What is Hertz?

Information about Hertz

This article is about the SI unit of frequency. For the radio pioneer after whom this unit is named, see Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. For the car rental agency, see The Hertz Corporation. For other uses, see Hertz (disambiguation).

"MHZ" redirects here. MHZ may also refer to the IATA airport code for RAF Mildenhall.

"MHz" redirects here. MHz may also refer to MHz Networks.

Symbol/Unit	Frequency
kHz (kilohertz)	10³
MHz (megahertz)	10⁶
GHz (gigahertz)	10⁹
THz (terahertz)	10¹²
Petahertz	10¹⁵
Exahertz	10¹⁸
Zettahertz	10²¹
Yottahertz	10²⁴

The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the SI unit of frequency. Its base unit is cycle/s or s^-1 (also called inverse seconds, reciprocal seconds). In English, hertz is used as both singular and plural. As any SI unit, Hz can be prefixed; commonly used multiples are kHz (kilohertz, 10^{3 Hz), MHz (megahertz, 10⁶ Hz), GHz (gigahertz, 10⁹ Hz) and THz (terahertz, 10¹² Hz).

One hertz simply means one cycle per second (typically that which is being counted is a complete cycle); 100 Hz means one hundred cycles per second, and so on. The unit may be applied to any periodic event—for example, a clock might be said to tick at 1 Hz, or a human heart might be said to beat at 1.2 Hz. The frequencies of aperiodic events, such as radioactive decay, are expressed in becquerels.

To avoid confusion, periodically varying angles are typically not expressed in hertz, but rather in an appropriate angular unit such as radians per second. A disc rotating at 1 revolution per minute (RPM) can thus be said to be rotating at 0.105 rad/s or 0.017 Hz, where the latter reflects the number of complete revolutions per second. The conversion between Hz and rad/s is rad/s = 1 Hz × 2 .
History
The hertz is named after the German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, who made important scientific contributions to electromagnetism. The name was established by the IEC in 1930.^[1] It was adopted by the CGPM (Conférence générale des poids et mesures) in 1960, replacing the previous name for the unit, cycles per second (cps), along with its related multiples, primarily kilocycles per second (kc/s) and megacycles per second (Mc/s). The term cycles per second was largely replaced by hertz by the 1970s.''

The term “gigahertz”, most commonly used in computer processor speed and Radio Frequency (RF) applications, can be pronounced either /ˈgigaˌhɝts/, with a hard /g/ sound or /ˈʒɪgaˌhɝts/ or /ˈdʒɪgaˌhɝts/, with a soft /ʒ/ sound at the beginning of the word. The prefix “giga-” is derived directly from the Greek “γιγας” and hence the preferred pronunciation is /ˈgɪga/. Some electrical engineers use /ˈdʒɪga/, by analogy with “gigantic”.
Applications
Vibration
Sound is a traveling wave which is an oscillation of pressure. Humans perceive frequency of sound waves as pitch. Each musical note corresponds to a particular frequency which can be measured in hertz. An infant's ear is able to perceive frequencies ranging from 16 Hz to 20,000 Hz; the average human can hear sounds between 20 Hz and 15,000 Hz. The range of ultrasound and other physical vibrations such as molecular vibrations extends into the megahertz and well beyond.
Electromagnetic radiation
Electromagnetic radiation is often described by its frequency—the number of oscillations of the perpendicular electric and magnetic fields per second—expressed in hertz.

Radio frequency radiation is usually measured in kilohertz, megahertz, or gigahertz; this is why radio dials are commonly labeled with kHz, MHz, and (rarely) GHz. Light is electromagnetic radiation that is even higher in frequency, and has frequencies in the range of tens (infrared) to thousands (ultraviolet) of terahertz. Electromagnetic radiation with frequencies in the low terahertz range, intermediate between those of the highest normally-usable radio frequencies and long-wave infrared light, is often called terahertz radiation. Even higher frequencies exist, such as that of gamma rays, which can be measured in exahertz. (For historical reasons, the frequencies of light and higher frequency electromagnetic radiation are more commonly specified in terms of their wavelengths or photon energies: for a more detailed treatment of this and the above frequency ranges, see electromagnetic spectrum.)
Computing
In computing, most CPUs are labeled in terms of their clock speed expressed in megahertz or gigahertz (10⁹ hertz). The number of megahertz refers to the frequency of the CPU's master clock signal ("clock speed"). This signal is simply an electrical voltage which changes from low to high and back again at regular intervals. Hertz has become the primary unit of measurement used by the general populace to determine the speed of a CPU, but many experts have criticized this approach, which they claim is an easily manipulable benchmark.^[2] For home-based personal computers, the CPU has ranged from approximately 1 megahertz in the late 1970s (Atari, Commodore, Apple computers) to nearly 4 gigahertz for modern-day Macintosh and PC machines.

Various computer buses, such as memory buses connecting the CPU and system RAM, also transfer data using clock signals operating at different frequencies in the megahertz ranges (for modern products).
Frequencies not expressed in hertz
Even higher frequencies are believed to occur naturally, in the frequencies of the quantum-mechanical wave functions of high-energy (or, equivalently, massive) particles, although these are not directly observable, and must be inferred from their interactions with other phenomena. For practical reasons, these are typically not expressed in hertz, but in terms of the equivalent energy.

