈbeɪtə/ <phonos file="LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Beta.wav"></phonos>; uppercase Page Template:Script/styles greek.css has no content.Β, lowercase Page Template:Script/styles greek.css has no content.β, or cursive Page Template:Script/styles greek.css has no content.ϐ; Template:Langx or Template:Langx) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive Script error: No such module "IPA".. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative Script error: No such module "IPA"., while Script error: No such module "IPA". in borrowed words is instead commonly transcribed as μπ.[1][2] Letters that arose from beta include the Roman letter ⟨B⟩ and the Cyrillic letters ⟨Б⟩ and ⟨В⟩.

Name

Like the names of most other Greek letters, the name of beta comes from the acrophonic name of the corresponding letter in Phoenician, which was the common Semitic word Script error: No such module "Lang". ('house', compare Template:Langx Script error: No such module "Lang". and Template:Langx Script error: No such module "Lang".). In Greek, the name was Script error: No such module "Lang". Script error: No such module "Lang"., pronounced Script error: No such module "IPA". in Ancient Greek. It is spelled Script error: No such module "Lang". in modern monotonic orthography and pronounced Script error: No such module "IPA"..

History

Script error: No such module "Labelled list hatnote". The letter beta was derived from the Phoenician letter beth Beth.

The letter Β had the largest number of highly divergent local forms. Besides the standard form (either rounded or pointed, Template:Glyph), there were forms as varied as Template:Glyph (Gortyn), Template:Glyph and Template:Glyph (Thera), Template:Glyph (Argos), Template:Glyph (Melos), Template:Glyph (Corinth), Template:Glyph (Megara, Byzantium), and Template:Glyph (Cyclades).[3]

Typography

In some high-quality typesetting, especially in the French tradition, a typographic variant of the lowercase letter without a descender is used within a word for ancient Greek: Page Template:Script/styles greek.css has no content.βίβλος is printed Page Template:Script/styles greek.css has no content.βίϐλος.[4]

In typesetting technical literature, it is a commonly made mistake to use the German letter ß (a s–z or s–s ligature) as a replacement for β. The two letters resemble each other in some fonts, but they are unrelated.[5]

Uses

The Greek alphabet on an ancient black figure vessel, with the characteristically angular beta of the time

Algebraic numerals

In the system of Greek numerals, beta has a value of 2. Such use is denoted by a number mark: Β′.

Computing

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Finance

Beta is used in finance as a measure of investment portfolio risk.[6]

International Phonetic Alphabet

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, Greek minuscule beta denotes a voiced bilabial fricative Script error: No such module "IPA"..[7]

A superscript version may also indicate a compressed vowel, like Script error: No such module "IPA"..

Meteorology

Beta has twice been used to name an Atlantic Basin tropical cyclone:

Mathematics and science

  • Beta is often used to denote a variable in mathematics and physics, where it often has specific meanings for certain applications.
  • Some uses of beta in math include:
  • Some uses of beta in physics and engineering include:
    • In spaceflight, beta angle describes the angle between the orbit plane of a spacecraft or other body and the vector from the sun.[10]
    • In physics β is used for a beta particle (an unbound energetic electron or positron).[11]
  • β is also used for naming in biology. For example, e.g. β-Carotene, a primary source of provitamin A; Β Cells in pancreatic islets, which produce insulin; and beta sheet, a common motif in protein secondary structure.
  • The uppercase letter beta is not generally used as a symbol because it tends to be rendered identically to the uppercase Latin B.

Rock climbing terminology

The term "beta" refers to advice on how to successfully complete a particular climbing route, boulder problem, or crux sequence.[12]

Slang

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Beta male, or simply beta, is a slang term for men derived from the designation for beta animals in ethology, along with its counterpart, alpha male.[13][14] The term has been used as a pejorative self-identifier among members of manosphere communities, particularly incels, who do not believe they are assertive or traditionally masculine, and feel overlooked by women.[15][16] It is also used to negatively describe other men who are not assertive, particularly in heterosexual relationships.

Videotape formats

"Beta" can be used to refer to several consumer and professional videotape formats developed by Japan's Sony Corporation. Although similarly named, they are very different in function and obsolescence.

