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Beta (UK: /ˈbiːtə/, US: /ˈbeɪtə/ ⓘ; uppercase Β, lowercase β, or cursive ϐ; Ancient Greek: βῆτα, romanized: bē̂ta or Greek: βήτα, romanized: víta) 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 IPA: [b]. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced bilabial fricative IPA: [β] while IPA: [b] 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 *bayt ('house', compare Arabic: بيت bayt and Hebrew: בית báyit). In Greek, the name was βῆτα bêta, pronounced [bɛ̂ːta] in Ancient Greek. It is spelled βήτα in modern monotonic orthography and pronounced [ˈvita].
History
The letter beta was derived from the Phoenician letter beth 
.
The letter Β had the largest number of highly divergent local forms. Besides the standard form (either rounded or pointed, 
), there were forms as varied as 
(Gortyn), 
and 
(Thera), 
(Argos), 
(Melos), 
(Corinth), 
(Megara, Byzantium), and 
(Cyclades).[3]
Uses
Algebraic numerals
In the system of Greek numerals, beta has a value of 2. Such use is denoted by a number mark: Β′.
Computing
Finance
Beta is used in finance as a measure of investment portfolio risk.[4]
International Phonetic Alphabet
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, Greek minuscule beta denotes a voiced bilabial fricative [β].[5]
A superscript version may also indicate a compressed vowel, like [ɯᵝ].
Meteorology
Beta has twice been used to name an Atlantic Basin tropical cyclone:
- Hurricane Beta, in 2005
- Tropical Storm Beta, in 2020
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:
- β is sometimes used as a placeholder for an ordinal number if α is already used. For example, the two roots of a quadratic equation are typically labelled α and β.
- In regression analysis, ⟨B⟩ symbolizes nonstandardized partial slope coefficients, whereas ⟨β⟩ represents standardized (standard deviation-score form) coefficients; in both cases, the coefficients reflect the change in the criterion Y per one-unit change in the value of the associated predictor X.
- In statistics, beta may represent type II error,[6] or regression slope.
- Dirichlet beta function[7]
- 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.[8]
- In physics β is used for a beta particle (an unbound energetic electron or positron).[9]
- 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.[10]
Slang
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.[11][12] 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.[13][14] It is also used to negatively describe other men who are not assertive, particularly in heterosexual relationships.
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: βίβλος is printed βίϐλος.[15]
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.[16]
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
- U+0392 Β GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA (Β)
- U+03B2 β GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA (β) (\beta in TeX)
- U+03D0 ϐ GREEK BETA SYMBOL
- U+1D5D ᵝ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL BETA
- U+1D66 ᵦ GREEK SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER BETA
- U+1DE9 ◌ᷩ COMBINING LATIN SMALL LETTER BETA
- U+2C82 Ⲃ COPTIC CAPITAL LETTER VIDA
- U+2C83 ⲃ COPTIC SMALL LETTER VIDA
- U+333C ㌼ SQUARE BEETA (Japanese square katakana of ベータ bēta)
- U+A7B4 Ꞵ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER BETA
- U+A7B5 ꞵ LATIN SMALL LETTER BETA
- U+10381 𐎁 UGARITIC LETTER BETA
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:
- U+1D6A9 𝚩 MATHEMATICAL BOLD CAPITAL BETA
- U+1D6C3 𝛃 MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL BETA
- U+1D6E3 𝛣 MATHEMATICAL ITALIC CAPITAL BETA
- U+1D6FD 𝛽 MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL BETA
- U+1D71D 𝜝 MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC CAPITAL BETA
- U+1D737 𝜷 MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC SMALL BETA
- U+1D757 𝝗 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD CAPITAL BETA
- U+1D771 𝝱 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD SMALL BETA
- U+1D791 𝞑 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD ITALIC CAPITAL BETA
- U+1D7AB 𝞫 MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD ITALIC SMALL BETA
References
- ^ "UN Romanization of Greek for Geographical Names (1987)". www.eki.ee. Retrieved 2022-11-13.
- ^ "Pronouncing the Greek Alphabet". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 2022-11-13.
- ^ Jeffery, Lilian Hamilton (1961). The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. Oxford University Press. p. 23.
- ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Beta". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2025-01-22.
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)
- ^ "IPA symbols with Unicode decimal and hex codes". www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
β ...vd bilabial fricative
- ^ Bhandari, Pritha (2021-01-18). "Type I & Type II Errors | Differences, Examples, Visualizations". Scribbr. Retrieved 2025-01-22.
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).
- ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Dirichlet Beta Function". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2025-01-31.
- ^ "Thermal Operation | The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Experiment". ams02.space. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
The solar beta angle, ß, is the angle between the ISS orbital plane and the solar vector (direction from the Sun to the Earth).
- ^ 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.
- ^ Rock and Ice (3 October 2016). "Rock & Ice – Climbing Terminology".
- ^ 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. S2CID 145156929.
- ^ Hosie, Rachel (9 May 2017). "The Myth of the Alpha Male". The Independent.
- ^ 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. S2CID 210530415.
- ^ 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 2020-08-11. Retrieved 2020-07-17.
- ^ Haralambous, Yannis (1999). "From Unicode to typography, a case study: the Greek script" (PDF). p. 7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-15.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Slaughter, Matthew; Rees, Matthew. "Slaughter & Rees Report: The Betamax Bust and the Future of Global Business". tuck.dartmouth.edu. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
The market failure of Betamax is often held up as an emblem of corporate ineptitude.
