Beckners inequality is a series of inequalities indexed by a parameter between 1 and 2 whichinterpolate between the Poincare inequality and the logarithmic Sobolev inequality,originally proved forthe standard Gaussian measure.I will discuss this inequality in various settings from the very simple two point distribution to the path space over a compact Riemannian manifold and show the rich contentof this inequality in relation to probability theory and,in particular,stochastic analysis.