Герц: единица измерения частоты в СИ

SI unit for frequency
the unit measure

The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one hertz is the reciprocal of one second. and then adds: "It follows that the hyperfine splitting in the ground state of the caesium 133 atom is exactly 9192631770, ." The dimension of the unit hertz is 1/time (T−1). Expressed in base SI units, the unit is the reciprocal second (1/s). In English, "hertz" is also used as the plural form. As an SI unit, Hz can be prefixed; commonly used multiples are kHz (kilohertz, e=3), MHz (megahertz, e=6), GHz (gigahertz, e=9) and THz (terahertz, e=12). One hertz simply means "one event per second" (where the event being counted may be a complete cycle); 100 means "one hundred events per second", and so on. The unit may be applied to any periodic event—for example, a clock might be said to tick at 1, or a human heart might be said to beat at 1.2. The occurrence rate of aperiodic or stochastic events is expressed in reciprocal second or inverse second (1/s or s−1) in general or, in the specific case of radioactivity, in becquerels. Whereas 1 is one cycle (or periodic event) per second, 1 is one radionuclide event per second on average. Even though frequency, angular velocity, angular frequency and radioactivity all have the dimension T−1, of these only frequency is expressed using the unit hertz. Thus a disc rotating at 60 revolutions per minute (rpm) is said to have an angular velocity of 2 rad/s and a frequency of rotation of 1. The correspondence between a frequency f with the unit hertz and an angular velocity ω with the unit radians per second is
and

The hertz is named after the German physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894), who made important scientific contributions to the study of electromagnetism. The name was established by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 1935. It was adopted by the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) (Conférence générale des poids et mesures) in 1960, replacing the previous name for the unit, "cycles per second" (cps), along with its related multiples, primarily "kilocycles per second" (kc/s) and "megacycles per second" (Mc/s), and occasionally "kilomegacycles per second" (kMc/s). The term "cycles per second" was largely replaced by "hertz" by the 1970s. In some usage, the "per second" was omitted, so that "megacycles" (Mc) was used as an abbreviation of "megacycles per second" (that is, megahertz (MHz)).

Sound is a traveling longitudinal wave, which is an oscillation of pressure. Humans perceive the frequency of a sound as its pitch. Each musical note corresponds to a particular frequency. An infant's ear is able to perceive frequencies ranging from 20 to 20000; the average adult human can hear sounds between 20 and 16000. The range of ultrasound, infrasound and other physical vibrations such as molecular and atomic vibrations extends from a few femtohertz into the terahertz range and beyond.

Electromagnetic radiation is often described by its frequency—the number of oscillations of the perpendicular electric and magnetic fields per second—expressed in hertz. Radio frequency radiation is usually measured in kilohertz (kHz), megahertz (MHz), or gigahertz (GHz). Light is electromagnetic radiation that is even higher in frequency, and has frequencies in the range of tens (infrared) to thousands (ultraviolet) of terahertz. Electromagnetic radiation with frequencies in the low terahertz range (intermediate between those of the highest normally usable radio frequencies and long wave infrared light) is often called terahertz radiation. Even higher frequencies exist, such as that of gamma rays, which can be measured in exahertz (EHz). (For historical reasons, the frequencies of light and higher frequency electromagnetic radiation are more commonly specified in terms of their wavelengths or photon energies: for a more detailed treatment of this and the above frequency ranges, see Electromagnetic spectrum.)

In computers, most central processing units (CPU) are labeled in terms of their clock rate expressed in megahertz (u=MHz) or gigahertz (u=GHz). This specification refers to the frequency of the CPU's master clock signal. This signal is nominally a square wave, which is an electrical voltage that switches between low and high logic levels at regular intervals. As the hertz has become the primary unit of measurement accepted by the general populace to determine the performance of a CPU, many experts have criticized this approach, which they claim is an easily manipulable benchmark. Some processors use multiple clock cycles to perform a single operation, while others can perform multiple operations in a single cycle. For personal computers, CPU clock speeds have ranged from approximately 1 in the late 1970s (Atari, Commodore, Apple computers) to up to 6 in IBM Power microprocessors. Various computer buses, such as the front side bus connecting the CPU and northbridge, also operate at various frequencies in the megahertz range.