Beta#Name

Like the names of most other Greek letters, the name of beta was adopted from the acrophonic name of the corresponding letter in Phoenician, which was the common Semitic word {{lang|sem-x-proto|*bayt}} ('house', compare {{langx|ar|بيت}} {{lang|ar-Latn|bayt}} and {{langx|he|בית}} {{lang|he-Latn|báyit}}). In Greek, the name was {{lang|grc|βῆτα}} {{lang|grc-Latn|bêta}}, pronounced {{IPA|el|bɛ̂ːta|}} in Ancient Greek. It is spelled {{lang|el|βήτα}} in modern monotonic orthography and pronounced {{IPA|el|ˈvita|}}.

{{see also|Archaic Greek alphabets}}

The letter beta was derived from the Phoenician letter beth Image:Phoenician beth.svg.

The letter Β had the largest number of highly divergent local forms. Besides the standard form (either rounded or pointed, {{GrGl|Beta 16}}), there were forms as varied as {{GrGl|Beta 12}} (Gortyn), {{GrGl|Beta 01}} and {{GrGl|Beta 10}} (Thera), {{GrGl|Beta 03}} (Argos), {{GrGl|Beta 05}} (Melos), {{GrGl|Beta Corinth 1}} (Corinth), {{GrGl|Beta Byzantium 1}} (Megara, Byzantium), and {{GrGl|Gamma C-shaped}} (Cyclades).{{cite book |last1=Jeffery |first1=Lilian Hamilton |title=The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece |date=1961 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=23}}

File:NAMA Alphabet grec.jpg vessel, with the characteristically angular beta of the time]]

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

{{see also|Software release life cycle#Beta|Alpha–beta pruning}}

Beta is used in finance as a measure of investment portfolio risk.{{Cite web |last=Weisstein |first=Eric W. |title=Beta |url=https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Beta.html |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=mathworld.wolfram.com |language=en |quote=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)}} Beta in this context is calculated as the covariance of the portfolio's returns with its benchmark's returns, divided by the variance of the benchmark's returns. A beta of 1.5 means that for every 1% change in the value of the benchmark, the portfolio's value tends to change by 1.5%.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, Greek minuscule beta denotes a voiced bilabial fricative {{ipa|[β]}}.

A superscript version may also indicate a compressed vowel, like {{IPA|[ɯᵝ]}}.

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

• Hurricane Beta, in 2005
• Tropical Storm Beta, in 2020

• Beta is often used to denote a variable in mathematics and physics, where it often has specific meanings for certain applications.
• 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 {{math|α}} and {{math|β}}.
• In regression analysis, {{angle bracket|B}} symbolizes nonstandardized partial slope coefficients, whereas {{angle bracket|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 spaceflight, beta angle describes the angle between the orbit plane of a spacecraft or other body and the vector from the sun.
• In physics β is used for a beta particle (an unbound energetic electron or positron).{{Cite journal |last=Rutherford |first=E. |date=January 1899 |title=VIII. Uranium radiation and the electrical conduction produced by it |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786449908621245 |journal=The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science |language=en |volume=47 |issue=284 |pages=109–163 |doi=10.1080/14786449908621245 |issn=1941-5982|url-access=subscription }}
• β is also used in biology, for instance in β-Carotene, a primary source of provitamin A, or the β cells in pancreatic islets, which produce insulin.
• The uppercase letter beta is not generally used as a symbol because it tends to be rendered identically to the uppercase Latin B.
• Dirichlet beta function{{Cite web |last=Weisstein |first=Eric W. |title=Dirichlet Beta Function |url=https://mathworld.wolfram.com/DirichletBetaFunction.html |access-date=2025-01-31 |website=mathworld.wolfram.com |language=en}}

The term "beta" refers to advice on how to successfully complete a particular climbing route, boulder problem, or crux sequence.{{Cite web|url=https://rockandice.com/how-to-climb/climbing-terminology/|title=Rock & Ice – Climbing Terminology|last=Rock and Ice|date=3 October 2016}}

