frequency, in physics, the number of waves that pass a fixed point in unit time; also, the number of cycles or vibrations undergone during one unit of time by a body in periodic motion. A body in periodic motion is said to have undergone one cycle or one vibration after passing through a series of events or positions and returning to its original state. See also angular velocity; simple harmonic motion.
If the period, or time interval, required to complete one cycle or vibration is 1/2 second, the frequency is 2 per second; if the period is 1/100 of an hour, the frequency is 100 per hour. In general, the frequency is the reciprocal of the period, or time interval; i.e., frequency = 1/period = 1/(time interval). The frequency with which the Moon revolves around Earth is slightly more than 12 cycles per year. The frequency of the A string of a violin is 440 vibrations or cycles per second.
The symbols most often used for frequency are f and the Greek letters nu (ν) and omega (ω). Nu is used more often when specifying electromagnetic waves, such as light, X-rays, and gamma rays. Omega is usually used to describe the angular frequency—that is, how much an object rotates or revolves in radians per unit time. Usually, frequency is expressed in the hertz unit, named in honour of the 19th-century German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, one hertz being equal to one cycle per second, abbreviated Hz; one kilohertz (kHz) is 1,000 Hz, and one megahertz (MHz) is 1,000,000 Hz. In spectroscopy another unit of frequency, the wavenumber, the number of waves in a unit of distance, is sometimes used.