Alpha

Alpha is:

• The first letter of the Greek alphabet, Α α, see alpha (letter)
• An adjective to indicate the first or most significant occurrence of something., as in these examples:
  • alpha male - the head of a group of animals, such as gorillas.
  • alpha geek - a slang term based on the above, referring to any person considered pre-eminent amongst geeks, such as Linus Torvalds.
  • alpha version or alpha release - the first release of a computer program or other product, likely to be very unstable but useful for demonstrating internally and to select customers.
  • alpha channel - a transparency information layer to supplement the three RGB color layers to make the RGBA color space.
• Alpha particles
• DEC Alpha, a microprocessor from DEC.
• The letter A in the NATO phonetic alphabet.