Beta (letter)

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"β" redirects here. For the German eszett, see ß. For other uses, see β (disambiguation).

Look up Β or β in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Greek alphabet

Αα	Alpha	Νν	Nu
Ββ	Beta	Ξξ	Xi
Γγ	Gamma	Οο	Omicron
Δδ	Delta	Ππ	Pi
Εε	Epsilon	Ρρ	Rho
Ζζ	Zeta	Σσς	Sigma
Ηη	Eta	Ττ	Tau
Θθ	Theta	Υυ	Upsilon
Ιι	Iota	Φφ	Phi
Κκ	Kappa	Χχ	Chi
Λλ	Lambda	Ψψ	Psi
Μμ	Mu	Ωω	Omega
Obsolete letters
	Digamma		Qoppa
	San		Sampi
Other characters
	Stigma		Sho
	Heta

Greek diacritics

Beta (uppercase Β, lowercase β, internal ϐ; Greek: Βήτα [ˈvita]) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 2. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Beth . Letters that arose from Beta include the Roman B and the Cyrillic letters Б and В.

In high-quality print, a variant of the letter is sometimes used that does not have a descender except at the beginning of a word: βίβλος is written βίϐλος. Lowercase ϐ is very common in handwriting.

1 Greek
- 1.1 Ancient Greek
- 1.2 Modern Greek
2 Use as a symbol or name
3 Common difficulties

Greek

Ancient Greek

In Ancient Greek, Beta represented a b and the name of the letter, βῆτα, was pronounced something like [ˈbɛːta]. The name of the letter in English derives from this; the American pronunciation is /ˈbeɪtə/, whereas the British pronunciation is /ˈbiːtə/. See: American and British English pronunciation differences.

Modern Greek

In Modern Greek, it represents a voiced labiodental fricative /v/ and the Modern Greek name of the letter, Βήτα, is /ˈvita/.

Use as a symbol or name

Main article: Beta

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 particles, and beta radiation. In regression analysis, "B" symbolizes non-standardized 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 the International Phonetic Alphabet, Greek minuscule beta denotes a voiced bilabial fricative.

Common difficulties

In typesetting technical literature, it is a commonly made mistake to use the German letter ß as a replacement for the β. The two letters resemble each other superficially, but they are unrelated. This substitution looks extremely unprofessional to the eyes of German or Greek readers.

The Unicode number for β is U+03B2, and with β or β the β is coded in HTML.