Beam may refer to:
- Beam (structure), a construction element
- Beam (nautical), the most extreme width (or breadth) of a nautical vessel, or a point alongside the ship at the midpoint of its length
- A narrow, propagating stream of particles or energy:
- Bessel beam
- Gaussian beam
- Light beam
- Laser beam
- Particle beam
- Charged particle beam
- Cathode ray, or "electron beam"
- Molecular beam
- Charged particle beam
- Beam Inc., a spirits company
- Beam (music), a connection line in musical notation
- Balance beam, a piece of gymnastics equipment
- BEAM robotics, an automatically moving machine based on analog electronics
- Beam search, a search algorithm
- Beam Software, a computer game developer
- BEAM.TV, a global distribution network
- BEAM Channel 31, a free television network in the Philippines
- Blaster Beam, a musical instrument
- BEAM, an aggressive chemotherapy regimen involving the use of BCNU (Carmustine), Etoposide, Ara-C (Cytarabine), and Melphalan
- Brain electrical activity mapping, or neuroimaging
- BEAM, the virtual machine at the core of the Erlang programming language
- Beam, operate the Transporter in the fictional Star Trek series
Famous quotes containing the word beam:
“How can one beam alone support a house?”
—Chinese proverb.
“It was at that moment, just after Krug had fallen through the bottom of a confused dream and sat up on the straw with a gasp—and just before his reality, his remembered hideous misfortune could pounce upon him—it was then that I felt a pang of pity for Adam and slid towards him along an inclined beam of pale light—causing instantaneous madness, but at least saving him from the senseless agony of his logical fate.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the ship that will cross the sea,
We plant the mast to carry the sails,
We plant the planks to withstand the gales—
The keel, the keelson, and beam and knee—
We plant the ship when we plant the tree.”
—Henry Abbey (1842–1911)