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,
Second second per second for acceleration, and per second for frequency. Although the historical definition of the unit was based on this division of the Earth's rotation cycle, the formal definition in the International System of Units (SI) is a much steadier timekeeper: 1 second is defined to be exactly "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom" (at a temperature of 0 K). Because the Earth's rotation varies and is also slowing ever so slightly, a leap second is periodically added to clock