Frequency German physicist Heinrich Hertz. One hertz means that an event repeats once per second. If a TV has a refresh rate of 1 hertz the TV's screen will change (or refresh) its picture once a second. A previous name for this unit was cycles per second (cps). The SI unit for period is the second. A traditional unit of measure used with rotating mechanical devices is revolutions per minute, abbreviated r/min or rpm. 60 rpm equals one hertz. As a matter of convenience, longer and slower waves, such as ocean surface waves, tend to be described by wave period rather
Collision frequency Collision frequency Collision frequency is defined in chemical kinetics and collision theory, in the background of "theoretical kinetics". If a system contains "n" type-a molecules per unit volume and "n" type-b molecules in that same unit volume, then the number of a-b collisions per unit time in that volume will be proportional to the product "nn". or, in terms of molar volumes ("[x]=n /N" where N is the Avogadro constant) By kinetic theory it can be shown that: where The collision frequency ("Z") is usually expressed in units of "moles of collisions" per unit time per unit volume: or equivalently: