B

b

(agriculture)

barn

(physics)

bel

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B

(physics)

bel

(optics)

brewster

(chemistry)

boron

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

beam

1. A structural member whose prime function is to carry transverse loads, as a joist, girder, rafter, or purlin. The term beam may be modified by an adjective indicating its location; as, for example, an end beam or side beam. See anchor beam, binding beam, breastsummer beam, camber beam, ceiling beam, collar beam, cross beam, dragon beam, floor beam, ground beam, hammer beam, I-beam, laced beam, perimeter beam, summerbeam, tie beam, top beam, wind beam

2. A group of nearly parallel rays of light.

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class A, B, C, D, E, F

A classification applied to fire doors, fire windows, roof coverings, interior finishes, places of assembly, etc., to indicate gradations of fire safety. See fire-endurance, fire-door rating.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

B

(1)

byte.

B

(language)

A systems language written by Ken Thompson in 1970 mostly for his own use under Unix on the PDP-11. B was later improved by Kerninghan(?) and Ritchie to produce C. B was used as the systems language on Honeywell's GCOS-3.

B was, according to Ken, greatly influenced by BCPL, but the name B had nothing to do with BCPL. B was in fact a revision of an earlier language, bon, named after Ken Thompson's wife, Bonnie.

["The Programming Language B", S.C. Johnson & B.W. Kernighan, CS TR 8, Bell Labs (Jan 1973)].

b

(3)

bit or maybe byte (B).

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

B

(1) A programming language derived from BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language). Developed in the late 1960s by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, B was the precursor to C and C++, two major programming languages. See C and BCPL.

(2) (Byte) The letter "B" is used for "byte" when the number of bytes is less than one thousand; for example, "each record is 800B long (800 bytes long)." See space/time.

B  =  byte
    KB =  kilobyte   (thousand bytes)
    MB =  megabyte   (million bytes)
    GB =  gigabyte   (billion bytes)
    TB =  terabyte   (trillion bytes)
    PB =  quadrabyte (quadrillion bytes)
    EB =  exabyte    (quintillion bytes)
    ZB =  zettabyte  (sextillion bytes)

Copyright © 1981-2025 by The Computer Language Company Inc. All Rights reserved. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.