Alpha

Alpha may refer to:

The Greek letter alpha

Alpha (letter), a letter in the Greek alphabet. α may be used as the symbol for:
*Alpha channel, describing transparency and opacity in computer graphics
*Angle of attack in aerodynamics
*Common-base current gain of a transistor in electronics
*In physics:
**Alpha particle, form of particle radiation
**Angular acceleration
**Fine-structure constant, a fundamental physical constant
**H-alpha, or H-α, an emission line created by hydrogen atoms
*The alpha carbon in organic chemistry
*The significance level in statistical hypothesis testing
*Thermal diffusivity
*Coefficient of thermal expansion in thermodynamics
*A symbol to denote Direct proportion, in mathematics
*In Astronomy (Bayer designation):
**The brightest star in a constellation.
*The first unit in a sequence.

Place names

;Australia
*Alpha, Queensland;United States
*Alpha, Illinois
*Alpha, Michigan
*Alpha, Minnesota
*Alpha, New Jersey
*Alpha, Ohio
*Alpha Ridge, Alaska;Arctic Ocean
*Alpha Ridge, an undersea ridge

Media, literature and fiction

*Alpha 5/Alpha 6/Alpha 7, nicknames of the characters in the "Power Rangers" television programs
*Alpha (album), an album by the band Asia
*Alpha (Alice Nine album), an album by J-rock/Visual Kei band Alice Nine
*Alpha (band), a British electronic music group
*Alpha Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA)
*Alpha (computer), a fictional computer in Mike Walker's radio play "Alpha"
*Alpha (DC Comics), a character from DC Comics
*Alpha Legion, a Chaos Space Marines company from Warhammer 40,000
*Alpha Magazine, Australian men's sport magazine
*, the first Magic: The Gathering cards set
*Alpha (planet) in Isaac Asimov's novel "Foundation and Earth"
*Alpha Range, the leader of 'The C Pack'
*Alpha (Sevendust album), an album by the band Sevendust
*Alpha the Ultimate Mutant, a character featured in Marvel Comics
*Alpha TV, a Greek terrestrial channel
*Alpha (video game), a 1986 interactive fiction game by Square
*Moonbase Alpha, the primary setting for the television series "Space: 1999"

Science and mathematics

* ALPHA, the Antihydrogen Laser PHysics Apparatus, an experiment at CERN.
*Alpha (biology), "alpha male" and "alpha female", the highest ranking individuals in a community of social animals
*Alpha (investment), a measurement of risk-adjusted performance
*Alpha waves, recorded by electroencephalography
* Another term for the angle of attack on an aircraft's wing.
*Cronbach's alpha, a statistical measure of reliability

Computing

*Alpha, a development stage of software
*Alpha (machine learning), the degree to which a learning agent takes into account new information
*ALPHA refers to the set of ASCII characters A-Z and a-z, as defined in RFC 4234
*The ALPHA programming language
*AlphaServer - DEC now HP machine successor to the VAX
*AlphaStation - DEC now HP workstation successor to the VAX
*DEC Alpha, a microprocessor/central processing unit (CPU)

Other

*Alpha 2000, a light aircraft built in New Zealand
*The first letter in the NATO phonetic alphabet
*Service "A", one of the uniforms of the United States Marine Corps
*Alpha chapter, the first chapter of any collegiate Greek letter society
*Alpha class submarine, a Russian fast attack nuclear submarine
*Alpha coefficient in finance, the risk-adjusted return of an investment
*Alpha course, an introductory course in Christianity
*Alpha Group, a dedicated counter-terrorism unit that belonged to OSNAZ
*Alpha Industries, clothing company
*Alpha (radio navigation), a Russian radio navigation system similar to the former Omega Navigation System
*GM Alpha platform
*Latin alpha, an open front unrounded vowel
*Sony α or Sony Alpha, a digital SLR series by Sony
**Minolta α or Minolta Alpha, the Japanese name for a series of SLR cameras known as Maxxum or Dynax elsewhere, and predecessor to Sony's brand of the same name
*Space Station Alpha, the original name and unofficial call sign for the International Space Station
*Tropical Storm Alpha (2005)

ee also

*Alfa
*Beta