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
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