Beta

Beta (Β β) is the 2nd letter of the Greek alphabet and has a numeric value of 2. Beta should not be confused with a similar-looking but unrelated letter in German language orthography, �.

Beta can have any of the following meanings:

In software development, a "beta version" of a product is one that is still in development but is published for testing purpose. See development stage.
BETA is an object-oriented programming language.
Beta is an abbreviation for Betamax.
In Rock climbing, a slang term for information about the movements needed to do a specific climb. As in "I'm having trouble getting up this route - could you give me some beta?"
Beta is a plant genus (family Chenopodiaceae).

The lower-case letter β is used as the symbol for:

The beta particle and beta decay in physics.
The speed of an object relative to the speed of light (β = v/c) in special relativity theory.

The American pronunciation is "bA-ta" with a long "A" whereas the British pronunciation is "bE-ta" with a long "E" [1]. See: American and British English differences