Beta (disambiguation)

Look up Beta, beta, béta, or bêta in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Beta (B, β) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet.

Beta or BETA

may also refer to:

Automotive

• Beta (motorcycle manufacturer), an Italian off-road motorcycles manufacturer
• Lancia Beta, a car produced by Lancia

Computing and technology

• BETA (programming language), a programming language
• Beta release, Betaware, a phase in software development before an official release
  • Perpetual beta, software or a system that never leaves the beta development stage
• Betacam, a family of half-inch professional videotape products developed by Sony
• Betamax, home videocassette tape recording format developed by Sony
• South Texas Business Education & Technology Academy, sometimes known by the acronym "BETA"
• Beta, a term used for editor in the Fan fiction community

Geography

• Beta, Ohio, a ghost town in the United States
• Beţa, a village in Lopadea Nouă Commune, Alba County, Romania
• Béta, a village in Mugeni Commune, Harghita County, Romania
• Beta River (disambiguation)

Mathematics, finance, and statistics

• Beta (finance), the β coefficient in the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) that measures the sensitivity of the expected return of a stock (or portfolio) to the market
• β, a symbol representing the probability of a type II error in statistics
• β-reduction, a reduction rule for lambda calculus
• Beta distribution, in statistics—a family of continuous probability distributions
• Euler's Beta function, a special function also known as the Euler integral of the first kind
• Dirichlet beta function
• Beta (Βῆτα), a nickname given to Greek mathematician Eratosthenes by his contemporaries
• Beta coefficient (also known as standardized coefficient), in statistics—the estimate of an analysis performed on variables that have been standardized so that they have variances of 1
• Beta invariant of a matroid

Media and entertainment

Fictional characters and communities

• BETA (Muv-Luv), an acronym for "Beings of the Extra Terrestrial origin which is Adversary of human race", an alien race from the video game series Muv-Luv
• Beta (Transformers), a female Transformer from Transformers: Generation 1
• BETA, an organization in the 1986 TV series The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers
• Beta Quadrant, one of four quadrants in the galaxy in Star Trek
• Beta Hirogen, the second in command of a Hirogen hunting party, as seen in Star Trek: Voyager
• Coral the Betta, a character in the Sonic the Hedgehog Archie Comics

Film

• Beta (film), a 1992 Bollywood film directed by Indra Kumar

Games

• Beta (Magic: The Gathering), the second (revised) part of the first set of the card game Magic: The Gathering
• β, a classification of strength in the Earthbound, or Mother, series of Nintendo role-playing games

Music and broadcasting

• Beta Recordings, a record label headed by John B
• Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance, sometimes known by the acronym "BETA"
• BETA, the pre-launch branding of Lifetime

News media

• Beta News Agency, Serbian independent news agency

Social networking

• B3ta, a British humour webcommunity

Science

Biology

• Beta, a rank in a community of social animals
• Beta-endorphin, a kind of neurotransmitter
• Beta carbon, in organic chemistry—the second carbon atom in a chain when counting from a functional group
• Beta cell, a type of cell in the pancreas, which produces insulin
• Beta sheet, a secondary protein structure

Botany

• Beta (plant), a genus of flowering plants, mostly referred to as beets
• Beta (grape), a variety of North American grape

Electronics

• Beta, the common-emitter current gain of a bipolar junction transistor

Linguistics

• β, the voiced bilabial fricative symbol of the international phonetic alphabet

Meteorology

• Hurricane Beta, a 2005 hurricane

Physics

• 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
• 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
• β, a symbol for compressibility, a measure of the relative volume change of a fluid or solid as a response to a pressure change
• Thermodynamic beta, in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics—a numerical quantity related to the thermodynamic temperature of a system
• β, a symbol for Phase Constant, in electromagnetics and electrical engineering, used in the theory of plane waves

Psychology

• 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)

Sports

• Beta (climbing), climbing jargon that designates information about a climb
• Beta Ethniki, the second tier division of the Greek football (soccer) league

Other uses

• Beta (time signal), a time signal service broadcast in the very low frequency range in Russia
• Beta Israel, a name given to Jewish communities that occupied territories of the Aksumite and Ethiopian (Habesh or Abyssinia) empires
• Beta reader, a person who critiques a written work prior to public release
• National Beta Club, a high school honor society
• British Equestrian Trade Association, a membership organisation in the United Kingdom
• BETA Cargo, defunct Brazilian airline
• Guardian critic Dan Martin

See also

• Betta, a genus of fish, often misspelled “beta”
• ß, a German letter that resembles β
• Alpha