thermionic emission (thurÂ´mÄ«onik imishÂ´Én), n the release of electrons when a material is heated (e.g., electron emission when the tungsten cathode filament of a radiographic tube is heated to incandescence by means of its low-voltage heating circuit).
The number of cycles per second (Hertz) (abbreviated as, hz) of anything that oscillates is called the frequency. The electricity of an AC wall outlet is said to have a frequency of 60 Hertz as it cycles negative then positive 60 times each second. Sound is an oscillating wave, but it has a broad range of frequencies. A low frequency sound (say, 50 hz) might sound like a low rumble, while a high frequency sound (say 12,000 hz), might sound more like a sizzle. A person with normal hearing can hear all the way up to about 20,000 hz.
If the signal vibrates very slowly, it has a low frequency. If the signal vibrates very quickly, it has a high frequency. Frequency is measured in Hertz, which is the count of how quickly a signal changes every second. As an example, FM radio signals vibrate around 100 million times every second! Since communications signals are often very high in frequency, we abbreviate the measurements for the frequencies - millions of vibrations a second is Megahertz (MHz), and billions of vibrations a second is Gigahertz (GHz).