Talk:Hertz

Megahertz and Kilohertz pages
Can the pages Megahertz, Kilohertz etc be more than stubs?

Should we redirect them here, where we can put a list of SI multiples? -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tarquin (talk • contribs) 12:26, 28 December 2002 (UTC)


 * No. I think we should also have picohertz, yottahertz etc. Just kidding. It might be useful think about consolidating all these SI pages so that the article is at the preferred SI standard with all the other prefixed stuff redirecting to it. Hm. That would mean that gram would redirect to kilogram, kilometre to metre, square kilometre to square metre etc. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mav (talk • contribs) 12:44, 28 December 2002 (UTC)


 * One picohertz is approximately equivalent to once per 31710 years.   &mdash; J I P | Talk 15:11, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
 * For some strange reason the above comment had been deleted over fifteen years ago, with no real explanation. J I P  &#124; Talk 20:20, 12 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Megahertz should be left as-is, whereas the rest (e.g. Kilohertz) should simply be merged into Hertz. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.92.168.179 (talk) 17:45, 4 March 2004 (UTC)


 * maybe there should be a page like Orders of magnitude (power). Yonir 00:46, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Capitals and lower case
Anybody know why in "kHz", the "k" is lower case, whereas in "MHz" the "M" is upper?

DanielVonEhren 21:46, 25 January 2005 (UTC)


 * The SI system of numbers has k (or kilo) as the prefix for 1000, m (or micro)as the prefix for a millionth and M (or Mega) as the prefix for a 1,000,000. So that MHz is 1,000,000 Hz and mHz is 1/1,000,000Hz. See Kilo.  Tiles 06:31, 27 January 2005 (UTC)


 * Common usage has capital K for kilo in all sorts of scientific uses, to conform to a 'nonstandard' of capitals=greater, lowercase=lesser. I always thought the unit name spelled out was capitalised 'Hertz', but I was wrong. – Rich 22:16, 29 September 2005 (UTC)


 * This made me scream, even moreso that nobody has pointed out the error. m is milli, not micro and is for a thousandth. micro is denoted by a mu. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Capubadger (talk • contribs) 11:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

Excellent! The Kilo page has all sorts of things I'd looked at all my life, but never really saw. Thanks Wellington (great place, by the way).

DanielVonEhren 05:35, 28 January 2005 (UTC)

To my knowledge, capital K is used in the binary system to indicate 1024. So kilobyte, Kb for short, is 1024 bytes, not 1000. Sven De Coster — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.136.222.224 (talk) 13:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * as far as I know, the only standard (although not common) prefix for 1024 is Ki . K is more commonm but not standard. see Binary_prefix for more. -- CyrilB 13:53, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Hertz is capitalized in abbreviations such as kHz and MHz, as it is derived from a last name, but according to NIST standards is not capitalized when used as a primary unit, such as a unit of frequency. Only when the proper name is used as a modifier of the primary unit, such as degrees Celsius, is the name capitalized. Some corresponding corrections have been made to the page. JM Dahl (talk) 14:21, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 17:51, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Hertz. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20091001192328/http://www.bipm.org/en/si/derived_units/2-2-2.html to http://www.bipm.org/en/si/derived_units/2-2-2.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120426090422/http://www.mmk.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de/persons/ter/top/dominant.html to http://www.mmk.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de/persons/ter/top/dominant.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 19:05, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Amazingly well written intro to this article.
Should be a featured article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhodechill (talk • contribs) 04:14, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Hertz. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131223133059/http://archive.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/projects/inms/trapped-ion.html to http://archive.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/projects/inms/trapped-ion.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130627155632/http://archive.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/projects/inms/optical-comb.html to http://archive.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/projects/inms/optical-comb.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 05:22, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
 * FrequencyAnimation.gif

Blinking lights Image shows wrong frequency
The bottom light should blink with 2 Hz, but one full on-off cycle takes 1 second, so it is actually 1 Hz. The definition of Hertz is for full cycles, not half cycles, so while it is true that the light is on for 0.5 seconds, that doesn't make the frequency 2 Hz. 130.75.213.44 (talk) 10:53, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I have removed the image for now. Danstronger (talk) 23:00, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * This week the gif creator again added a gif that has wrong speeds. So I replaced it with the old image that was used until July 2020. It is used on numerous pages. 63.226.236.153 (talk) 09:19, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Cycle is not a unit
is correct. The authoritative source here is the SI Brochure, which defines the hertz (Hz) as 1 s-1. The cycle is not a unit. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 15:58, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * "one per second" is a very awkward phrase that is not implied by "1 s-1" and that makes the reader ask "one what?" "Cycle" is appropriate because Hertz is a unit of frequency and cycle is a generic term for whatever is repeating that has a frequency. "Cycle per second" is also the standard dictionary definition. "1 s-1" is not a definition but an SI equivalent, as shown in the infobox. Danstronger (talk) 17:12, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Four points:
 * It would be correct to say that the numerical value of frequency, when expressed in hertz, is equal to the number of cycles per second, but that statement does not make the cycle a unit. Standardization bodies like BIPM and NIST do not mention the "cycle" and instead state that 1 Hz is equal 1 s^-1. In a sloppy kind of way it's OK to say they are the same, but sloppiness is not what I seek in an encyclopaedia. We should be precise.
 * It hasn’t always been that way. There was a time when “cycle per second” (cps) was considered a unit, complete with kilocycle per second (kcps), megacycle per second (Mcps) and so on. But such units are obsolete and the article should make that clear.
 * "One per second" is precisely what is meant by 1 s-1 (in the same way that "one metre" is meant by 1 m). What else would it mean?
 * It’s clear to me that Boppennoppy is trying to improve the article, making changes that are substantiated by reference to international standards. I understand your point of view as well (though I do not agree with it), but just because you are in a majority does not make you right. I suggest we seek a form of words that acknowledges both the precise definition (citing BIPM and NIST), and the sloppy one (citing whichever sources you consider appropriate).
 * Dondervogel 2 (talk) 17:54, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I know it's not exactly what you wanted but I added a sentence about hertz being an SI derived unit (which I agree is important) to the lead. I think it's important to distinguish between a definition, which is explanatory English, and an "expression in terms of SI base units" which is the column heading in the NIST reference.  Both have their virtues, but "cycle" is part of the definition, even if it's "not a unit", and I think it's correct for the article to start with a definition. Danstronger (talk) 18:52, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:39, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * International System of Units Logo.png