This SI unit is named after Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. As for all SI units whose names are derived from the proper name of a person, the first letter of its symbol is uppercase (Hz). But when an SI unit is spelled out, it should always be written in lowercase (hertz), unless it begins a sentence or is the name "degree Celsius". — Based on The International System of Units, section 5.2.
References
1. ^ [1]

2. ^ Good Riddance, Gigahertz

See also
Frequency converter
Wavelength
Orders of magnitude (frequency)
Bandwidth

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz

Born January 22 1857(1857--)
Hamburg, Germany
Died January 1 1894 (aged 38)
Bonn, Germany
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Hertz Corporation

Public (NYSE: HTZ )
Founded 1918
Founder Walter L. Jacobs
Headquarters Park Ridge, New Jersey, USA

Area served Worldwide
Parent Hertz Global Holdings, Inc.
Owner Private Equity Group
Website www.hertz.
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Hertz may refer to: Hertz, the SI unit of frequency (cycles per second)
2600 hertz, the frequency that AT&T formerly put as a steady signal on any long-distance telephone line that was not currently in use

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RAF Mildenhall (IATA: MHZ, ICAO: EGUN) is a Royal Air Force station located at Mildenhall in Suffolk, England. It is currently the home of the United States Air Force 100th Air Refueling Wing.
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MHz Networks is a Northern Virginia based public broadcasting group operated by Commonwealth Public Broadcasting Corporation. The two stations that comprise MHz Networks are WNVC, analog channel 56 (MHz1
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International System of Units (abbreviated SI from the French Le Système international d'unités) is the modern form of the metric system.
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FreQuency is a music video game developed by Harmonix and published by SCEI. It was released in November 2001. A sequel, titled Amplitude was released in 2003.
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An SI prefix (also known as a metric prefix) is a name or associated symbol that precedes a unit of measure (or its symbol) to form a decimal multiple or submultiple.
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second (SI symbol: s), sometimes abbreviated sec., is the name of a unit of time, and is the International System of Units (SI) base unit of time.

SI prefixes are frequently combined with the word second to denote subdivisions of the second, e.g.
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Heart rate is a term used to describe the frequency of the cardiac cycle. It is considered one of the four vital signs. Usually it is calculated as the number of contractions (heart beats) of the heart in one minute and expressed as "beats per minute" (bpm).
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Radioactive decay is the process in which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by emitting radiation in the form of particles or electromagnetic waves. This decay, or loss of energy, results in an atom of one type, called the parent nuclide
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The becquerel (symbol Bq) is the SI derived unit of radioactivity, defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. It is therefore equivalent to s^-1.
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radian, in mathematics, is a unit of plane angle, equal to 180/π degrees, or about 57.2958 degrees. It is represented by the symbol "rad" or, more rarely, by the superscript c (for "circular measure"). For example, an angle of 1.2 radians would be written as "1.
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Anthem
"Das Lied der Deutschen" (third stanza)
also called "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit"
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Heinrich Rudolf Hertz

Born January 22 1857(1857--)
Hamburg, Germany
Died January 1 1894 (aged 38)
Bonn, Germany
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Electromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field: a field which exerts a force on particles that possess the property of electric charge, and is in turn affected by the presence and motion of those particles.
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The International Electrotechnical Commission^[1] (IEC) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1900s 1910s 1920s - 1930s - 1940s 1950s 1960s
1927 1928 1929 - 1930 - 1931 1932 1933

Year 1930 (MCMXXX
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Greek
Writing system: Greek alphabet
Official status
Official language of: Greece
Cyprus
European Union
recognised as minority language in parts of:
European Union
Italy
Turkey
Regulated by:
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Sound is a disturbance of mechanical energy that propagates through matter as a wave (through fluids as a compression wave, and through solids as both compression and shear waves).
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Pressure (symbol: p) is the force per unit area applied on a surface in a direction perpendicular to that surface.

Gauge pressure is the pressure relative to the local atmospheric or ambient pressure.
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Pitch is the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound. While the actual fundamental frequency can be precisely determined through physical measurement, it may differ from the perceived pitch because of overtones, or partials, in the sound.
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note has two primary meanings: 1) a sign used in music to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound; and 2) a pitched sound itself. Notes are the "atoms" of much Western music: discretizations of musical phenomena that facilitate performance, comprehension, and analysis
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Ultrasound is a cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing, this limit being approximately 20 kilohertz (20,000 hertz).

Ability to hear ultrasound

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A molecular vibration occurs when atoms in a molecule are in periodic motion while the molecule as a whole has constant translational and rotational motion. The frequency of the periodic motion is known as a vibration frequency.
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Electromagnetic (EM) radiation is a self-propagating wave in space with electric and magnetic components. These components oscillate at right angles to each other and to the direction of propagation, and are in phase with each other.
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''For other uses, see oscillator (disambiguation)
Oscillation is the variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states.
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second (SI symbol: s), sometimes abbreviated sec., is the name of a unit of time, and is the International System of Units (SI) base unit of time.

SI prefixes are frequently combined with the word second to denote subdivisions of the second, e.g.
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Radio frequency, or RF, is a frequency or rate of oscillation within the range of about 3 Hz and 300 GHz. This range corresponds to frequency of alternating current electrical signals used to produce and detect radio waves.
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Light is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength that is visible to the eye (visible light). In a scientific context, the word "light" is sometimes used to refer to the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
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