  • Betamax was the name of a domestic videotape format developed in the 1970s and 1980s. It competed with the Video Home System (VHS) format developed by the Japanese Victor Company, to which it eventually succumbed. The Betamax format was also marketed Betacord by (Sanyo); some cassettes were simply labeled "Beta", and the logo was a lower-case beta. Betamax lost in the market and is an oft-used example of a technically superior solution that failed due to market forces.[17]
  • Betacam, including Beta SP and DigiBeta, is a family of professional videotape formats launched in 1982 that was the de facto standard for professional video, advertising, and television production through the 2000s. The formats outlasted analog NTSC television, and their scarcity today is because the industry has moved to HD formats.

Unicode

These characters are used only as mathematical symbols. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using the normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate text style:

References

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Look up Β or β in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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  1. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."UN Romanization of Greek for Geographical Names (1987)". www.eki.ee. Retrieved November 13, 2022.
  2. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Pronouncing the Greek Alphabet". ThoughtCo. Retrieved November 13, 2022.
  3. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Jeffery, Lilian Hamilton (1961). The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. Oxford University Press. p. 23.
  4. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Haralambous, Yannis (1999). "From Unicode to typography, a case study: the Greek script" (PDF). p. 7. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 15, 2011.
  5. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Aguilar Ruiz, Manuel José (2013). ""Las normas ortográficas y ortotipográficas de la nueva Ortografía de la lengua española (2010) aplicadas a las publicaciones biomédicas en español: una visión de conjunto" (PDF). Panace@. 14 (37): 104.
  6. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Weisstein, Eric W. "Beta". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved January 22, 2025. A financial measure of a fund's sensitivity to market movements which measures the relationship between a fund's excess return over Treasury Bills and the excess return of a benchmark index (which, by definition, has ß=1)
  7. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."IPA symbols with Unicode decimal and hex codes". www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org. Retrieved September 24, 2025. β ...vd bilabial fricative
  8. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Bhandari, Pritha (January 18, 2021). "Type I & Type II Errors | Differences, Examples, Visualizations". Scribbr. Retrieved January 22, 2025. The probability of making a Type I error is the significance level, or alpha (α), while the probability of making a Type II error is beta (β).
  9. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Weisstein, Eric W. "Dirichlet Beta Function". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved January 31, 2025.
  10. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Thermal Operation | The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Experiment". ams02.space. Retrieved September 24, 2025. The solar beta angle, ß, is the angle between the ISS orbital plane and the solar vector (direction from the Sun to the Earth).
  11. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Rutherford, E. (January 1899). "VIII. Uranium radiation and the electrical conduction produced by it". The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. 47 (284): 109–163. doi:10.1080/14786449908621245. ISSN 1941-5982.
  12. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Rock and Ice (October 3, 2016). "Rock & Ice – Climbing Terminology".
  13. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Hawley, P. H.; Little, Todd D.; Card, Noel A. (January 2008). "The myth of the alpha male: A new look at dominance-related beliefs and behaviors among adolescent males and females". International Journal of Behavioral Development. 32 (1): 76–88. doi:10.1177/0165025407084054.
  14. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Hosie, Rachel (May 9, 2017). "The Myth of the Alpha Male". The Independent.
  15. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Jones, Callum; Trott, Verity; Wright, Scott (2020). "Sluts and soyboys: MGTOW and the production of misogynistic online harassment". New Media & Society. 22 (10): 1903–1921. doi:10.1177/1461444819887141. ISSN 1461-4448.
  16. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Nicholas, Lucy; Agius, Christine (2018). The Persistence of Global Masculinism: Discourse, Gender and Neo-Colonial Re-Articulations of Violence. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-68360-7. ISBN 978-3-319-68359-1. LCCN 2017954971. Archived from the original on August 11, 2020. Retrieved July 17, 2020.
  17. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Slaughter, Matthew; Rees, Matthew. "Slaughter & Rees Report: The Betamax Bust and the Future of Global Business". tuck.dartmouth.edu. Retrieved September 24, 2025. The market failure of Betamax is often held up as an emblem of corporate ineptitude.
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