frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency. The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency. For example, if a newborn baby's heart beats at a frequency of 120 times a minute, its period (the interval between beats) is half a second.
For cyclical processes, such as rotation, oscillations, or waves, frequency is defined as a number of cycles per unit time. In physics and engineering disciplines, such as optics, acoustics, and radio, frequency is usually denoted by a Latin letter f or by a Greek letter ν (nu).
In SI units, the unit of frequency is the hertz (Hz), named after the German physicist Heinrich Hertz: 1 Hz means that an event repeats once per second. A previous name for this unit was cycles per second.
A traditional unit of measure used with rotating mechanical devices is revolutions per minute, abbreviated RPM. 60 RPM equals one hertz.[1]
The period, usually denoted by T, is the length of time taken by one cycle, and is the reciprocal of the frequency f:
The SI unit for period is the second.
