Negative frequency Negative frequency The concept of negative and positive frequency can be as simple as a wheel rotating one way or the other way: a "signed value" of frequency can indicate both the rate and direction of rotation. The rate is expressed in units such as revolutions (a.k.a. "cycles") per second (hertz) or radian/second (where 1 cycle corresponds to 2"π" radians). Let "ω" be a nonnegative parameter with units of radians/sec. Then the angular function (angle vs. time) , has slope −"ω", which is called a negative frequency. But when the function is used as the argument of a cosine operator,
Frequency Frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also referred to as temporal "frequency", which emphasizes the contrast to spatial frequency and angular frequency. The period is the duration of time of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency. For example: if a newborn baby's heart beats at a frequency of 120 times a minute, its period—the time interval between beats—is half a second (60 seconds divided by 120 beats). Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the