{{main|Alpha and beta male}}

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.{{Cite journal |last1=Hawley |first1=P. H. |last2=Little |first2=Todd D. |last3=Card |first3=Noel A. |date=January 2008 |title=The myth of the alpha male: A new look at dominance-related beliefs and behaviors among adolescent males and females |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247779752 |journal=International Journal of Behavioral Development |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=76–88|doi=10.1177/0165025407084054 |s2cid=145156929 }}{{Cite news |last=Hosie |first=Rachel |date=9 May 2017 |title=The Myth of the Alpha Male |work=The Independent |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-myth-of-the-alpha-male-a7724971.html}} 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.{{Cite journal |last1=Jones |first1=Callum |last2=Trott |first2=Verity |last3=Wright |first3=Scott |date=2020 |title=Sluts and soyboys: MGTOW and the production of misogynistic online harassment |journal=New Media & Society |volume=22 |issue=10 |pages=1903–1921 |doi=10.1177/1461444819887141 |s2cid=210530415 |issn=1461-4448 |doi-access=}}{{Cite book |last1=Nicholas |first1=Lucy |last2=Agius |first2=Christine |year=2018 |title=The Persistence of Global Masculinism: Discourse, Gender and Neo-Colonial Re-Articulations of Violence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e8I9DwAAQBAJ |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=Cham, Switzerland |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-68360-7 |isbn=978-3-319-68359-1 |lccn=2017954971 |access-date=2020-07-17 |archive-date=2020-08-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200811114131/https://books.google.com/books?id=e8I9DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live}} It is also used to negatively describe other men who are not assertive, particularly in heterosexual relationships.

In statistics, beta may represent type II error,{{Cite web |last=Bhandari |first=Pritha |date=2021-01-18 |title=Type I & Type II Errors {{!}} Differences, Examples, Visualizations |url=https://www.scribbr.com/statistics/type-i-and-type-ii-errors/ |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=Scribbr |language=en-US |quote=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).}} or regression slope.

{{anchor|curled beta|Curled beta}}

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: {{lang|el|βίβλος}} is printed {{lang|el|βί{{not a typo|ϐ}}λος}}.{{cite web|last=Haralambous|first=Yannis|title=From Unicode to typography, a case study: the Greek script|url=http://omega.enstb.org/yannis/pdf/boston99.pdf|year=1999|page=7|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110615031345/http://omega.enstb.org/yannis/pdf/boston99.pdf|archive-date=2011-06-15}}

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.{{cite journal|last1=Aguilar Ruiz|first1=Manuel José|title="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|journal=Panace@|date=2013|volume=14|issue=37|page=104|url=http://www.medtrad.org/panacea/IndiceGeneral/n37-tribuna-MJAguilarRuiz.pdf}}

"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.
• 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.

• {{unichar|0392|html=}}
• {{unichar|03B2|html=}} ({{tt|\beta}} in TeX)
• {{unichar|03D0|html=}}
• {{unichar|1D5D|html=}}
• {{unichar|1D66|html=}}
• {{unichar|1DE9|cwith=◌}}
• {{unichar|2C82|html=}}
• {{unichar|2C83|html=}}
• {{unichar|333C|html=}} (Japanese square katakana of {{lang|ja|ベータ}} {{Transliteration|ja|bēta}})
• {{unichar|A7B4|html=}}
• {{unichar|A7B5|html=}}
• {{unichar|10381|html=}}

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:

• {{unichar|1D6A9|html=}}
• {{unichar|1D6C3|html=}}
• {{unichar|1D6E3|html=}}
• {{unichar|1D6FD|html=}}
• {{unichar|1D71D|html=}}
• {{unichar|1D737|html=}}
• {{unichar|1D757|html=}}
• {{unichar|1D771|html=}}
• {{unichar|1D791|html=}}
• {{unichar|1D7AB|html=}}

{{Wiktionary|Β|β}}

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Category:Greek letters

Category:Phonetic transcription symbols