Cycle per second Cycle per second The cycle per second was a once-common English name for the unit of frequency now known as the hertz (Hz). The plural form was typically used, often written cycles per second, cycles/second, c.p.s., c/s, ~, or, ambiguously, just cycles. The term comes from the fact that sound waves have a frequency measurable in their number of oscillations, or "cycles", per second. With the organization of the International System of Units in 1960, the cycle per second was officially replaced by the hertz, or reciprocal second, "s" or "1/s". Symbolically, "cycle per second" units are "cycle/second", while hertz
Unit of time Unit of time A unit of time or time unit is any particular time interval, used as a standard way of measuring or expressing duration. The base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), and by extension most of the Western world, is the second, defined as about 9 billion oscillations of the caesium atom. The exact modern definition, from the National Institute of Standards and Technology is: Historically units of time were defined by the movements of astronomical objects. These units do not have a consistent relationship with each other and require intercalation. For example, the