Beta (B, β) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet.
Beta or BETA may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
[edit]Films
[edit]- Beta (film), a 1992 Bollywood film directed by Indra Kumar
- Beta Test (film), a 2016 American science fiction film directed by Nicholas Gyeney
- The Beta Test, a 2021 American dark comedy film directed by Jim Cummings
Fictional entities
[edit]- BETA (Muv-Luv) (Beings of the Extra Terrestrial origin which is Adversary of human race), an alien race from the video game series Muv-Luv
- β, a classification of strength in the Earthbound, or Mother, series of Nintendo role-playing games
- Beta, a wolf character in the animated film Storks
- BETA, an organization in the 1986 TV series The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers
- Beta (The Walking Dead), an antagonist in the Walking Dead comic series
- Beta Hirogen, the second in command of a Hirogen hunting party, as seen in Star Trek: Voyager
- Beta Quadrant, one of four quadrants in the galaxy in Star Trek
Other uses in arts, entertainment, and media
[edit]- Beta (Magic: The Gathering), the second (revised) part of the first set of the card game Magic: The Gathering
- Beta chord
- Beta News Agency, Serbian independent news agency
- Beta Recordings, a record label headed by John B
- Lifetime (TV network), pre-launch branded as BETA
- beta, a combat robot competing in BattleBots
- Beta, a mountain biking magazine and website launched by Outside (company) in 2021
Mathematics, finance, and statistics
[edit]- Beta (finance), the β coefficient in the capital asset pricing model
- β, the probability of a Type II error in statistics; See Type I and type II errors
- β-reduction, a reduction rule for lambda calculus
- Beta distribution, in statistics, a family of continuous probability distributions
- Beta function, a special function also known as the Euler integral of the first kind
- Beta invariant, of a matroid
- Dirichlet beta function
- Eratosthenes, Greek mathematician nicknamed Beta (Βῆτα)
- Standardized coefficient or beta coefficient, in statistics, the estimate of an analysis performed on variables that have been standardized so that they have variances of 1
Organisations
[edit]- Beta (motorcycle manufacturer), an Italian off-road motorcycles manufacturer
- BETA Cargo, a defunct Brazilian airline
- Beta Technologies, a US electric aircraft manufacturer
- British Equestrian Trade Association, a membership organisation in the United Kingdom
- Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance, sometimes known by the acronym "BETA"
- National Beta Club, a high school honor society
- South Texas Business Education & Technology Academy (BETA)
Places
[edit]- Beta, Ohio, a ghost town in the United States
- Beța, a village in Lopadea Nouă Commune, Alba County, Romania
- Beta, a village in Mugeni Commune, Harghita County, Romania
- Beta Israel, a name given to Jewish communities that occupied territories of the Aksumite and Ethiopian (Habesh or Abyssinia) empires
- Beta (Olt), a tributary of the Olt in Harghita County, Romania
- Beta, a tributary of the Târnava Mare in Harghita County, Romania
Psychology
[edit]- Beta movement, a perceptual illusion whereby two or more still images are combined by the brain into surmised motion
- Beta quadra, one of the four quadras in socionics
- Type-beta, a personality type now commonly referred to as type-B; See Type A and Type B personality theory
Science
[edit]Biology and medicine
[edit]- Beta (plant), a genus of flowering plants, mostly referred to as beets
- Beta (grape), a variety of North American grape
- β1 and β2, or beta-1 and beta-2, adrenergic receptors
- Beta, a rank in a community of social animals; See Alpha
- Beta carbon, in organic chemistry—the second carbon atom in a chain when counting from a functional group; See Alpha and beta carbon
- Beta cell, a type of cell in the pancreas, which produces insulin
- Beta sheet, a secondary protein structure
- Beta-endorphin, a kind of neurotransmitter
- SARS-CoV-2 Beta variant, one of the variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19
Physics
[edit]- Beta (plasma physics), the ratio of thermal to magnetic pressure in plasma
- Beta (velocity), the speed of an object relative to the speed of light in special relativity.
- β, a symbol for compressibility, a measure of the relative volume change of a fluid or solid as a response to a pressure change
- Beta function (physics), also β(g)—a function in quantum field theory
- Beta particle, a name used to refer to high-energy electrons (β−) or positrons (β+) emitted by certain types of radioactive nuclei
- Phase Constant (β), in electromagnetics and electrical engineering, used in the theory of plane waves; See Propagation constant
- Precursor yield fraction, leading to delayed neutrons in nuclear reactors
- Thermodynamic beta, in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics—a numerical quantity related to the thermodynamic temperature of a system
Other uses in science
[edit]- Hurricane Beta, a 2005 hurricane
- Tropical Storm Beta (2020), a 2020 tropical storm
Sports
[edit]- Beta (climbing), climbing jargon that designates information about a climb
- Beta Ethniki, the second tier division of the Greek football (soccer) league
Technology
[edit]- Beta (time signal), a time signal service broadcast in the very low frequency range in Russia
- Beta, the common-emitter current gain of a bipolar junction transistor
- Betacam, a family of half-inch professional videotape products developed by Sony
- Betamax, home videocassette tape recording format developed by Sony
- BETA (programming language), a programming language
- Beta release, or betaware, a phase in software development before an official release
- Perpetual beta, software or a system that never leaves the beta development stage
Other uses
[edit]- Advance Bi Beta, a Swiss paraglider design
- Beta male (slang), a pejorative term for a man considered as weak and emasculated
- Lancia Beta, a car produced by Lancia
- Beta reader, a person who critiques a written work prior to public release
- Voiced bilabial fricative (β), the voiced bilabial fricative symbol of the International Phonetic Alphabet
See also
[edit]- ß, a German letter that resembles β
- B3ta, a British humour webcommunity
- Betta, a genus of fish, often misspelled “beta”
- Coral the Betta, a character in the Sonic the Hedgehog comics by Archie
- Beti (disambiguation)