Beta

"β" redirects here. For the German eszett, see ß. For other uses, see Beta (disambiguation).
Look up Β or β in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Beta (UK /ˈbiːtə/ or US /ˈbeɪtə/; uppercase Β, lowercase β, or cursive ϐ; Ancient Greek: βῆτα bḗta or Modern Greek: βήτα víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive /b/. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative /v/. 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 was adopted from the acrophonic name of the corresponding letter in Phoenician, which was the common Semitic word *bayt ('house'). In Greek, the name was βῆτα bêta, pronounced [bɛ̂ːta] in Ancient Greek. It is spelled βήτα in modern monotonic orthography, and pronounced [ˈvita]. In US English, the name is pronounced /ˈbeɪtə/, while in British English it is pronounced /ˈbiːtə/.

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), (Cyclades).[1]

Uses

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

Numeral

In the system of Greek numerals, beta has a value of 2. Such use is denoted by a number mark: Β′. In Scientific unit notation it is used as a particle and pronounced as a /bIta/

Computing

In computing, the term "beta" is used as (usually) the last testing release (or the preview release) in the software release life cycle before the "release" version. Beta versions often have a version number of the form "0.n", (or "build number"). Typically it is the last version before a version of a software is fully released to all its actual customers.

Finance

Beta is used in finance as a measure of investment portfolio risk. 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 changes by 1.5%.

International Phonetic Alphabet

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

Meteorology

The name Beta was used as a name during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season as Hurricane Beta.

Mathematics and science

Beta is often used to denote a variable in mathematics and physics, where it often has specific meanings for certain applications, such as representing beta radiation. 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.

β is sometimes used as a placeholder for an ordinal number if α is already used.

In spaceflight, Beta angle describes the angle between the orbit plane of a spacecraft or other body and the vector from the sun.

Rock climbing terminology

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

Statistics

In statistics, beta may represent type II error, or regression slope.

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.[2]

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.

Videotape format

Beta was the name of a domestic videotape format developed by Japan's Sony Corporation 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 Beta format was also marketed as Betamax (Sony) and Betacord (Sanyo).

Character encodings

Character Β β ϐ ᵝ ᵦ
Unicode name GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA GREEK BETA SYMBOL MODIFIER LETTER SMALL BETA GREEK SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER BETA
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 914 U+0392 946 U+03B2 976 U+03D0 7517 U+1D5D 7526 U+1D66
UTF-8 206 146 CE 92 206 178 CE B2 207 144 CF 90 225 181 157 E1 B5 9D 225 181 166 E1 B5 A6
Numeric character reference Β Β β β ϐ ϐ ᵝ ᵝ ᵦ ᵦ
Named character reference Β β
DOS Greek 129 81 153 99
DOS Greek-2 165 A5 215 D7
Windows 1253 194 C2 226 E2
TeX \beta
Character Ꞵ ꞵ
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER BETA LATIN SMALL LETTER BETA
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 42932 U+A7B4 42933 U+A7B5
UTF-8 234 158 180 EA 9E B4 234 158 181 EA 9E B5
Numeric character reference Ꞵ Ꞵ ꞵ ꞵ
Character ㌼
Unicode name SQUARE BEETA
Encodings decimal hex
Unicode 13116 U+333C
UTF-8 227 140 188 E3 8C BC
Numeric character reference ㌼ ㌼
Character 𝚩 𝛃 𝛣 𝛽 𝜝 𝜷
Unicode name MATHEMATICAL BOLD
CAPITAL BETA 		MATHEMATICAL BOLD
SMALL BETA 		MATHEMATICAL ITALIC
CAPITAL BETA 		MATHEMATICAL ITALIC
SMALL BETA 		MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC
CAPITAL BETA 		MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC
SMALL BETA
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 120489 U+1D6A9 120515 U+1D6C3 120547 U+1D6E3 120573 U+1D6FD 120605 U+1D71D 120631 U+1D737
UTF-8 240 157 154 169 F0 9D 9A A9 240 157 155 131 F0 9D 9B 83 240 157 155 163 F0 9D 9B A3 240 157 155 189 F0 9D 9B BD 240 157 156 157 F0 9D 9C 9D 240 157 156 183 F0 9D 9C B7
UTF-16 55349 57001 D835 DEA9 55349 57027 D835 DEC3 55349 57059 D835 DEE3 55349 57085 D835 DEFD 55349 57117 D835 DF1D 55349 57143 D835 DF37
Numeric character reference 𝚩 𝚩 𝛃 𝛃 𝛣 𝛣 𝛽 𝛽 𝜝 𝜝 𝜷 𝜷
Character 𝝗 𝝱 𝞑 𝞫
Unicode name MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF
BOLD CAPITAL BETA 		MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF
BOLD SMALL BETA 		MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF
BOLD ITALIC CAPITAL BETA 		MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF
BOLD ITALIC SMALL BETA
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 120663 U+1D757 120689 U+1D771 120721 U+1D791 120747 U+1D7AB
UTF-8 240 157 157 151 F0 9D 9D 97 240 157 157 177 F0 9D 9D B1 240 157 158 145 F0 9D 9E 91 240 157 158 171 F0 9D 9E AB
UTF-16 55349 57175 D835 DF57 55349 57201 D835 DF71 55349 57233 D835 DF91 55349 57259 D835 DFAB
Numeric character reference 𝝗 𝝗 𝝱 𝝱 𝞑 𝞑 𝞫 𝞫

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

  1. ↑ Jeffery 1961, p. 23.
  2. ↑ Haralambous, Yannis (1999). "From Unicode to typography, a case study: the Greek script" (PDF). p. 7.
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