a type of receptor for the noradrenaline neurotransmitter in neuroscience.

the ratio of the velocity of an object to the speed of light as used in the Lorentz factor.

the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic pressure in plasma physics.

the beta brain wave in brain or cognitive sciences.the beta coefficient, the non-diversifiable risk, of an asset in mathematical finance.the false negative rate in statistics ('Type II' error).the ratio of collector current to base current in a bipolar junction transistor (BJT) in electronics (current gain).the standardized regression coefficient for predictor or independent variables in linear regression (unstandardized regression coefficients are represented with the lower-case Latin b, but are often called 'betas' as well).the second angle in a triangle, opposite the side b.the thermodynamic beta, equal to ( k B T) −1, where k B is Boltzmann's constant and T is the absolute temperature.As Greek letters are more often than not used as variables in mathematical formulas, a Greek letter appearing similar to the TeX rendering is more likely to be encountered in works involving mathematics.Ī α represents the beta function This is in line with the convention that variables should be italicized. The font used in the TeX rendering is an italic style. The table below shows a comparison of Greek letters rendered in TeX and HTML. The OpenType font format has the feature tag 'mgrk' ('Mathematical Greek') to identify a glyph as representing a Greek letter to be used in mathematical (as opposed to Greek language) contexts. The Greek letter forms used in mathematics are often different from those used in Greek-language text: they are designed to be used in isolation, not connected to other letters, and some use variant forms which are not normally used in current Greek typography. In mathematical finance, the Greeks are the variables denoted by Greek letters used to describe the risk of certain investments. The Bayer designation naming scheme for stars typically uses the first Greek letter, α, for the brightest star in each constellation, and runs through the alphabet before switching to Latin letters. The archaic letter digamma (Ϝ/ϝ/ϛ) is sometimes used. Sometimes, font variants of Greek letters are used as distinct symbols in mathematics, in particular for ε/ϵ and π/ϖ. Small ι, ο and υ are also rarely used, since they closely resemble the Latin letters i, o and u. Those Greek letters which have the same form as Latin letters are rarely used: capital A, B, E, Z, H, I, K, M, N, O, P, T, Y, X.

In these contexts, the capital letters and the small letters represent distinct and unrelated entities. Greek letters are used in mathematics, science, engineering, and other areas where mathematical notation is used as symbols for constants, special functions, and also conventionally for variables representing certain quantities.

Math calculus symbols